The C.P. Krishnan Nair-led Leela group has chalked out a major restructuring plan for the group’s businesses, which involve hospitality, textiles manufacturing and export and infrastructure development.
The change involves, among other things, hiving off the group’s Rs 400-crore textiles operations into a separate entity, creating an investment company that will also take over its infrastructure development business.
The Leela group’s flagship hospitality arm, Hotel Leela Venture, is already in the midst of an aggressive expansion spree.
The move to demerge the garment business into a separate company, christened Design Creations Mumbai, is a prelude to the Leela group’s long-term plan of making it a public limited company.
At present, the garment export and infrastructure development businesses come under the ambit of Leela Scottish Lace Pvt Ltd, which also holds a stake in Hotel Leelaventure Ltd.
According to sources close to the restructuring plan, the Leela group is engaged in the process of restructuring Leela Scottish Lace Pvt Ltd. Formed in 1964, Leela Scottish now stands among the top three garment
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| exporters in the country and is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of around 20 per cent.
The group has garment manufacturing facilities in Bangalore, Cochin, Chennai and Trivandrum. In a fiercely competitive post-quota regime, the group’s readymade garment business has been successful in exporting to all the leading brands in the US. Company officials said it has some of the “best accounts” that include Ann Taylor.
Venu Krishnan, executive director of Leela Scottish Lace, said, “The group employs close to 20,000 people in the textiles business and headcount could jump to 30,000 over the next five years.”
Leela Scottish Lace is also into infrastructure development, building ‘spaces’, particularly for the infotech industry. This apart, it also holds close to 50 per cent stake in Hotel Leela Venture.
Sources said that the restructuring would see all garment operations in the group being merged into Design Creations, which would include the operations of Leela Scottish Lace and other units owned by the family. While the objective is to have a focussed and a large presence in the textiles business, sources added that Design Creations might be renamed as Leela Scottish Lace later on. 
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