Trent could grow 10-times its current size, Noel Tata says

livemint.com:

Mint in an interview. Rising investor interest has led to the Tata Group's retail company's shares appreciating 250% in the past one year to Wednesday's closing price of ₹6,776.70 apiece on the BSE. Trent's market capitalization of more than ₹2.40 trillion makes it the fourth-most valuable Tata company, behind Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Tata Motors and Titan Ltd.

Tata Steel, the oldest group company, is valued at about ₹1.9 trillion, and is in the fifth place. "All our group companies are doing exceptionally well, and each one is constantly raising the bar," said Noel, who also sits on the board of Titan, Tata Steel, Voltas and Tata Investment Corporation. Investor enthusiasm mirrors Trent's financial performance: Revenue jumped 54.2% to ₹12,669 crore in the year ended March 2024, and profit swelled 82% to ₹1,029 crore.

At the heart of this impressive growth is Trent's success with its smaller-format apparel store, Zudio. Many organized retail giants, including Reliance Retail and Aditya Birla Fashion Retail, are still searching for their homegrown apparel brands, which is driving them to make expensive acquisitions and alliances with foreign brands and well-known designers. Trent has stayed away from acquisitions and Tata denied the market chatter of acquiring Indian ethnic wear Fab India.

Zudio was launched in 2016 as a large-format store, but the model had bombed by 2020, before its revival began. Learning from the mistakes made during its initial phase helped Zudio get the size of the format and offerings right. It is now on an overdrive, with 559 stores across 169 cities at the end of June 2024.