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'Arvind Mills', the flagship company of the Lalbhai Group, is one of India's leading composite manufacturer of textiles. Its headquarters is in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It manufactures a range of cotton shirting, denim, knits and bottomweights (Khakis) fabrics.

Contents

History and operations

Businesses

Financial restructuring

See also

External links

History and operations

Arvind Mills was established in 1931. It was founded by Kasturbhai Lalbhai, one of the leading families of Ahmedabad.

★ 1931 - Arvind Mills Ltd. is incorporated with share capital Rs.2525000 ($55000) in Ahmedabad. Products manufactured are dhoties, sarees, mulls, dorias, crepes, shirtings, coatings, printed lawns & voiles cambrics, twills gaberdine etc.

★ 1987 - The Company took up a modernisation programme to triple the production of denim cloth and to produce double yarn fabrics for exports. The new product groups identified were the indigo dyed blue denim, high quality two-ply fabrics for exports, and special products such as butta sarees, full voils and dhoties.

★ 1991 - Arvind reached 100 million meters of denim per year, becoming the fourth largest producer of denim in the world.

★ 1992 - The Company increased the production of denim cloth by 23,000 tonnes per day by modernising the plant located at Khatraj of Ankur Textiles.

★ 1993 - The Company proposed to expand the denim manufacturing capacity by 85,00,00 metres per annum. The Company also proposed to set up a new composite mill for producing annually 120 lakh metres of high quality shirting fabrics to be marketed in the domestic as well as international markets.

★ 1994 - The Company's operations were divided into 3 units viz., Textile Division, telecom division and garments division.

★ 1995 - The performance of textile division was significantly affected due to an unprecedented rise in cost of cotton.

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★ Garment division launched ready to stitch jeans pack under the brand `Ruf & Tuf`.

★ 1997 - The marketing and distribution network of `Newport` brand was strengthened and the relaunched `Flying Machine' and 'Ruggers` brand were strengthened.

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★ The Company reported a fire in the goods godown & folding packing department in Naroda Road unit of the company.

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★ Arvind Mills sets up the anti-piracy cell for the first time in India to curb large scale counterfeiting of their highly successful brands Ruf & Tuf and Newport jeans.

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★ Arvind Mills adopts the franchisee system for the manufacture and distribution of Ruf and Tuf jeans.

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★ Arvind Fashions, doubles its capacity in the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Bangalore to produce Lee jeans.

★ 1998 - Arvind Mills emerges as the world's third largest manufacturer of denim.

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★ Arvind Mills goes live with SAP R/3 ERP package in April 1998 in their new manufacturing units.

★ 1999 - Arvind Mills sets a two-month deadline for hiving off its garments division into a separate company and sale of its real estate in Delhi.

★ 2000 - CRISIL downgrades the debenture issues of Arvind, indicating that the instruments were in default.

★ 2001 - Arvind Mills defaults on a $125 million floating rate note issue and puts forward a debt restructuring proposal that could significantly reduce its debt burden and sharply improve its financial health.

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★ Arvind Mills posts a net loss of Rs 44.59 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2001.

★ 2003 - For the fourth quarter, Arvind Mills witnesses 280% growth in the net profit

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★ Arvind Mills Ltd is assigned a `P1+` rating by CRISIL, which indicates a very strong rating for their commercial paper.

★ 2004 - Company turns itself around showing remarkable improvement in financial performance.

★ 2005 - For the fourth quarter in a row, Arvind Mills has managed to post a profit growth in excess of 80 per cent.

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★ Arvind Mills decides to buy entire stake in Arvind Brands from ICICI Ventures.

Businesses

★ Fabric

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★ Denim

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★ Shirtings

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★ Khakis

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★ Knitwear

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★ Voiles

★ Garment Exports

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★ Shirts

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★ Jeans

★ Arvind Brands (owned)

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★ Flying Machine

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★ Newport

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★ Ruf & Tuf

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★ Excalibur

★ Arvind Brands (licensed)

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★ Arrow

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★ Lee

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★ Wrangler

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★ Tommy Hilfiger

Financial restructuring

In the mid 1990s, Arvind Mills undertook a massive expansion of its denim capacity even though other cotton fabrics were slowly replacing the demand for denim. The expansion plan was funded by loans from both Indian and overseas financial institutions. With the demand for denim slowing, Arvind Mills found it difficult to repay the loans, and thus the interest burden on the loans shot up. In the late 1990s, Arvind Mills ran into financial problems because of its debt burden, and it incurred huge losses in the late 1990s.
The company came up with a massive debt-restructuring plan for the long-term debts being taken up in February 2001. This complex financial restructuring exercise, which involved several domestic and international lenders, is considered to be the benchmark and a case study in India.

See also

★ Kasturbhai Lalbhai

External links

★ Arvind Mills Corporate website

★ Arvind Mills’ Restructuring Plan - case study on ICFAI

★ Interview with Sanjay Lalbhai, Managing Director of Arvind Mills