Brigade invests Rs 150 cr in new Orion Mall

Real estate major Brigade Group has invested Rs 150 crore in its second Orion Mall located on Banaswadi Main Road, near ITC Factory, a top executive said on Saturday.

Brigade Group Chairman and Managing Director M R Jaishankar said, “The launch of our second mall — Orion East in Bengaluru (2.65 lakh sq.ft) signifies our intent to successfully build a strategic shopping mall portfolio, and is in line with our vision to build market leadership in all our asset classes of residential, office space and hospitality segments in the markets we operate in.”

“Through our second mall, we have continued to extend our relationships with retail partners, and hope to see optimised results as we have seen in our first mall — Orion Mall at Brigade Gateway (8 lakh sq.ft),” Jaishankar added. “We have invested Rs 150 crore over a period of four years,” he said.

“With a basket of more than 350 brands, Orion East Mall boasts of a fine mix of international and Indian brands that serve the aspirational needs of its consumers. We are expecting 5 lakh footfalls per month” says Brigade Group CEO Retail and Commercial Vishal Mirchandani. He claimed, “We are expecting the retail sales turnover of Rs 1,100-1,200 crore in the next two-three years from both the malls.”

‘A mall can generate 1,000 direct jobs’

At a time when eCommerce players are making smart moves to dominate the Indian retail space, Shoppers Stop said that offline stores operated by malls can create more employment opportunities.

Talking to Deccan Herald on the sidelines of its store inauguration in Orion Mall, located on Banaswadi Main Road, Shoppers Stop Customer Care Associate and Managing Director Govind Shrikhande said, “Every mall generates over 1,000 jobs directly. In Orion Mall, close to 800 people will work. So, malls are actually helping lower strata (aam aadmi) to get a job. Even school passouts can find a job in the mall.”

“Though software companies generate more employment opportunities, they employ only graduates, but malls employ anyone. Right from fashion designers to MBAs work here, and that malls can generate jobs in neighbourhood,” he said.

“This is our ninth store in Bengaluru. On an average, each store generates minimum 125 jobs. For Orion Mall, we have hired 105 staff,” Shrikhande added.

The country’s largest department store chain Shoppers Stop has generated over 8,000 jobs in its 77 stores. All stores are company-owned-company-operated (CoCo) models.

On revenues, Shrikhande said, on an average we invest about Rs 8 crore per store. Our target is that each store should give us five years RoC (retrun on capital) of 20%. From this store, we are expecting to generate anywhere around Rs 35 crore in one or two years.

On turnover, Shrikhande said, we should close this year with Rs 4,200 crore and we will grow by 13-14%.

When asked about the recent hike in excise duty on readymade garments with retail price of Rs 1,000, Shrikhande said, “The consumer demand which is already muted could get impacted further.”

He added that the additional excise duty and increase in service tax to 15% is likely to impact consumer spending in the respective categories.