Sequoia Capital India is picking up an undisclosed stake in Nahar Retail, the retail arm of Nahar Industrial Enterprises which owns Cotton County branded apparel retail chain, for Rs 120 crore. The transaction would be in two stages wherein Sequoia Capital Growth Investment Holding I would be investing Rs 80 crore and Rs 40 crore by subscribing to fresh shares at Rs 223.64/share, according to latest stock market disclosures.
Nahar Industrial Enterprises, an integrated textile company which is the promoter of the retail firm has also additionally subscribed to 14.53 lakh shares at the same price in Nahar Retail Limited aggregating to Rs 32.5 crore.
Earlier, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Sequoia Capital were in the race to pick up 15-20 per cent in the wholly-owned arm of listed firm Nahar Industrial Enterprises for Rs 120 crore. Nahar Retail has more than 400 stores in 300 cities, through the franchisee model. It had plans to hit the 500 store mark by this fiscal-end at an investment of Rs 30 crore in the current quarter.
Nahar Retail clocked a revenue of about Rs 100 crore in FY’07 is targeting a figure of Rs 250 crore this financial year. Nahar Retail has plans of going public in 2009.
This is the second investment of Seqouia in retail space. It has a stake in Amalagamated Bean Coffee Trading, the owners of Cafe Coffee Day, a coffe chain.