One of the best. Review on Raymond

Raymond Group is an Indian branded fabric and fashion retailer, incorporated in 1925. It produces suiting fabric, with a capacity of producing 31 million meters of wool and wool-blended fabrics. Gautam Singhania is the chairman and managing director of the Raymond group.[3]

The group owns apparel brands like Raymond, Raymond Premium Apparel, Park Avenue, Park Avenue Woman[4] ColorPlus[5] & Parx. All the brands are retailed through'The Raymond Shop'(TRS), with a network of over 700 retail shops spread across India and overseas, in over 200 cities.

In addition, the group also has business interests in readymade garments, designer wear, cosmetics & toiletries, engineering files and tools, prophylactics and air charter operations.

It was incorporated as the Raymond Woollen mill during the year 1925 near Thane Creek. Lala Kailashpat Singhania took over The Raymond Woollen Mill in the year 1944. In 1958, the first exclusive Raymond Retail showroom, King's Corner, was opened at Ballard Estate in Mumbai.[10] In 1968, Raymond had set up a readymade garments plant at Thane. A new manufacturing facility was set up at Jalgaon(Maharashtra) during the year 1979 to meet the increasing demand for worsted woollen fabrics.

In November 2015 Raymond announced that Sanjay Bahl would be taking over M Shivkumar as CFO.

Raymond Ltd. is one of India's, and the world's, leading producers of worsted fabrics, claiming some 60 percent of the Indian worsted suiting market. The company's Textiles division, which accounts for 50 percent of group turnover, produces more than 25 million meters of wool and wool-blended fabrics each year, placing the company at number three worldwide. Raymond is a major supplier to the global textile industry, providing fabrics and completed garments to more than 50 countries, including the North American, European, Middle East, and Japanese markets. The company is also a major fabric innovator, and is one of just two or three manufacturers in the world capable of producing the Super 210s and Super 220s grades of pure wool, made from 13.2 micron and 12.69 micron wool, respectively. In the mid-2000s, Raymond also has been investing heavily in the production of denim; in 2005, the company raised its installed capacity to more than 30 million meters of ring denim, and boosted capacity by another ten million meters in early 2006. Denim sales accounted for 15 percent of group sales in 2005.

Raymond has long been an integrated textiles group, including production of its own branded clothing-under the Raymond, Parx, and Manzoni names-as well as retail distribution through an India-wide network of more than 320 stores, including nearly 20 Be designer clothing stores. The company also acquired ColorPlus in 2004, giving it control of one of India's leading casualwear brands. Garment sales contributed more than 20 percent of the company's sales in 2005. Other Raymond operations include a 50 percent stake in the J.K. Ansell joint venture, which produces condoms under the Kama Sutra brand. Raymond also controls J.K. Files & Tools, the world's leading producer of files and rasps. Raymond itself is the flagship of the Singhania Group, a chemicals producer. The company is led by CEO Gautam Hari Singhania, great-grandson of the company's founder. Raymond is listed on several stock exchanges in India, including the Mumbai(Bombay) Stock Exchange.

Branching into Textiles in the 1920s

Raymond stemmed from the founding of the Wadia Woollen Mill along the Thane creek in Maharashtra, near Bombay, in the early part of the 20th century. The mill was later acquired by a wealthy industrialist family, the Sassoons, who were based in Bombay. The Sassoons reincorporated the company as Raymond Woollen Mill in 1925. Raymond's production was at the time limited to coarse woolen blankets and low-priced wool fabrics.

The Singhania family entered Raymond's picture in the 1940s. Led by Juggilal Singhania and his son Kamlapat Singhania, the Singhanias had been building their own industrial empire, the J.K. Group of companies, in the Kanpur region. Although involved in a number of activities, chemicals, particularly the production of textile dyes, became something of a family focus. In the 1940s, the family, then led by Kailashpat Singhania, grandson of the company's founder, began looking for further expansion possibilities, particularly in the Bombay area. The company's interest turned to the textile sector, a natural extension of its other operations. In 1944, the Singhanias purchased the Raymond Woollen Mill, keeping its name, and building it into one of the most well-known names in the Indian textile and clothing industry.

Kailashpat Singhania became determined to raise the mill's production beyond its cheap woolen blankets, and began investing in technology improvements through the 1950s. While the company continued to produce blankets, it introduced new wool grades and colors. At the same time, Raymond launched its own research and development to create new wool-based fabrics. This effort resulted in the launch of the company's first new wool type, Terool, a wool-blended yarn, in 1958.

That year also marked Raymond's first venture into the retail market. In 1958, the company opened its first showroom, in Mumbai in the J.K. Building. The first store was called King's Corner. The company's publicity efforts in the 1950s and into the 1960s, based on the "Chess King" motif, reflected the group's focus on a higher-end, upwardly mobile market. Later, in the 1960s and into the 1970s, the company adapted its advertising for the times, shifting its advertising focus to an "ordinary man" character. The company later enjoyed advertising success with its "Guide to the well dressed male" in the 1980s, which was followed by the launch of a new campaign, for "The Complete Man" in the 1990s and 2000s. The company later changed its retail store name to Raymond Shops. By the 2000s, there were more than 320 Raymond shops in operation in more than 150 cities.

In the late 1960s, Raymond's research and development effort paid off again, with the launch of a new fabric type, Trovine, in 1968. The material represented a breakthrough in the wool industry, providing a lightweight fabric for cooler garments and enabling wool to be worn year-round, including during the hot Indian summers. In the meantime, Raymond, which remained focused especially on the textile market, moved to boost its operations in the clothing sector, founding subsidiary Raymond Apparel in 1969. From this beginning, the Raymond-branded line became one of the biggest-selling clothing brands in India.

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