Biyani to merge own brand Home Town with FabFurnish to turn profitable in 3 months

Future Group’s plans to merge its furniture brand Home Town with its recently acquired online furniture store FabFurnish into an independent listed entity. Kishore Biyani says that this move will help ‘create value,

“While it still not a board decision, we could still look at listing it as a separate entity because otherwise you can’t create value. With FabFurnish, we will be creating the largest home furnishing and decor business in the country.”

This story is faintly reminiscent of BabyOye and Mahindra. The India-born MNC bought online baby needs store BabyOye in early 2015. Shortly after that, Mahindra renamed all its Mom&Me (the company’s baby care brand) stores BabyOye. While it may not be a ditto scenario with Future Group, there appear to be similar shades.

Furniture – the new kid on the block

Sale of furniture is touted to be the latest money spinner, and everyone wants to be seen selling furniture. Recently, Flipkart announced tie-ups with Godrej and Get International to boost its furniture sales.

Competition in the form of foreign brands is also going to be a cause for worry. Swedish furniture brand Ikea is going to start operations in Hyderabad early next year, and plans to have 25 extra large stores in the country by 2025, apparently ‘four football fields’ long.

However, Biyani seems to be unfazed. He says,

“Our strategy is to not increase the cost and to expand the business. We are not going to be top-line driven. That’s how we are going to make FabFurnish profitable in another three months.”