Franchise News India:Vandana Luthra has assembled a Rs 1,000 crore weight reduction and magnificence business, and is currently prepared to take her eponymous organization, VLCC, open
Vandana Luthra knows how to make an entrance. Clad in an ivory-toned dress, the agent strolls into a modest gathering room emulated by an escort of staff bearing trays laden with nourishment. “Consume. It’s all solid,” she urges visitors, indicating plates heaped high with greens and falafel. She would know. All things considered, the 55-year-old Padma Shri awardee is the eponymous originator of VLCC (Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves), one of India’s best-known excellence and weight reduction brands.
At the point when Forbes India reached her, she was introducing the dispatch of a core at New Friends Colony, south Delhi. This outlet is particularly near her heart: It denote a quarter of a century of VLCC’s vicinity in the health business. “We finished 25 years on July 12,” says Luthra, indicating a VLCC marker that she has stuck onto her dress. “I have developed from a girl to a grandma, and I’ve seen my business develop with me.”
The New Friends Colony focus is the 34th Delhi VLCC outlet and one of 300 in India and abroad. What began as a standalone thinning facility in Safdarjung in 1989 has developed into a Rs 1,000-crore organization with a vicinity in 16 nations, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, the UAE, Oman and Qatar. Luthra has provided for herself three to five years to achieve an aspiring focus of Rs 4,000 crore in incomes. She’s in a hustle to scale up in light of the fact that VLCC is getting prepared for a first sale of stock (IPO). “I can’t say when it will happen, however it will be soon,” she says.
Before opening up to the world, nonetheless, VLCC needs to fortify its item portfolio and include more focuses. The organization portrays itself as a thinning, wellness and excellence brand, however through the years, it has ended up substantially more: Business is separated between items (individual preparing, wellbeing sustenances and weight reduction supplements) and administrations (health focuses and preparing organizations). Separated from spas and facials, and obviously, health improvement plans, VLCC’s centers offer dermatological answers for skin inflammation, microdermabrasion, Botox infusions, and other such medicines.
VLCC has been on an acquisition spree over the past two years. In 2013—in a deal that’s believed to be a little less than Rs 200 crore—it acquired Singapore-based Global Vantage Innovative Group, which owns and operates three firms that manufacture and retail cosmetic products and solutions. Prior to that, it acquired Wyann International—which owned and operated a chain of 22 slimming and beauty outlets across Malaysia—for Rs 100 crore.
“Wyann is the third largest player in Malaysia, and we had 23 outlets overnight. Since then, we have scaled up to 26,” says Sandeep Ahuja, managing director and group CEO, VLCC.
Through these acquisitions, Luthra wants to expand VLCC’s portfolio and use the company’s distribution network to sell its products overseas. For this fiscal, the company has set aside Rs 200 crore for the expansion spree. The plan is to add 50-60 new VLCC clinics (national and international) within 18 months. Luthra also wants to increase the number of VLCC institutes from 65 to 85 during this period. (The institutes train people for careers in the beauty and wellness industry.)
“We are open to any mid-sized company that is favourable to us in the product or services space,” says Luthra, who is in talks with two international businesses—a dermatology products company and an Italian hair care brands.