CavinKare Set for a public float next year

CK Ranganathan owned FMCG price warrior CavinKare, which unleashed the sachet revolution in India, is getting ready for a public float next year. The privately held shampoo and fairness cream maker is expecting a valuation of more than a $1billion.

“We will come out with an initial public offering (IPO) either next year or by 2020 and the valuation should be significantly higher than a $1 billion,” Ranganathan, CMD of CavinKare said. Privately owned companies with more than $1 billion are called unicorns.

CavinKare, has undertaken a massive rejig of operations. It has divided its businesses across seven strategic business units (SBUs) and has named professional CEOs to run each of those. Besides, Ranganathan himself has consolidated his holding in the company. He bought back PE investor ChrysCap’s 13% stake for nearly Rs 525 crore last year. ChrysCap invested Rs 250 crore in May 2013.

“We had a good year last year. Despite the GST related issues which impacted price erosion in topline by 5%, we did well in the personal care space,” he said.

CavinKare’s personal care business rakes in nearly Rs 1,000 crore revenues out of the group’s Rs 1,600 crore turnover.

“We did revenues of Rs 1,600 crore for March 2018, up from Rs 1,300 crore a year before. This year, we are eyeing more than Rs 2,000 crore,” Ranganathan said. “We are very bullish.” He said that within the personal care space, nearly 45% of his products didn’t have any competition. “In some products like Meera shampoo we are priced at Dove or Tresemme rates or even more. We were the first to increase prices of Cavin’s flavoured milk which was followed by Amul. It is a myth that we are a price warrior,” he said. He said that the company would launch a slew of products based on in-house research. “We have set ourselves two conditions for any launch. First it should be a significantly winning product and/or should be a product differentiator within the segment. We will never launch a ‘me to’ product ever,” he said. It owns shampoo brands Chik, Nyle and Meera; fairness cream brand Fairever and deodorant and talc brand Spinz. CavinKare also runs dairy, beverages and snacks businesses under Cavin’s and Garden brands respectively.

On plans is to expand the saloon chain from the present 400 to more than 1,000. The company operates Green Trends and LimeLite chain of unisex beauty salons.