Nine Gitanjali Brands Valued At $1.21B

(IDEX Online News) – The Gitanjali group today (Thursday) announced that a third-party evaluation of its nine major brands had valued them at Rs.55.84 billion ($1.21 billion).

Gitanjali is an integrated diamond jewelry giant whose operations span diamond manufacturing through jewelry manufacturing to retail. According to Brand Finance Plc, which carried out the valuation, the values have been arrived at by using the universally accepted discounted cash flow (DCF) method. It contains the future unlocking potential of these brands by the premium they generate.

Gitanjali Chairman Mehul Choksi observed, “Our diamonds represent a dream and that’s how we aim to sell them. We understand the aspirations and needs of our consumers and have developed different brands to satisfy each of those dreams. We continue to develop new brands to fill any gaps we identify. Our bouquet of brands has immense value and enormous potential. We are working towards developing them to unlock this value for the benefit of our stakeholders.”

According to Choksi, the brand valuations will help place a value on the separate arms that emerge with a group restructuring that is currently under way.

The evaluation exercise has valued the Gitanjali corporate brand at $490 million, the Gili jewelry brand at $220 million, the erstwhile De Beers brands Nakshatra and Asmi at$220 million and $90 million respectively, the D’Damas jewelry brand at $70 million and the group’s jewelry manufacturing brand, Gitanjali Jewels at $50 million.

The group’s plain-gold jewelry Maya Gold brand was valued $40 million, the diversified Gitanjali Lifestyle $18.39 million and its other new jewelry brand Shuddhi, $7.14 million.

Brand Finance valued Gili, Nakshatra, Asmi and D’Damas at Rs.15.02 billion in 2009. The combined valuations for the four had almost doubled in the last two years. This was primarily due to the strategic implementation of innovation in the product mix, penetration in new geographies and the shifting of the sales channel. The group is looking at unlocking more potential with a manifold increase in value in the next two years.

The group has 40 Indian and international brands and operates in ten countries. Its fiscal 2010-11 turnover was over $2 billion. It also owns the Samuels and Rogers jewelry chains in the U.S.

Choksi said, however, that the group was focused on building up its Indian brands as its overseas brands and operations, particularly those in the U.S., had only just begun to turn a profit. “Our Indian business operations are three times the value of our US operations,” he noted.