Bata India, the country’s largest footwear retail chain with over 1,600 stores run by the company as well as by it’s franchise partners reported a 44% decline in its sales for the FY 20-21, recording Rs. 1,708 Cr as against Rs. 3,056 Cr for the same period during FY 19-20. With most of the workforce on partial or full WFH, schools and colleges closed and discretionary spends reduced significantly for the aspirational middle class of India, this is phenomenal outcome indeed.
Q4 was particularly bad after a full recovery in Q3, perhaps due to festive season. As it is, Q4 is not the best period for footwear sales, which picks up around June / July when schools and colleges reopen. The company’s Net profit for Q4 shrunk to Rs. 29 Cr in FY 20-21 as against Rs. 38 Cr during Q4 FY 19-20. EBITDA was down 19% over last year to Rs. 112 Cr for FY 20-21, perhaps due to change in pattern of Sales and the subsequent product mix.
The Board approved a dividend of Rs. 4 per equity share (value of Rs. 5/-) for the FY 20-21 which made the stock surge 5% based on it’s future prospects, especially with a new team at the helm. Mr. Sandeep Kataria joined as CEO a few months back while Ms. Vidhya Srinivasan, CFO who joined from Puma in Jan. ’21 has been elevated as Director – Finance and a Key Managerial Person (KMP) which is of Strategic importance to the Company.
Bata continues to have a very healthy Balance Sheet with a cash surplus of Rs. 1,093 Cr and has a slew of brands in its kitty including Hush Puppies, Power, Marie Claire, Bubblegummers, Weinbrenner, North Star, Scholl, Naturaliser among others. With a brilliant omni-channel model already in place, Bata is creating new opportunities for the market especially after it decided to chase customers through the digital channel along with its physical stores. The company, which sells 50 million pairs of footwear annually would typically address 120,000 plus customers daily.
The company launched “Bata on Wheels“, a unique initiative where the store team would set-up a temporary store at an apartment complex and offer trials as well as complete the sale process. The company also donated 1 million pairs of footwear to the frontline healthcare workers across its key markets such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Columbia, Italy, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Malaysia among others.
