Bengaluru-based Sapna Group, which is into book stores and publishing, plans to go public in another five to six years.
Nijesh Shah, president of Sapna Group of India, told The Hindu on Saturday that to go forward with its roadmap for expansion and IPO in five years, it would also look for private equity. “This is still in discussion stage,” he said.
The group, with annual turnover of ₹450 crore-₹500 crore, plans to have 50 more large format stores, each measuring about 15,000 sq.ft, in the next three years and 100 small format stores of 1,000 sq. ft.-1,800 sq. ft. each through the franchise route.
Most of the new outlets will be in Tier-II and Tier-III towns. The group will invest ₹110 crore-₹120 crore for expanding the network of large format stores. Currently, it has 15 large format stores. It ships 3,500 to 3,800 orders a day through its website.
The publishing division contributes about ₹50 crore to revenues. Apart from publishing English books, the group is focusing on regional languages. Eight months ago, it entered the Tamil language market and is foraying into Kannada and Telugu publications. It plans to publish fiction and non-fiction books in regional languages.
“When we go public, we will position ourselves as product and service provider in the educational, readership, content segments,” Mr. Shah said.
