Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail to acquire 51% stake in House of Masaba

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) said that it will acquire a stake of 51% in the House of Masaba Lifestyle Private Limited (HMLPL) for a sum of around INR 90 crores.

By acquiring the stake, the Aditya Birla Group company will enter into a partnership with Indian designer Masaba Gupta to develop a gen-next focused fashion and lifestyle business under the “Masaba” brand. The partnership marks the foray of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail into the beauty and personal care market in India.

According to Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, the partnership’s objective is to create a young, aspirational and digital-led portfolio play across the affordable luxury segment in the fashion, beauty and accessory categories.

Ashish Dikshit — Managing Director of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail said: “As a new generation of young and digitally native consumers explore their needs within fashion and lifestyle, they actively seek brands that are colourful, vivid and digital. Masaba is a young, effervescent brand with a refreshing and innovative take on every lifestyle category.

“This partnership is also an important step in building presence in the fast-growing beauty and personal care segment. This fits in well with our overall strategy to partner India’s top most designers to build a portfolio of distinctive and aspirational home-grown brands across fashion and lifestyle categories.”

The Masaba brand is planned to be scaled mainly via the digital direct to consumer (D2C) channel by making use of its connect with younger and digitally influenced consumers. The brand is targeting to earn annual revenues of nearly INR 500 crores in the coming five years.

Masaba Gupta — Founder of House of Masaba said: “As a young, homegrown brand I am delighted to partner with ABRFL to further solidify the House of Masaba into a 360-degree, global lifestyle brand of the future. Inspired by the ever-evolving, India-Proud Gen Z consumer, the brand will introduce multiple product extensions bringing Cosmetics, Personal Care, Athleisure & Home Decor to its portfolio.

“The House of Masaba already has established a strong foothold among the youth with a robust digital-first strategy and the tie-up with ABRFL will strengthen this position, making the brand future ready. With this partnership, I look forward to creating immersive and collaborative experiences for our target audiences who highly engage in virtual mediums today and are driving the industry’s evolution to the Metaverse.”