Mumbai: Reliance Retail has acquired John Players apparel brand and related trademarks and intellectual property from ITC. This comes after ITC’s routine business review of its apparel business in August 2018.
Launched about 2002, the apparel brand started with men’s shirts and was later extended to jeans, tees and trousers. ITC’s lifestyle business covered the mass John Players brand and the premium WLS brand.
An ITC spokesperson said that as part of the strategic review of the lifestyle retailing business, a restructuring plan is underway. In line with this ongoing restructuring, ITC had sold the brand ‘John Players’ and related trade-marks and intellectual property, and the goodwill related to it to Reliance Retail Limited.
ITC faced challenges in its branded apparel business due to aggressive discounts offered by e-commerce players and GST transition, which triggered premature end of season sales. It responded by making structural interventions including store rationalisation, modifying offerings and sharpening working capital management.
While WLS was available at 350 outlets across multiple channels, John Players was available at about 750 points-of-sale in leading national and regional department stores and also exclusive stores.
ITC declined to disclose the deal size.
