Hemu Ramaiah has sold her 24 per cent share of Landmark to Trent, the retailing arm of Tata Group, for an undisclosed sum.
Ramaiah, in a telecon, confirmed the news to Indiaretailing, saying, “I’ll be venturing into retail design and consultancy space.” Indiaretailing’s detailed interview with Ramaiah is scheduled for the second half of today.
In August 2005, Trent, for Rs 103.60 crore, had acquired 76 per cent stake in Landmark from Natraj Ramaiah, who is Hemu Ramaiah’s brother.
At the time of Trent taking over majority control in Landmark, it was agreed that Ramaiah will exit the company at her own convenient time.
Post-the Trent investment, Ramaiah continued to be the CEO, while Himanshu Chakrawarti of Trent joined as COO. Since then, the Landmark chain has spread its wings.
At present, Landmark has over 15 stores in cities such as Chennai, Puducherry, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Lucknow and Hyderabad.
Landmark have also had a 50:50 JV with the Emami group for a store in Kolkata. In 2006, Emami bought out Ramaiah’s stake and rechristened the store as Starmark.
