Fortune Shoes eyes local market

After years of successful presence in the international market, footwear manufacturer Fortune Shoes Limited now wants to have a foothold in the local market.

To make this happen, it will form a company named Fortune Gallery Limited which will run retail stores across the country under the brand name of Fortune Gallery.

The company will sell footwear and lifestyle products from the stores.

The new company will be formed with an authorised capital of Tk100 crore and its paid-up capital will be Tk5 crore.

Initially, the board of Fortune Shoes decided to subscribe to 49% shares in Fortune Gallery. The remaining shares will go to other promoters.

"Fortune Shoes itself cannot sell footwear products in the local market as it is a 100% export-oriented company," Company Secretary Riaz Uddin Bhuiya told The Business Standard.

"That is why the board has decided to form a new retailing company for the local market. The new entity will arrange the products through outsourcing for the retail market."

The new decision will be materialized after approval by shareholders in an annual general meeting, he added.

Fortune Shoes started exporting footwear in 2010 and got listed on the capital market in 2016. It has three factories in Barishal and Savar.

In the last six years till FY2019, its exports rose by 106% to Tk154 crore. But due to the pandemic, the export value fell by 23% to Tk119 crore.

In fiscal 2020-21, the company returned from the Covid-19 shocks and reported an 18% growth in revenue to Tk140.44 crore.

During the fiscal year, the country's footwear exports rose by 19% to $569.88 million, while they dropped 21% in the previous fiscal year.

Its board recommended 10% cash and 5% stock dividends for the shareholders for the last fiscal year.

But the proposed stock dividend will be distributed after Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission's approval.

In the last fiscal year, its net profit jumped 110% to Tk24.61 crore and earnings per share stood at Tk1.59.

After the news was released on the Dhaka Stock Exchange's (DSE) website, its share rose 4.68% and closed at Tk96.10 at the end of Tuesday's trading session.

Earlier, in the last six months, its share price jumped 400% at the DSE. Due to the unusual price hike, the DSE sent a query letter two times, but the company replied that there was no undisclosed price sensitive information for the price hike.