The conglomerate’s lifestyle retailing business - Wills Lifestyle and John Players – has yet to break even though it has been around for almost 17 years. As per industry executives, ITC’s lifestyle retail business is estimated at around Rs 650-700 crore.An ITC spokesman said while the company focuses on development of homegrown talent, it ropes in people from outside when required to take the business to the next horizon of growth. "All our segments including lifestyle retailing have huge potential and we are scaling these businesses leveraging ITC’s institutional strengths," he said.Gupta, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad , had joined ITC in January as chief operating officer of the lifestyle retail business. "The lifestyle retail business has been making money on and off, but has yet to break even. However, ITC will continue to invest on the business since it is not far from profitability," said one of the industry executives ET spoke to.

Source: Economic Times February 27, 2017 20:33 UTC