Kurl-On Enterprise Limited

tl;dr


With a comfortable market share, Kurl-on Enterprises Ltd has become an established player in the mattresses segment. Tie ups with e-commerce retailers and IKEA, coupled with capacity expansion and an aggressive overseas push will fuel growth for the company.

About Kurlon Enterprise


Kurlon Ltd (KL) founded by Late T Ramesh U Pai, was incorporated in 1962 under the name of Karnataka Coir Products Ltd . During 1965, company introduced, the concept of rubberized coir mattress under its renowned brand name “Kurl-On”. KL is the holding company, which promoted a subsidiary company in the name and style of Kurlon Enterprise Ltd (KEL) in the year 2011. Consequent upon the Business Transfer Agreement between KL and its subsidiary, the business of Rubberized Coir, Latex Foam, Polyurethane Foam, Pillows, Spring Mattresses, Furniture, Furnishing, sofa and entire home comforts and related products were transferred to the subsidiary company effective 1st April, 2014 which is the operating company of KL now.

Kurl-on Enterprises Limited is the largest selling mattress maker in the country and the only industry player which has a direct presence across  150 cities, servicing a large network of over 7500 retailers. 
 
Besides mattress, KEL manufactures and markets an entire range of home comfort solutions and a wide range of high-end soft furnishings such as pillows, cushions, bed linen/sofa to ergonomically designed furniture. Kurl-on has become synonymous with the mattress industry in India and being the pioneer, it has become a household name.
 
The company is also the sole manufacturer of hospital approved mattress in India. KEL markets its products under the flagship brand “Kurl-On”, with sales of over 1.2 million mattresses annually accounting for 35% of the market share. Currently, the company exports its products to various Asian countries. 

Key Updates


The company is planning to strengthen its home website kurlon.com and has also entered into tie-ups with major e-commerce platforms such as Pepperfry and Urban Ladder. It aims to achieve 15% of its business from online sales in the next two years.
 
Unperturbed by foreign competitors, Kurl-on has entered into a working partnership with IKEA, which includes manufacturing products under local sourcing, in order to learn the best practices of the foreign player.
 
Besides, the company has lined up aggressive overseas plans. It plans to open two exclusive stores in Dubai and one each in the nations of  Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives.
 
In addition, the company has launched a new sofa collection under its home furniture & furnishings brand Home Komfort’.  KEL is scouting for suitable sick or loss making furniture units for a possible buyout or partnership in order to fortify its growing home furniture portfolio.
 
Kurl-on has been looking to sell a controlling stake and talks are on with PE majors Carlyle, KKR, Blackstone and Bain.  Motilal Oswal PE invested Rs 90 crore in the company in 2015. 

The Mattress Industry in India


The mattress industry is a predominantly an unorganized market in India with many small regional players and just a handful of organized national mattress makers such as Kurl-On and Sheela foam(Sleepwell). 
 
The Indian mattress market is estimated at approximately Rs.10,000 Cr., of which close to 75% has been dominated by cotton mattresses, which is majorly a low value unorganized market. However, germs and mites have a tendency to dwell in cotton mattress, hence maintenance is quite high.
 
Hotels, Hospitals and Hostels prefer high performance, high quality branded mattress with flame retardant, anti – bacterial fabrics. As people are becoming more health conscious and aspiring luxury lifestyle, there is an evident rise in the awareness of the relation between good sleep and a good quality mattress especially among the youth. This has given rise to small to mid-sized mattress firms, both, online as well as offline. 

Company Financials

Concise Income Statement (in Cr)
Year Ended March 
FY18 (consolidated)
FY18
FY17


Net Revenue
1120.6
1118.1
1038.8


Profit After Tax
84.0
84.0
60.8














Consolidated figures include financials of Kurlon Retail Limited(wholly owned subsidiary of KEL)

Concise Balance Sheet (in Cr)
Year Ended March 
FY18
FY17
FY16
Shareholder’s Funds
313.1
235.8
180.0
Total Debt
15.0
4.3
1.2
Other Liablities
223.9
196.1
171.5
Total
551.9
436.3
352.7
Fixed Assets (ex CWIP)
184.6
157.6
134.8