Divine Textile Limited, one of the largest apparel and textile conglomerates of Bangladesh with printing, packaging, fabric and garmenting capabilities, started its own sourcing operations Valeria Fashions in 2011, which is growing 20% YOY. Valeria Fashions has already clocked US $ 10 million worth of business and is positioned to be the growth driver for the group over the next few years and that is because of its understanding of the importance to work with compliant factories.
In fact, clued into the importance of compliance, the group both for its manufacturing unit and as a buying office, is focusing on safety issues. “After the devastated events that happened lately in Bangladesh, it has become priority for the factories to think for the safety of the people and it’s the key factor to attract buyers; they evaluate and select factories and if we want to take the advantage, we have to be 100% compliant in terms of fire policy, wages policy and workers’ health,” states Rifat Alam, Director of Valeria Fashions while his Managing Director Mahmud Hasan was abroad on a religious trip.
Manufacturing knit products in a vertically integrated setup with more than 50 knitting machines and 450 sewing machines, the company since its inception has expanded manifold by exporting more than 5 million pieces of knit, woven and sweater items largely to US, Australia, Canada, Spain, Denmark and Germany. The company has also fabric manufacturing facilities producing 100% cotton, blends, viscose, modal Yarn & Fabric, Elastan, Polyester. The next stage of growth is to convert the setup into a composite mill over the next four years.
The garment offerings from the company includes very fine quality of T-shirts, polo shirts, parkas, cardigans, body warmers, boxers, tang-tops, short pants, trousers and jackets, which Divine Textile manufactures for some leading buyers like Target, Nike, Millers, Walmart, Wilson Imports to mention a few. “We are the first suppliers for Haddad Brands (Nike) and Everlast Wilson brands from Bangladesh,” proudly says Riman Alam, Director of Valeria Fashions. The next target is to work with Multiline – a German importer-cum-retailer. In fact, it is the groups’ credibility as manufacturers, which has given them an edge as a sourcing office.
Since Divine Textile is already a highly established business while Valeria is only 24 months old, the management is looking to expand the business with newer buyers. “With Multiline in the pipeline, we can look for steady growth since even their sample order quantity is around 5-6 lakhs. We are also now looking beyond the US and EU and have recently started to target the South American market with Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and I believe with newer markets on focus, we can take Bangladesh to the next level of growth,” concludes Rifat.
