Why Liberty Shoes Shares Have Doubled in a Year

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Adesh Gupta, chief executive officer at Liberty Shoes

Liberty Shoes had a fantastic year so far; its shares are up 133 per cent from the 52-week low of Rs 114 hit on January 30. A careful analysis would reveal that most of the gains have come in the last one week.

Liberty Shoes jumped more than 30 per cent over last week, buoyed by the introduction of the constitutional amendment bill for Goods and Service Tax in Lok Sabha on Friday.

The implementation of GST will increase the competitiveness of organized players in the footwear industry, helping companies such as Liberty Shoes, analysts say.

The sharp fall in crude oil prices has also contributed to the strong rally in Liberty Shoes. A lot of raw materials used by the footwear industry are derived from crude oil and prices of these raw materials have come down tracking the crash in crude oil prices.

Adesh Gupta, chief executive officer at Liberty Shoes told NDTV that the fall in raw material cost has offset the increase in labour cost and led to improvement in margins.

"Material cost is 33 per cent of the maximum retail selling price," he added. (Watch full interview)

Liberty Shoes' core business also picked up in 2014. According to Mr Gupta, all three business segments-domestic, institutional exports posted about 30 per cent this year.

"We have plans to open about 100 stores each year, which should give us a solid growth going forward," said Mr Gupta. 60 new stores would be franchise-owned, while 40 stores would be company-owned, he added.

Majority of the new stores would come up in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, where rentals are lower, the company said.

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Why Liberty Shoes Shares Have Doubled in a Year