2000 onwards
Over the next two decades, Fabindia emerged as a successful retail business in India, with 111 retail outlets within the country and 6 abroad.[10][11] Fabindia added its non-textile range in 2000, organic foods in 2004, personal care products in 2006, and finally its range of handcrafted jewellery in 2008.[12] Fabindia sells a variety of products ranging from textiles, garments, stationery, furniture, home accessories, ceramics, organic foods, and bodycare products, besides exporting home furnishings.[4][13] Fabindia's retail expansion plans started taking shape from 2004 onward as it opened multiple and larger stores in metros like Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, while at the same time spreading out beyond metros to cities like Vadodara, Dehradun, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar, Durgapur. Revenues also grew from Rs 89 crore in 2004–05 to Rs 129 crore in 2005–06, reaching Rs 200 crore in 2007, the year when it sourced its products from 22,000 artisans in 21 states.[9]
Usually, village-based artisans in India get barely 5% of the tag price of their products, as the rest is taken away by the middlemen. To counter this practice, Fabindia introduced an artisan-shareholder system through "supply-region companies" incorporated as subsidiaries. Here, the craftspeople collectively own 26% of the equity in each company, based in nationwide centres, with Artisans Micro Finance, a Fabindia arm holding 49%, and employees and other private investors holding the balance.[14] Also as part of its expansion plans, 6% in Fabindia was sold in 2007 at an estimated $11 million to Wolfensohn Capital Partners, a private equity firm founded by former World Bank president James Wolfensohn.[10] In 2009, it acquired a 25% stake in UK based £30 million ethnic womenswear retailer, EAST.[15] Today the company has retail outlets in all major cities of India—137 at last count—in addition to international stores in Dubai, UAE; 3 stores in Bahrain; Doha, State of Qatar; Rome, Italy; and one in Guangzhou, China.[15][16]
In 2005, Fabindia became a founder-member of All India Artisans and Craft Workers Welfare Association (AIACA), along with Pritam Singh (Anokhi), Ritu Kumar, Madhukar Khera and Laila Tyabji (Dastkar).[17] On the occasion of its 50th anniversary in 2010, the company made all its 842 employees shareholders. By 2012, the company had around 1,000 employees and 16 community-owned companies, or supplier region companies (SRCs), that were formed in 2007 and employ 86,000 artisans.[18]
In 2013, Fabindia purchased a 40% stake in the Lucknow-based organic food and supplements company Organic India, co-founded by Hindu convert and daughter of billionaire Edgar Bronfman, Sr., Holly Bronfman Lev, in 1997.[19]
