Raymond Ltd., one of the world’s biggest producers of worsted wool fabric used to make quality suits, is cutting costs by more than a third as people shelter at home from the coronavirus outbreak. The Mumbai-based company is reducing jobs, rents, and marketing costs to decrease expenses by as much as 35% for the financial year started April 1, Chairman Gautam Hari Singhania said in a virtual interview last week. It has also sought to freeze loan repayments under a one-time program offered by the central bank.
“Raymond has taken this as an opportunity to re-set,” Singhania said. “What we know is this is a crisis and we will stand strong.” The shift to online engagements has slammed demand for business clothing worldwide, tipping the two-century-old Brooks Brothers Group Inc. into bankruptcy this month. Raymond, itself almost a century old having started in 1925 with a small wool mill on the outskirts of what was then Bombay, has seen its shares suffer the biggest loss among global peers this year as the virus outbreak intensified.
