TTK Prestige sees UK business go from bad to worse but hopes to end year with double-digit growth

The pressure in the UK market continued to hurt India's biggest cookware firm TTK Prestige with the group’s chairman TT Jagannathan on Wednesday saying that things have gone from bad to worse.

"Last year it was merely bad. This year is terrible. We now have 30 percent of our UK business going direct to consumers but the UK economy has collapsed," he told CNBC-TV18.

He noted that the company is unable to accept export orders due to the lack of capacity, but it is correcting that situation. "Over a period of next year, we will build the capacity," he said.

Jagannathan added that the UK business currently is nearly 30 percent lower than what it was in the pre-pandemic period.

In the fiscal 2021-22, the consolidated turnover and profit before tax of the company and the UK subsidiaries amounted to Rs 2,723 crore (PY Rs 2,194 crore) and Rs 411 crore (PY Rs 323 crore) respectively.

When asked why the TTK Prestige wasn’t offering as many discounts compared to its peers, Jagannathan said online sales have been flattish for the company. "We don't allow big discounts online because it disrupts the offline market. So we are careful and it is flattish," he said.

Jagannathan noted that entry-level products were still tight and that a very large proportion of the company's sales is at the top end probably while the entry-level has been flat.

However, TTK Prestige will end the year with double-digit growth, he said. "We are confident. We were 21 percent as of last year and we believe we will end the year with double-digit growth and margins in the vicinity of 16 percent," he added.

Earlier in October, Jagannathan said, raw material prices have dropped so he doesn’t expect to see any price hikes in the near future.

Speaking about the UK business, he had then said, "We are revamping the company and we had a good September considering all the disasters that the UK is going through and we will manage to get out of it."