"Everyone Looking At Opportunities In India": Gautam Singhania

India is 'the land of opportunities' and should be the preferred investment location for lifestyle brands, Gautam Singhania, the Chairperson of the Raymond Group, said Friday at the NDTV World Summit 2025. "Literally, on a weekly basis we are getting calls to invest in India..."

"More and more global companies want to do business in India," he said, "Lifestyle is growing today... If you had $100 to invest, where would you invest? Everyone is looking at the opportunities in India."

He also stressed - asked about the 50 per cent tariff announced by United States President Donald Trump - the Raymond Group had taken a conscious decision to base 90 per cent of its business in the country. "If I had to choose where to live in the world... I would choose India."

On the India growth story - marked by the economy's rise to become the fourth largest in the world in May, beating Japan - the Raymond boss flagged a burgeoning middle-class market often eyed by foreign businesses, and gives India a strong bargaining chip in global trade talks.

"As the middle class grows... as its aspirations grow... everyone wants affordable luxury," he said, offering the example of housing, a space the group entered in July with Raymond Realty, saying, "A Rs 2 or 3 crore home in Mumbai is affordable luxury."

"The Indian consumer has a lot of trust in the Raymond brand," he said.

But he junked talk of Raymond as an outright 'luxury' brand, insisting, "As a company, we are not in the luxury business... we are in the belly of the market... the affordable luxury market."

Singhania single-handedly revived the family business after he took charge in 2000, selling poorly functioning units, including in steel, cement, and synthetics, to focus on lifestyle products, the most iconic of which today is undoubtedly textiles and clothing.