Fortis Health World Limited (FHWL), a prime player in the wellness retail space, is now being re-christened as Religare Wellness Limited. Fortis HealthWorld is the wellness retail brand of Fortis Healthcare. Fortis Healthcare and Religare are companies promoted by Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, who recently sold their pharma company Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo.
Speaking to Indiaretailing, a spokesperson for Religare said that the idea is to position Religare as a service-led brand; in tune with that they are bringing in the wellness retail brand under the ambit of Religare. On the other hand, Fortis Healthcare will be the healthcare delivery brand focusing on the hospitals.
Further, Fortis HealthWorld has decided to acquire in principle, the Delhi-based pharma and retail chain CRS Health, which has a significant presence in parts of North, South and West India. As part of the proposed deal, Fortis HealthWorld will acquire all 27 retail stores and four warehouses of CRS Health. The acquisition and the integration under the Religare Wellness brand is expected to be completed within next 30 days. At present, there are around 40 Fortis HealthWorld stores, and another 20 are in the process of being set up. In about a month’s time, Religare expects to have about 100 stores in place.
Commenting on the development, Sunil Godhwani, spokesperson on behalf of the promoter group said, “This re-branding along with the acquisition is a significant move to take our interest in the wellness retail space to the next level”. Godhwani said that Religare, which is known as a brand in the financial services domain, seeks to extend the brand values and brand equity to various services within the promoter group, wellness retail being one of them.
The idea is to the position these stores as holistic, wellness retail destinations operating through different formats, said the company. Large formats will be called “Wellness Junctions”, mid sized ones “Wellness Stops” while shop-in-shops will be named “Wellness points”.
