Kolkata’s Senco Gold: Banking on franchises for expansion

It has been a long journey for Shaankar Sen of Senco Gold and Diamonds.

From owning just three jewellery stores in Kolkata that he inherited from his father in the early 1990s to nearly 100 across the country today, the 62-year-old has certainly come a long way. In fact, for the bespectacled businessman—who dropped out of his post-graduate degree in commerce from the University of Calcutta to help his ailing father run their jewellery stores—the moment of reckoning could have been this year, if not for Nirav Modi, the fugitive diamantaire.

Senco had planned its initial public offer (IPO) to raise ₹600 crore from the market, before withdrawing it in March. “The sentiment in the market is dull due to Nirav Modi and the apprehension about jewellers,” Shaankar says. “Then, we also saw the tanking of PC Jewellers on the stock exchanges. That’s why we have pushed the IPO.”

But Shaankar, who works out of his office on the 10th floor of a commercial building on South Kolkata’s AJC Bose Road, isn’t perplexed. “We have done our part in building our company,” he says. “We will wait for the right time. It’s a milestone in our journey.” Shaankar’s company, Senco Gold and Diamonds, is the largest gold jeweller in eastern India and has expanded its footprint across 14 states through a mix of franchise and self-owned stores.

Today, Shaankar and his son Suvankar (who joined the business in 2008) are leaving no stones unturned in adapting to the change. “Of course, we will open more stores,” says Suvankar, the executive director. “But we are designing a customer experience for the future.”

From Dhaka to Durgapur
Senco Gold and Diamonds traces its roots to erstwhile East Bengal. Shaankar’s ancestors had set up a jewellery business in 1938 in Dhaka but had to leave that behind during the partition in 1947, when East Bengal became a part of Pakistan. Overnight, Shaankar’s father and his brothers migrated to Calcutta. Over there, the family engaged in bulk sales of gold before moving to retail and between 1950 and 1960 set up nearly 10 stores across the city. By 1962, however, due to a war with China over a border dispute, the government decided to introduce the Gold Control Act, which recalled gold loans given by banks and banned forward-trading in gold.

By 1968, Shaankar’s father split from the family to do business on his own, and in the process, received a store in the Bowbazar area of Kolkata. “At that time, if you wanted to set up one jewellery store, you had to take a licence from the central excise department,” says Shaankar. “A licence was issued after three years of persuasion.”

Thanks to goodwill and public relations—the only capital his father managed to earn, according to Shaankar—Senco opened two more stores between 1968 and 1972. By 1978, as his father’s health began to decline, he dropped out of his post-graduate studies to help his father run the business.
The big break came in 1990, when the government repealed the Gold Control Act and opened up the market. By 1994, since other members of the family also ran their gold business under the Senco brand, Shaankar established a separate identity with Senco Gold and Jewellery Pvt Limited.