Zudio, Trent's greatest strength, may also be its biggest weakness

Growing pains

- Dipti Sharma

Trent Ltd, the parent firm of well-known brands such as Westside and Zudio, has been one of the fastest-growing companies in India's retail sector over the past five years, with its stock having surged about 935% since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

However, it has also been the worst-performing Nifty 50 stock so far this year—down about 26% since 1 January—making investors jittery. The company's enterprise-value-to-Ebitda ratio (EV/Ebitda) fell from 78.5 in FY24 to 67.6 in FY25, and is expected to decline further to 51 in FY26, according to Bloomberg data.