IN Capespan Yupaa teams

The Capespan and Yuppa teams when the partnership was formed in 2016

The five-year anniversary of Capespan’s investment in Yupaa has been celebrated with both companies acknowledging the success of the partnership.

In 2016, Capespan acquired a 35 per cent stake in the family-owned Indian importer-distributor-grower, with the Karvat family holding the remaining 65 per cent.

Ambrish Karvat, chairman and founder of Yupaa Group, said the business had grown year after year during this time.

“Yupaa has established an excellent operational and financial track record with the consistent generation of healthy profits,” said Karvat.

“Yupaa is 100 per cent self-financed and debt-free, which enables us to have no dependency on any external financing to manage our continued growth and to serve our customers.”

Over the course of the past five years, Yupaa had been able to overcome a number of challenges affecting the Indian market, including the ban of Chinese apples and pears in 2017, the demonetisation of the Indian currency, high volatility of exchange rates, surging local and international costs in logistics, increased tariffs on US apples and, most recently the Covid-19 pandemic

Executive director Parth Karvat said Yupaa’s resilience and dedication had been key to its success.

“Our focus on the bottom line, conservative yet dynamic strategies, lean management and personalised attention to detail of all aspects of the business have made this possible,” said Karvat.

“Our pulse on the market and strongly cemented relationships with suppliers and customers have played a vital role in our success.”

Tonie Fuchs, managing director of Capespan Group, concurred with Yupaa’s management and said the companies were an ideal match.

“We were convinced that Yupaa and the Karvat family were the right partners for Capespan in the growing Indian market. Capespan is proud to be associated with the Karvat family. Yupaa has exceeded our expectations, both as a key commercial partner and as a strategic investment,” said Fuchs.