Jollibee to open 200 new stores across all brands

MANILA, Philippines - Fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) is opening 200 new stores across all its food brands in and outside the Philippines in line with its capital expenditure program amounting to over P4 billion this year.

Tony Tan Caktiong, chairman and chief executive of JFC, said the new retail outlets will include a newly-acquired business, Café Ti-Amo, and bring the group’s total network to 2,082 by end-2010.

Last year, JFC opened a total of 168 stores worldwide – 110 in the Philippines and 58 overseas – compared with 186 the previous year.

Tan Caktiong said Café Ti-Amo, a 50-50 joint venture with local entrepreneur Pamela Tan and her siblings, has opened its pilot branch in SM North Annex and plans are underway for the construction of nine more within the year.

Café Ti-Amo is a Korean restaurant brand that offers gelato and coffee in a casual dining format. Since its inception, Café Ti-Amo has grown to 269 stores.

Tan Caktiong said the group is bullish on the prospects of the fastfood industry as its first quarter results showed a fairly better performance than in 2009, boosted by election spending.  Consumer consumption is expected to improve given a relatively peaceful election, he added.

JFC posted a net profit of P2.66 billion in 2009, up 14.6 percent from a year earlier, on robust sales, lower raw material costs and income taxes as well as contained expenses. Revenues rose 9.5 percent to P48.06 billion while system-wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, went up 9.6 percent to P63.73 billion.

The programmed capex this year is nearly double the P2.5 billion spent in 2009.

Tan Caktiong said while the group remains on the lookout for possible acquisitions to spur growth, there is nothing at the negotiation table at the moment.

JFC runs the country’s largest fastfood network under the flagship brand Jollibee, Oriental restaurant Chowking, Greenwich, Red Ribbon bakeshop, Delifrance and the Manong Pepe’s chain of affordable Filipino meals.

Just recently, JFC announced it has taken a 55 percent stake in San Pin Wang, a noodle restaurant chain in China, for $4.4 million.

San Pin Wang operates 34 stores in Nanning and Liuzhou in southern China and is eyeing annual sales of 100 million renminbis this year.

Guangxi Zong Kai Food and Beverage Investment Co. Ltd. owns the remaining 45 percent of San Pin Wang.

Last year, JFC closed its Chun Shui Tang Tea House in Shanghai which was performing below expectations and terminated the Lao Dong joint venture in Taiwan due to a change of its expansion plans in China.