Shakey’s eyes 500-store network in five years

The country’s leading pizza parlor chain, Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc. (SPAVI), plans to grow its footprint to reach a network of 500 local and overseas restaurants in the next five years.

After opening recently its 200th store in the Philippines at Paseo de Magallanes in Makati, SPAVI is debuting in the Middle East with the opening of a new store in Kuwait and Dubai next month.

“In the mid 1980s, there were 21 stores and all the while, I thought, Shakey’s could have 100 stores. After a while, it got to 150. Now we’re on our 200th store and I’m very proud to tell you that the operations and business development team is looking at 300 stores and we’ll probably end with more than that,” SPAVI president Vicente Gregorio said during the 200th store opening ceremony on Wednesday.
Ricardo Gabriel Po, SPAVI vice chair, said the 300-store goal could be achieved in three years, adding that the network could further be scaled up to 500 stores in five years, including those that will be opened overseas.

While Shakey’s is an American brand, SPAVI is completely independent from its US “mother” after earlier acquiring the trademark and the intellectual property rights. It does not pay royalty or licensing fees to the US company, resulting in good margins.

Apart from the Philippines, SPAVI owns perpetual rights to use the Shakey’s brand in the Middle East, Asia (excluding Japan and Malaysia), China, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Established in California in 1954, Shakey’s operations in the Philippines are now bigger than in the US. The Philippine market is also Shakey’s biggest market in the world.

The expansion program in the next three to five years could be funded by internally generated cash and proceeds from SPAVI’s public offering, Po said.

Each new store costs P15 million to P25 million to put up, Gregorio estimated.

This year, SPAVI expects to open at least 20 new stores. Gregorio said SPAVI would like to open more stores in the provinces but would still take advantage of expansion opportunities in Metro Manila.