MANILA -Billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong’s fast food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) is taking control of the brand’s master franchise holder in Hong Kong as it seeks to accelerate its China expansion.
In a stock exchange filing on Wednesday, JFC said the company, through wholly-owned Singapore subsidiary Jollibee Worldwide Ltd, would purchase a majority stake in Meko Holdings Ltd. for $16.8 million.
Following the transaction, Jollibee Worldwide will own 60 percent of Meko Holdings. The remaining 40 percent will be owned by Meko’s current stockholders.
“Hong Kong is an important market for Jollibee and an important part of JFC China’s strategy to elevate the Jollibee brand in a general population or mainstream market,” the company said in the filing.
“Hong Kong is renowned for its relationship with a vast variety of food and attracts both a strong base of local consumers and tourists. Upon completion of this transaction, JFC will have 60 percent ownership of this once 100 percent franchised market,” it added.
JFC earlier announced plans to open a record number of stores in 2023 amid resurgent restaurant sales in the postpandemic era.
Jollibee group sets record store expansion in 2023
It will open 550-600 outlets across all of its brands to sustain growth.
This comes as the company’s net income last year jumped 26.4 percent to P7.56 billion. This was 19.4 percent above its prepandemic net income of P6.33 billion.
In 2022, systemwide sales jumped 40.2 percent to P296.82 billion while revenues expanded by 38 percent to P211.9 billion. Same store sale last year also grew 27 percent.
Jollibee had over 6,500 restaurants in the Philippines and overseas as of February 2023.
Its largest brands by store outlets worldwide are Jollibee with (1,594), Coffee Bean & Teal Leaf (1,079), Chowking (613), Mang Inasal (571) and Highlands Coffee (610).