Shakey’s to spend P362 million for store expansions in second half

SHAKEY’S Pizza Asia Ventures, Inc. said that it will be fully exhausting the remaining P362 million from its capital expenditure budget this year on store expansions of its five brands in the second half.

“The team will be busy with expanding these brands and that is the priority but we’ll be on the lookout for any ‘wow-ing’ or fantastic opportunity that may come. If it comes, it comes, but what we’ll be focusing on is growing organically with the brands that we have now,” Shakey’s President and Chief Executive Officer Vicente L. Gregorio said during the Philippine Stock Exchange’s Star Investor Day on Wednesday.

In the first half, the company spent P288 million from its largest capital expenditure budget to date — P650 million — for store network expansion.

“We had the highest allocated budget for this year compared to anytime in Shakey’s history,” Mr. Gregorio said.

As of June this year, the company’s existing brands opened 10 new stores from 316 last year: seven company-owned and three franchisee-owned.

The Shakey’s group has five brands to date: Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, Peri-Peri Charcoal Chicken and Sauce Bar, Project Pie, R&B Tea, and Potato Corner.

Potato Corner, which it agreed to acquire late last year, opened 101 new outlets in the first semester, bringing its outlet network count to 1,265 excluding those in Indonesia.

“We are ready to scale up the business even more and we want to strengthen the roster of our brands to fuel growth for 2022,” Mr. Gregorio said.

Despite being present in more than 38 countries, Potato Corner remains to be “under-penetrated” locally. More establishments in the country can be tapped for outlets of the food kiosk chain, Mr. Gregorio noted.

Mr. Gregorio said: “In international, the floodgate has been opened, there have been a lot of inquiries and we just want to fine-tune our international program making sure it’s gonna be ‘wow-ing’ and profitable for all our franchise partners.”

“The brands that we have — Shakey’s, Peri-Peri, and Potato Corner — have the potential to grow domestic and international,” he added.

On the stock exchange on Wednesday, Shakey’s shares rose by 2.46% or 19 centavos to P7.92 apiece. — Justine Irish D. Tabile