The Phillipines corporation owning Highlands Coffee and Pho 24 in Vietnam
When mentioning fastfood, people often think of America – the fastfood paradise with big names like McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Huts. These brands have quickly moved beyond national border and appeared literally everywhere in the world.
However, there is one group in Southeast Asia which can compete with the big names from US, that is Jollibee from the Philippines.
In Vietnam, Jollibee has appeared quite early. The first Jollibee store opened in Ho Chi Minh City in 1996. However, a few recently years, this brand has started up investment in Vietnam. At the present time, Jollibee has around 30 stores in Vietnam, mainly in the southern, especially Ho Chi Minh City. In Hanoi, Jollibee has not really presented since there are only two stores in Ha Dong. If compared to the number of KFC (130 stores) and Lotteria (133 stores), it is still a small number.
However, this corporation has a huge deal in Vietnam when it bought the business department in Hong Kong and 49% of the business department in Vietnam of Viet Thai International Group (VTI). VTI is a corporation that hold many famous chain stores with brands such as Highlands Coffee, Pho 24, Hard Rock Café in Vietnam, Macau and Hong Kong.
The value of the deal (done through a subsidiary of Jollibee which is Jollibee Worldwide) is 25 million USD and VTI will also get the loan worth 35 million USD at an interest rate of 5% / year and expire in 2016.
The acquisition of shares of VTI is part of plans to acquire businesses in the same industry in Asia and the United States of Jollibee to expand the size of their corporation.
Jollibee said that in addition to the continued development of the Highlands Coffee chain in Vietnam, they will bring the product of Highlands Coffee to the system of other Jollibee restaurants throughout Asia. This will be a significant added value for Jollibee when Vietnamese coffee is internationally recognized as top quality.
(Source: CafeF, ANT Consulting)