Philippine Shakey’s hunts for other brands as US parent shrinks
The Shakey’s pizza chain in the Philippines is hungry and hunting for other fast-food and restaurant brands while its US parent is ironically shutting down stores.
The listed Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc., whose trading symbol is PIZZA, wants to amend its articles of incorporation and revise its primary purpose precisely to accommodate such planned acquisitions.
“Such an amendment will allow the company to operate restaurant brands other than Shakey’s,” PIZZA told shareholders ahead of the August 16 annual meeting, without providing additional details.
PIZZA ended the first quarter with 212 stores, and is on track with its plan to end 2018 with 228 branches nationwide.
Its former US parent, meanwhile, has shrunk to 51 stores after shuttering its lone Hawaii branch early this month.
According to company history, Shakey’s United States hit a high of about 500 stores in 1974, a year before the San Miguel Corp. acquired a franchise for the Philippines.
San Miguel in 1987 relinquished the franchise to a group led by sports executive Leo Prieto, whose family in turn sold the business in 2016 to the Century Pacific Group and the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore.
According to regulatory disclosures, PIZZA owns the trademarks and licenses to operate the Shakey’s brand in the Philippines, as well as China, Middle East, the entire Asia except Malaysia and Japan, and Oceania.
“Since PIZZA owns the brand, it generates additional Po and Bacani revenue from franchising while not having to pay royalty fee for the use of the Shakey’s name,” the company said.
PIZZA priced its initial public offering at P11.26 a share when it listed in December 2016. It closed yesterday noon at P12.70.
On a personal level, PIZZA vice chairman Ricardo Gabriel Po Jr. is also embarking on his own domestic expansion.
According to the grapevine, Po, 50, is marrying his long-time girl friend, Manila councilor and tax lawyer Krystle Bacani, on July 17 all the way in Honolulu.
• And speaking of Shakey’s, long-time Rustan’s and Shopwise marketing executive Frances Yu is set to join the PIZZA board as an independent director vice Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng.
• Mining entrepreneur Jose Ricafort has written fellow shareholders in Nationwide Development Corp. about his family’s decision to sell their minority shareholdings in Nadecor.
Nadecor holds the mining rights to Kingking in Compostela Valley, which is said to contain the second largest gold and copper deposits in the country.
San Miguel Holdings chief finance officer Raoul Romulo has had the incredible luck of scoring his third holein-one at the Manila Golf Club, where he was a former president.
“But since I was alone, it doesn’t count as an official hole-in-alone,” he said, taking a selfie of himself by hole number 6 early Tuesday morning.
E-mail: moneygoround.manila@yahoo.com