Max’s suffers Teriyaki Boy’s indigestion

Instead of a promised reinvigoration, the Teriyaki Boy chain has been giving the Max’s Group president/ chief executive Robert Trota serious financial indigestion since its 2013 takeover.

According to regulatory disclosures, Teriyaki Boy has suffered P225 million in losses since 2014, P126 million of which was just for last year alone.

Compare that with the Max’s Group posting a net income last year of nearly P562 million from a loss of P66 million in 2014, the first full year of consolidation with the Pancake House/Teriyaki Boy group.

The number one in Japanese casual food service in the country with 37 stores in 2013, Teriyaki Boy is now down to 15 branches, less than half of its size, while the Max’s Group opened 77 stores in last year alone.

Ironically, while the number of Teriyaki Boy franchisee stores went down from 11 to only five last year, the royalty income had been going up, from P14.3 million in 2014 to P17.3 million in 2016.

For 2017, Trota has budgeted P750 million to P800 million in capital expenditures for the opening of 60-70 more stores, primarily among what he admitted as the core brands “Max’s Restaurant, Pancake House, Yellow Cab Pizza and Krispy Kreme.”

Trota No wonder Teriyaki Boy founder Bryan Tiu, whose remaining 30-percent

stake in the Japanese chain is being gnawed by the losses, is in a litigious mood.

Metrobank on hiring mode

Metrobank is on a hiring mode, to “explore endless possibilities” to quote its slogan, expecting to add 392 staff, 173 of whom will be officers with the rank of assistant vice president and higher.

“For the year 2017, the bank estimates to incur capital expenditure of about P5 billion, of which P3.21 billion is estimated to be incurred for information technology,” Metrobank said. “This amount is not considered material to the bank’s operations.”

Heard through the grapevine

Ayala Land has finally disclosed that it paid P7.32 billion to the Ortigas clan to acquire a 21 percent stake in the Ortigas landholding company.

Booked only last year, Ayala Land has already received a modest P100 million dividend, about 1.36 percent annual return, from the Ortigas operations.

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