LISTED fast food operator Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) said the planned initial public offering (IPO) of its Vietnamese coffee brand Highlands Coffee remains under consideration.
“The numeric says it can go IPO, but we don’t want to just go IPO for the sake of IPO,” JFC Chief Financial Officer Richard Shin said in a virtual briefing last week when asked about Highlands Coffee’s listing plans.
However, Mr. Shin said JFC is not planning to pursue an IPO for Highlands Coffee as a standalone entity. JFC holds a 60% stake in the SuperFoods Group, which owns and operates the Highlands Coffee chain.
“Highlands Coffee going IPO, for example, in Vietnam as a standalone company is not something that we believe is the best way to take this forward,” he said.
“When we take this to a capital market opportunity to create value for shareholders, we want to be very thoughtful and think about the best way we can move forward,” he added.
Mr. Shin said Highlands Coffee, which operates nearly 900 stores, is “extremely profitable” following macroeconomic headwinds in Vietnam, although he did not disclose specific figures.
He also said JFC is not currently looking to acquire other coffee chains in the Philippines. Its other coffee ventures include The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) and South Korea’s Compose Coffee.
“We’ve now been seeing growth again for Highlands Coffee. We continue to build new stores, and we continue to believe in the brand,” he said.
In 2023, Mr. Shin said Highlands Coffee could be listed separately on the stock market.
However, he emphasized that the IPO would only proceed at the appropriate valuation and timing that would benefit shareholders.
In 2016, JFC, through its subsidiary JSF Investments Pte. Ltd., partnered with Viet Thai International Joint Stock Co. with the aim of listing SuperFoods on the Vietnam Stock Exchange by 2019. The listing did not push through following JFC’s $350-million acquisition of CBTL that same year.
JFC reported an 8.1% year-on-year decline in attributable net income to P2.41 billion in the first quarter, weighed down by higher non-operating expenses. Systemwide sales rose by 18.9% to P103.2 billion.
As of end-March, JFC operated 9,935 stores globally — 3,393 in the Philippines and 6,542 overseas.
Its international network includes 560 stores in China, 361 in North America, 393 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 865 under Highlands Coffee, 1,246 under CBTL, 340 under Milksha, 2,700 under Compose Coffee, and 77 under Tim Ho Wan. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
