Shakey’s Pizza Asia Venture Inc., the county’s leading full service pizza chain owned by the Po family, is expanding overseas.
SPAVI president and chief executive Vicente Gregorio said during an investors’ briefing ahead of its planned initial public offering the company signed on Thursday a franchise agreement with Kuwaiti partners, involving the opening of 10 Shakey’s stores in Kuwait over the next seven years.
Gregorio said the first store in Kuwait was expected to open in the first half of 2017.
Gregorio said aside from Kuwait, the company received many inquiries about the possibility of bringing Shakey’s to other international markets.
SPAVI owns perpetual rights to the Shakey’s brand in the Philippines, the Middle East, Asia (excluding Japan and Malaysia), China, Australia and Oceania.
SPAVI chairman Christoper Po said the company would be opportunistic on its international expansion. “We just signed today first international franchise and we don’t want to make commitment at this point,” Po said.
“We will be opportunistic for each of the markets because we need to find the right partner. If we don’t find the right partner then we don’t want to rush it,” Po said.
Gregorio said the company was also focused on building more stores in the country. SPAVI expected to have 204 stores by end-2017 and plans to build 10 to 12 stores annually to sustain its growth momentum.
Shakey’s plans to raise up to P3.96 billion from the sale of 351.9 million common shares at P11.26 per share.