16 Apr 2019

Flat full year profit for Restaurant Brands

11:20 am on 16 April 2019

Restaurant Brands has reported a flat profit, despite growth in the sale of fast food chicken and taco brands.

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Photo: 123rf.com

The fast food operator with business in New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and the South Pacific made a full year net profit of $35.7 million in the year to February, up 0.8 percent on the year earlier.

It said the company's three key businesses performed strongly with Taco Bell Hawaii increasing same store sales by 5.1 percent, KFC New Zealand up 4.3 percent and KFC Australia up 4.7 percent.

Underlying after-tax net profit rose more than 3 percent to a record $42.2m.

Total revenue rose nearly 8 percent to $824.9m, including sales of $794m.

During the year Restaurant Brands purchased the rights to the Taco Bell brand in New Zealand and Australia's New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory.

It expected to open the region's first Taco Bell stores this year.

The company said the franchise of its Pizza Hut New Zealand stores saw sales rise 0.2 percent, but dropped 14 percent at the company-owned stores, driving total underlying profit down 37.5 percent.

Carl's Junior New Zealand continued to struggle with an 8.8 percent drop in sales and a 52.9 percent drop in underlying profit.

Restaurant Brands sold its Starbucks Coffee business last October, which also reported at 35.7 percent drop in underlying profit.

Mexico-based Finaccess Capital recently completed the purchase of 75 percent of the company for about $1.2 billion.