THE SHARES IN Famous Brands, which owns Wimpy, Steers and Debonairs among other brands, in late afternoon trade slid nearly 9 percent to R57.38 despite the firm flagging that it had lifted its sales amid a challenging period marked by Covid-19 and the July unrest.
For the 12 months ended February 28, 2022, the group said leading brands' system-wide sales increased by 35.8 percent, while like-for-like sales rose by 33 percent. Signature brands' system-wide sales improved by 55.1 percent, while like-for-like sales increased by 59.3 percent.
System-wide sales refer to sales reported by all restaurants across the network, including new restaurants opened during the year.
Famous Brand said it had been a challenging year with operations impacted by various levels of Covid -19 related restaurant trading restrictions.
Trading conditions had been further exacerbated by widespread civil unrest in July 2021. The unrest had a major impact on certain of its franchisees and for Famous Brands the impact was mainly lost franchise revenue resulting from lost franchisee trading days.
“We continued to respond to these market conditions with resilience, focusing on value propositions, convenience solutions and payment options. In addition, close collaboration and partnership with the franchise network enabled us to take the required corrective action,” Famous Brands said.
The group was continuing with its three-year roadmap and accelerated by the pandemic, its focus for the year was to manage margins, reduce costs, and preserve cash to facilitate balance sheet flexibility.
In Africa and the Middle East (AME) in the context of less stringent trading restrictions, the region continued to improve their results, with system-wide sales increasing by 19.8 percent. .
In its supply chain, which supported the front-end brands division in South Africa, it improved in line with increased restaurant revenue. Compared to the prior corresponding year, manufacturing revenue increased by 30.8 percent, while logistics revenue rose by 35.3 percent.
Famous Brands’ retail division reported revenue increase of 46.9 percent.
Meanwhile, Wimpy UK revenue rose 19.5 percent.
The group's annual results would be published on about May 31.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE