Romania's Sphera Franchise opens new Pizza Hut, KFC restaurants

Sphera Franchise Group [BSE:SFG], the manager of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands in Romania, said on Wednesday it has opened two new restaurants.

Located in Bucharest's Militari shopping center, the new Pizza Hut restaurant is the group's 20th delivery unit of that brand in Romania, Sphera Franchise said in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, on Wednesday.

The group's new KFC restaurant of the Drive Thru type was opened in Calarasi, southern Romania, within Catex commercial center. It is the 93rd KFC restaurant in Romania.

Sphera Franchise Group currently operates 170 restaurants: 93 KFC restaurants in Romania, two in Moldova and 20 in Italy, as well as 42 Pizza Hut restaurants and 13 Taco Bell restaurants located in Romania. Out of 42 Pizza Hut restaurants, 21 locations are dine-in, 20 are Pizza Hut Delivery and one is Pizza Hut Express.

The company turned a net profit of 28 million lei ($6.5 million/5.7 million euro) in the nine months through September 2021, compared to a 4.7 million lei net loss in the same period of 2020. In the first nine months of 2021, the group's restaurants registered operating profit of 70.8 million lei, double compared to same period of 2020, the group said in November.

Sphera's shares traded 1.73% higher at 17.6 lei as at 1502 CET on Wednesday on the BVB.

(1 euro=4.9447 lei)