Jollibee to spend $120M for 3 restos in China

Jollibee Food Corp., the country's largest quick service restaurant operator, is planning a more aggressive expansion in China which will involve investments worth at most $120 million, company officials said Thursday. The company currently owns the Yonghe King brand of restaurants in China. Jollibee CEO Tony Tan-Caktiong told reporters that the firm is eyeing the acquisition of three more restaurant brands in the world's most populated country. The official said the firm is willing to spend at most $40 million for each brand. The acquisitions are planned for the next two to three years. "In the Philippines, we have five brands. China has a bigger population so we have to have at least three more," he said. Aside from Yonghe King and the Jollibee chain of fast food restaurants, Jollibee Foods also operates Greenwich, Chowking, Delifrance and Red Ribbon. Tan-Caktiong said they plan to apply the same strategy it has in China to India, the second-most populated country in the world. "Anything beyond that, we have to look at carefully because we want something we can digest," Tan-Caktiong said. Jollibee is also upping the ante of its expansion elsewhere in the world. The firm announced that it is set to open its first Jollibee store in Indonesia, where it already has 5 Chowking stores in operation. It is also planning to open a store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia by the end of the year. The company earlier said that it will spend some P2.1 billion this year for capital expenditures. - Cheryl Arcibal, GMANews.TV