- The Spur group's revenue declined by 40.2% to R314.2 million for the six months to end December, while it's earnings per share decreased by 74.6% to 31.96 cents.
- New CEO Val Nichas said third party delivery services like Mr D Food and Uber Eats helped drive customer support during the pandemic.
- Take-away sales more than doubled over the previous year and now account for 27% of total restaurant sales
Despite Spur's take-away sales more than doubling during the pandemic, against the previous year, the franchise restaurant group saw a collapse in earnings, along with an over 40% drop in revenue in the back half of 2020
Spur's revenue declined by 40.2% to R314.2 million for the six months to end December. It's total franchised restaurant sales across its local and international operations decreased by 29.5% to R2.9 billion with South African franchised restaurant sales declining by 31.0% for the period. International franchised restaurant sales, for the same period, decreased by 17.3%.
The Spur group also owns RoccoMamas, Panarottis, John Dory's and The Husser Grill.
Earnings per share decreased by 74.6% to 31.96 cents.
"While the business traded under restrictions throughout the six-month period and generated lower revenue, the group did not need to access external funding and remains in an ungeared position," it said in a statement.
In South Africa, 17 restaurants were opened and 18 closed, while internationally seven restaurants were opened and four closed during the period.
Newly appointed CEO Val Nichas said online ordering systems and the ongoing partnerships with third party delivery services like Mr D Food and Uber Eats helped drive customer support during the pandemic.
"Take-away sales more than doubled over the previous year and now account for 27% of total restaurant sales, with take-away sales in RocoMamas comprising 53% of the brand’s sales. We grew our sales with Mr D by 72% and Uber Eats by 41% for the six months."
The group said new management aims to adopt a strategic direction which will steer the business towards a common purpose. The main drivers to expand the current brand experiences are transformation and innovation.
"Evidence of this innovation is the planned extensions to trading formats, with the introduction of a RocoMamas drive-thru, Spur drive-thru-clip-on, a Bento drive-thru click & collect and a speciality restaurant extension. Seven of the virtual kitchen (VK) brands, launched during lockdown and which have been trialled since May 2020, will move into the next phase of testing," the group said.
The board determined it appropriate to defer the payment of the interim 2020 dividend until future cash flows can be predicted with a greater confidence level and will reassess the financial circumstances of the group ahead of the publication of its results for the year ending 30 June 2021, which are expected to be released in September 2021