Giggling Squid, the fast-growing Thai restaurant brand, is ramping up its expansion to roll out three more sites this financial year and anticipates turnover of £8.75m, M&C Report has learnt.
Andrew Laurillard, who heads up the group, told M&C he anticipates the turnover for the financial year to the end of March 2015 will be almost double the £4.5m turnover of the previous year, and will end the year with a run rate of £12.7m.
“The turnover should be double what we did last year irrespective of whether we reach our openings target because we had a concentration of openings towards the end of last financial year which had little impact on the previous year’s total,” he said.
The tenth Giggling Squid is due to open in Sevenoaks next month and Laurillard said there are a “further four sites with lawyers at the moment and eight other offers on the table.”
The new sites will be in the Giggling Squid’s target geographical area of Bristol and east, and Birmingham and south but not including central London.
“The model is to open seven further sites in the following financial year. We have been opening five a year and now we will step it up to seven or eight,” he said.
The growth is funded by continuous reinvestment in the restaurants and what Laurillard described as a very good relationship with HSBC.
Earlier this year, Laurillard said that the group was being approached almost daily regarding new investment, but was two to three years away from looking to take on outside investment.
Giggling Squid has ambitions to become the first national chain of Thai restaurants with plans to operate an 80-strong estate across the UK within the next seven years.
