Rosinter Restaurants, one of the leading casual dining chains in Russia, has reported a 35% increase in revenue for the first nine months of 2008, but said that profit fell as a result of expansion costs.
The company said that revenue rose to $254.7m (£145.7m), driven by a 26.3% jump in like-for-like sales.
Net profit, however, dropped to $1.3m during the first half of 2008 from $4.1m the previous year as the group rolled out rapidly, with expansion-related costs soaring to $9.3m from $1.3m in 2007.
Lori Daytner, chief executive, said: “In 2008, we stepped up the pace of our development and are now confident of delivering an impressive 38.8% y-o-y growth in our casual
dining business by year's end.
“Although this development temporarily reduced our margins for H1 2008, and is expected to have a similar effect on our full 2008 results, it makes us and our team feel we are able to achieve sustainable, fast, multi-market growth, and it highlights clear areas for fine-tuning our development processes and optimizing the impact of our fast growth in our top and bottom lines.”
Rosinter, which currently has 296 restaurants in nine countries, has opened 64 outlets this year compared with 28 site openings during the same period in 2007, with a total of 90 planned by the year-end.
The company said that it was confident of future growth as it expected a limited impact from the current financial uncertainty on Russian consumers.
The group said that it had however chosen to pass on various medium-sized transactions as it considered the market to be overheated and was instead focusing on developing outside of Moscow and in new locations.
Rosinter operates restaurants in Russia, the CIS and Central Europe under the Rostick’s KFC, Il Patio, Planet Sushi, American Bar & Grill, TGI Fridays and 1-2-3 Café brands.
Tony Hughes, the former managing director of Mitchells & Butlers’ pub-restaurant division, has recently been appointed to the board of Rosinter as non-executive director.
