KUALA LUMPUR – Berjaya Food Berhad (BFood), the local franchise owner of popular premium coffee chain Starbucks, suffered a lower revenue of RM182.55 million for its second quarter, which ended on December 31 last year.
This is a stark drop in comparison to its revenue of RM295.32 million for the same quarter of the previous year.
The company attributed this decrease in revenue primarily to an ongoing boycott linked to the Middle East conflict, impacting consumer sentiment.
The group’s pre-tax loss for the current quarter amounted to RM39.81 million, mainly driven by lower sales and a one-off loss arising from the disposal of the group’s entire equity interests in Jollibean Foods Pte Ltd (JFPL). This contrasts with a pre-tax profit of RM52.06 million in the same quarter of the previous year.
For the six-month period ended December 31, 2023, the group reported a revenue of RM461.09 million and a pre-tax loss of RM11.49 million, reflecting a decline from the RM578.37 million in revenue and RM102.09 million pre-tax profit recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The company emphasised that the boycott had a significant impact on both revenue and pre-tax loss figures.
Excluding the one-off loss of RM10.5 million from the disposal of the group’s entire equity interests in JFPL, the adjusted pre-tax loss would have been RM0.98 million, a substantial decrease compared to the pre-tax profit of RM102.09 million in the previous year’s corresponding period.
Amid the challenges, the company’s board has decided not to recommend any dividends for the current quarter under review. However, the company remains optimistic about its future prospects.
“The directors are of the opinion that the operating performance of the group will show improvement in the remaining quarters of the financial year ending June 30, 2024.
“Furthermore, the Board of Directors believes that the operating performance will rebound and regain momentum, viewing the current situation as short-term and anticipating positive progress going forward.”
In contrast, BFood only experienced a slight dip in revenue to RM278.53 million in its first quarter ended September 30, 2023, compared to RM283.05 in revenue for the corresponding period in the previous year.
The drop was attributed to lower sales recorded by Kenny Rogers Roasters’ operations in Malaysia.
During this time, BFood similarly said Berjaya Starbucks was expected to return to a positive revenue growth momentum, after “challenging market conditions brought about by the recent conflict in the Middle East are back to normality”. – February 21, 2024