Jollibee Foods Corp. is investing 90 million Singapore dollars in Titan Dining II in a bid to expose the Filipino to even more Chinese culinary experience.
Jollibee chief financial officer Richard Chong Woo Shin said the company invested roughly P3.77 billion in the fund to bring the brands that it owns to the attention of Filipino diners.
According to the Jollibee executive, Chinese cuisine is one category the brand is not in at the moment but could prove interesting in the future, which was why they committed to invest in the fund.
“This doesn’t mean we’ve funded the fund with cash. It’s just that we’ve approved we could participate up to S$90 million should the project have very good return on investment and pass all due diligence tests in the future,” Shin said.
Jollibee on Wednesday said wholly owned subsidiary Jollibee Worldwide Pte. Ltd. has participating interest in Titan Fund II with a capital commitment of S$90 million.
Jollibee earlier bared a five-year plan to triple its income between now through 2028 via brand expansion in four focus areas.
In the fried chicken category, profits will be delivered by the flagship brand Jollibee, burgers by Smashburger, coffee and tea by Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Co. and Chinese cuisine by Tim Ho Wan and Yonghe King.
“We shall stay in these four categories as primary focus. The other part of (Titan) Fund II will continue to fund the Chinese cuisine category. There will be two of those categories,” Shin said.
“Nothing has been identified under Chinese cuisine. There’s no specific brand identified. The other category I mentioned, a specific brand, has been identified but I’d rather wait until we properly disclose which brand that is and which geography we are investing in,” Shin said.
As of end of 2023, the business has 567 stores in China composed mostly of Yonghe King, 60 stores of Beijing-based congee chain Hong Zhuang Yuan and 19 Tim Ho Wan restaurants.
He said the company is now at a point where it can accelerate the growth of Yonghe King.
“The ambition is to quadruple the footprint in five years. So, going from around 400ish stores to quadrupling that in five years time through franchising in three or four and possibly five cities,” Shin said.
“There’s a lot of vendor development to support that as well. We love the brand. And we think, you know, it will continue to grow,” Shin said.
