Pancake House forms overseas business unit

Restaurant group Pancake House Inc. has approved the creation of a new wholly-owned unit to handle its expansion overseas.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Pancake House said the new subsidiary will be named Pancake House International Inc. The company, however, did not give other details on its expansion plans abroad.

Pancake House earlier said it received various offers of franchise partnerships from Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and China.

At the same time, Pancake’s board approved the declaration of cash dividends amounting to P9.43 million or five centavos per share to shareholders of record as of April 15.

The cash dividends, to be taken out of the company’s retained earnings as of December last year, are payable on or before April 30.

Aside from this, the board approved the availment of a P150 million loan from Metrobank, with First Metro Investment Corp. as its arranger. The new loan has a lower and fixed interest rate and a balloon principal payment at the end of its three-year term.

The loan will be used to retire the existing P150 million term loan with Metrobank and for general corporate requirements.

It shall be secured by a pledge over Pancake House’s shares in restaurant and grill chain Dencio’s Foods Specialists Inc. (DFSI) and a chattel mortgage by DFSI over all of its assets.

In addition, the company’s board approved the listing of an additional 49.2 million common shares to cover the conversion into equity of five-year notes issued in 2005 to Aureos Southeast Asia Fund LLC and Planters Bank Venture Capital Corp for SMEs.

The shares to be listed represent about 20.7 percent of the enlarged capital of Pancake House. The conversion price is P4.56 per share.

The Pancake House group expects its net profit and revenues to double in 2006 on the back of continued improved performance of its Teriyaki Boy and Pancake House units and the turnaround of Dencios.

Net profit was forecast to grow to P45 million from only P27 million in 2005. Revenue was likewise expected to increase to P1.45 billion from P797 million while system-wide sales were seen to rise 24 percent to P1.78 billion from P1.44 billion.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), on the other hand, was forecast to grow 78 percent to P198 million from P112 million.