Shakey’s acquires Peri-Peri Chicken

MANILA, Philippines — Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc., the listed restaurant operator of the Po family, has acquired Peri-Peri Charcoal Chicken (Peri), an emerging fast casual and full service restaurant brand in the Philippines.

Shakey’s chairman Christopher Po said the company plans to make Peri another growth driver.

“Our deep insights into how to best serve the typical fast casual restaurant guest should allow us to further grow the Peri brand. This is in addition to leveraging our team’s execution capabilities, which remain best-in-class, and our restaurant operating systems, which have also continued to improve over the last few years,” Po said.

Under the agreement signed yesterday, Shakey’s will purchase assets and intellectual property relating to the Peri business, including its brand, trade name, and the various proprietary recipes used by the chain to make its trademark Peri-peri chicken.

The deal is expected to close mid-year, upon fulfilment of conditions precedent customary to this kind of transaction, Shakey’s said in a disclosure yesterday.

Shakey’s president and CEO Vicente Gregorio said the brand has a strong following.

“Peri’s founder has done a great job bringing this creative concept to life – blending in a local Philippine twist with piri-piri’s Portuguese origins. The brand now has a strong following and recently gained even more traction – evident in its strong same store sales growth last year amidst the more challenging macro environment, and the amount of interest in new stores from potential lessors and franchisees,” he said.

At present, Peri has a store network of 23 units in various parts of Metro Manila, approximately 60 percent of which are franchised and 40 percent are company-owned. It was founded by businessman Bryan Tiu of the iFoods Group Inc.

Shakey’s has a nationwide store count of 228 as of the end of 2018. It expects to end the year with 248 Shakey’s outlets locally.

The company currently has three outlets internationally, building a Middle East presence where strong sales continue to be supported by a large overseas Filipino base.