To expand franchises of Pizza Hut, KFC, Costa Coffee, Disney Artist—and Pepsi
NEW DELHI: Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Costa Coffee and Pepsi —-all have one thing in common in India.
And that’s Ravi Jaipuria, who owns the master franchisee rights for all of them except Pepsi. For the US beverage giant, he is the largest bottler in India and neighbouring countries. Jaipuria is now lining up massive expansion plans for these brands.
First up, he will offload up to 10% equity stake in Devyani International, the company that holds the rights for all the above brands, besides Disney Artist, the store that sells Disney merchandise.
This equity dilution plus some internal accruals will fund Jaipuria’s ambitious Rs 450 crore expansion plans, which would take the total outlets under Devyani from 100 to 750 by 2013.
Jaipuria told DNA Money he is already in talks with venture capitalists to fund the expansion.
By 2013, there will be 205 (from the current 65) Pizza Hut outlets across the east and north markets in India, 300 (40) Costa Coffee joints, 37 (7) KFC outlets and 215 (20) of Disney Artist.
“Through this expansion, Devyani International’s topline should grow tenfold, from Rs 150 crore to Rs 1,500 crore within the next five years.”
On the Pepsi front, Jaipuria has just bought a controlling stake in Pepsi’ Guwahati bottling plant and this acquisition has opened up the entire North-East market for Jaipuria’s beverage business.
While he declined to reveal the financials of the deal, Jaipuria said that through two group companies —- Varun Beverages and Devyani Beverages —- he currently does Pepsi bottling across Goa, parts of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and even Nepal.
Jaipuria has also been responsible for bringing the French ice-cream brand, Creambell, into India. Having recently acquired 100% of the ice-cream venture, Jaipuria is planning to take this brand too pan-India.
“We are setting up the second ice-cream plant at Pune which will double the installed capacity to 30 million litres soon,” he said.
b_sindhu@dnaindia.net
