Listed in 2009 on the Bursa Stock Exchange, Berjaya Food Berhad is almost synonymous with Starbucks in Malaysia. As at June 2020, it owns 316 Starbucks stores in the country. It also operates Kenny Rogers Roasters in Malaysia, Starbucks in Brunei, and Jollibean in both Singapore and Malaysia.
The food and beverage retail business bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers visited shopping malls and dined in less. This also translated to reduced footfall to the company’s restaurants.
Here are six things I learned from the 2020 Berjaya Food AGM.
1. Revenue decreased by 19.8% to RM632.9 million and the company posted a net loss in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In FY2020, only Starbucks retail stores in Malaysia recorded profits after tax while all of Berjaya Food’s other businesses slipped into the red.
The company’s retail business had to rely only on deliveries and takeaways for sales for more than a month as dine-in was prohibited during the Movement Control Order period in...