Business

Saturday September 15, 2012

Ekuinas to acquire Burger King Singapore


PETALING JAYA: Government-linked private equity fund manager Ekuiti Nasional Bhd (Ekuinas) is undertaking a RM78.2mil follow-on investment in Rancak Selera Sdn Bhd to help the company expand its existing network to Singapore.

Rancak Selera operates 32 Burger King outlets in Malaysia. Ekuinas had invested RM68.2mil for a 74.1% stake in the company last September.

Ekuinas senior management said in a joint press release with Burger King Worldwide that the follow-on investment would enable Rancak Selera to acquire Burger King Singapore Pte Ltd, which has 41 outlets in the city-state.

According to them, the funds would mostly be allocated to aggressively expand the Burger King brand's presence and operations in the country. Besides the acquisition of Burger King Singapore, Burger King Worldwide and Rancak Selera would enter into master franchise and development agreements for the right to develop and franchise outlets in Malaysia and Singapore for 20 years.

Ekuinas chairman Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda said the investment was consistent with the fund manager's mandate to help its portfolio companies to grow regionally and in line with the Government's aspiration for more local companies to expand internationally.

He added that the investment also provided further impetus to the fund manager's strategy to establish a larger and diversified food and beverage group with a strong regional presence which together have a combined revenue of more than RM350mil in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Ekuinas chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Rahman Ahmad said in the same release that the Singaporean food and beverage market, estimated at RM22.6bil, was comparable to the whole of Malaysia.

“Out of this, the quick service restaurants segment is estimated to represent 18% of this market and has been growing at 7.7% between the years 2006 to 2010,” he said.

The follow-on investment in Rancak Selera would be the fund manager's third for 2012, after the investments in Tanjung Kapal Services Sdn Bhd and Unitar Capital Sdn Bhd, the owner and operator of University of Management and Technology announced earlier.

This latest investment brings the number of Ekuinas' direct investments to 11 deals amounting to more than RM1.2bil.

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