Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), a Taiwanese-owned food manufacturer with a broad production base in China, said on Saturday it was considering taking its restaurant and logistics business public as a primary listing in Taiwan in 2014.
Wei Ying-heng (魏應行), head of the restaurant and logistics business division of Ting Qiao Holdings (頂巧控股), said the division has become profitable since 2003, while its accumulated losses have been zero this year.
The division currently operates the Dicos (德克士) fast food restaurant chain, which specializes in fried chicken, and Master Kong Chef’s Table (康師傅私房牛肉麵), which offers beef noodles, in the China market.
In addition, the division runs the FamilyMart convenience store chain in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Suzhou.
With the division’s bottom line improving, Wei said, it has set a goal to launch a stock market listing in three years and the Taiwanese stock market is its preferred choice.
Ting Hsin is gearing up to -expand its restaurant business in China and plans to make it one of the two pillars of the group, the other being food and beverage manufacturing.
The Hong Kong-listed Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp (康師傅控股), the food manufacturing arm of Ting Hsin, issued Taiwan depositary receipts on the Taiwan Stock Exchange at the end of 2009.
Tingyi’s “Master Kong” is ranked as the largest instant noodle brand in China.
Wei forecast that the revenue of the restaurant and logistics business would expand to 73.5 billion yuan (US$11.52 billion) in 2020 from 10 billion yuan estimated for this year, and the number of outlets will grow to 14,000 in 2020 from about 2,180 this year.
Ting Hsin opened the first Dicos store in Chengdu in 1996 and after 15 years of expansion, the fast food chain has set up a foothold in 382 Chinese cities and become the third-largest Western fast food brand in China after McDonald’s and KFC.
The first Master Kong Chef’s Table store opened in Beijing in 2006 and has since expanded to 32 Chinese cities with 124 outlets.
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