Local franchise holder for TGI Fridays, TechnaX which owns and operates the popular American F&B chain under its Craveat International subsidiary has announced plans to expand into China by acquiring the license operator for Beijing.
TechnaX will acquire Chaswood Restaurant Management (Beijing) Co Ltd., which has the rights to operate and market restaurant brand TGI Fridays in Beijing, China as its plans to operate the business there as well. Having taken over the business from the licensee in 2019, the group has ambitions to use its digital know how to further grow the brick-and-mortar business model. The Beijing acquisition will put TechnaX in total ownership of two TGI Fridays outlets currently in operation in Beijing as well as expanding its Teh Tarik Place brand in China.
Datuk Jared Lim, the Executive Director of TechnaX said “This will be our first step towards our F&B business expansion into China not just with TGI Fridays but also our Teh Tarik Place franchise model. With the development of the various technologies and analytics to support the growth of our technologically driven F&B model, we are right on track to achieve our business goal to expand our reach into new markets such as China.”
TGI Friday has seen better days with sales weakening in the past years, however with TechnaX a digital company behind the franchise, things could look promising the latest news is surely welcomed by investors. For TechnaX the acquisition serves as a platform for the company to introduce Malaysian favouite Teh Tarik brand into the robust market. China’s fast-growing economy, in particular the F&B market is projected to record revenues of US$152m in 2020 and is expected to show an annual growth rate of 9.9%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$244m by 2025. To take advantage of this growing market potential, TechnaX plans to open new outlets in China, three new TGI Fridays outlets while in Malaysia and 10 new restaurants in the Klang Valley, Penang, Johor and Sabah.
