Restaurant Brands International Inc., parent company to Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes, announced ambitious growth targets during its first investor day meeting Wednesday, saying it planned to increase its footprint from about 26,000 restaurants to more than 40,000 restaurants globally over the next eight to 10 years.
"This will make Restaurant Brands International one of the largest restaurant companies in the world," the company stated in a release. McDonald's Corp., a close competitor, currently has about 38,000 locations in more than 100 countries around the world.
RBI has been focusing on growth over the past few years. From 2010 to today the restaurant base grew from about 12,000 to nearly 26,000 units, the company said. And systemwide sales grew from about $15 billion to over $32 billion in the same time period.
“We still believe we have a ton of room to grow in our home market, particularly when you look at our density relative to our biggest competitor,” Christopher Finazzo, President of Burger King America, said during the presentation. “We opened more than 200 restaurants during 2018, which puts us as one of the brands with the most openings among a broad set of our competitors. As important as the quantity of these openings is the quality, with the vast majority of these new restaurants being freestanding with annual sales performing above the system average.”
Over the next two years the company expects to close 200-250 Burger King units.
"RBI is fundamentally a growth company, with three amazing, iconic brands that we believe have a very long runway for growth — both at home and around the world," Jose Cil, CEO of RBI, said in a statement.
"We have a proven history of generating very strong returns for our shareholders and today we are excited to share more insight than we ever have before to support our belief that all three brands have substantial growth ahead."
The company said it the right industry segments, saying the quick-service markets for coffee, burgers and chicken are to grow 5% to 6% per year for the next five years.
May 16, 2019: This article has been updated with comments that Christopher Finazzo, President of Burger King America, made during the investor day call.
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