Prestige Holdings takes Pizza Hut to Panama

PRESTIGE HOLDINGS Ltd (PHL) has been approved to expand the popular Pizza Hut franchise to Panama.

The food and beverage company announced the approval on the TT Stock Exchange’s (TTSE) website on September 2.

In the media release on the TTSE’s website, PHL said it has agreed to “the development and operation of outlets within the specified development area of Panama, in accordance with the agreed terms and conditions.”

Prestige Holdings CEO Simon Hardy told Newsday that expansion of its brands is not something new to the company. He described the move as a “good strategy.”

“We opened the TGI Fridays in Kingston, Jamaica, over 20 years ago and we recently opened Starbucks in Guyana about two years ago.

“We have 136 restaurants, about 133 currently in Trinidad, so we are hyper concentrated in Trinidad at the moment and it's always good to diversify so we're not solely reliant on one country's economy for our success.

“With the difficulties recently, the last few years, with foreign exchange, we want to be able to operate in markets where we can have access to foreign exchange to help balance our books,” he added.

The announcement comes as Agostini Ltd, owners of Superpharm, Presto and Mpharmacy, offers to acquire PHL through a share-swap offer.

In June, Agostini announced through a media release that it has offered PHL an acquisition deal which would trade one Agostini share for every 4.8 PHL shares held.

In August, Agostini extended the closing date for its offer to 4 pm on September 9 in a media release in the TTSE. Agostini said in the release that the extension was to allow further time for shareholders of the company to participate and to give PHL more time to get approval for the merger application made to the TT Fair Trading Commission.

This was the second extension since the offer was made. The offer was originally set to close on July 20.