Manila: The diversified brand portfolio of publicly-listed Shakey's Pizza Asia Ventures, Inc. (SPAVI) is expected to help sustain the company's growth amid current economic headwinds, continuing a strategy that has supported its performance in previous challenging periods. This was stressed by SPAVI President and Chief Executive Officer Vicente Gregorio during the company's online annual stockholders meeting on Wednesday.
According to Philippines News Agency, in 2025, the company, which operates pizza chain Shakey's Pizza, the Potato Corner, and Peri-Peri Chicken, among others, registered a 14 percent annual sales growth to PHP24.8 billion, but also posted a one percent same-store sales expansion. Net income dropped by 32 percent to PHP816 million, but expansion costs rose, attributed to the focus on investing in new stores for long-term expansion.
For this year, a major challenge is the impact of the Middle East crisis on the domestic economy and consumers' purchasing power, Gregorio said. 'Again, like I mentioned earlier, we have a good portfolio design that captures the best of both worlds. When tougher times come, we have our lower-priced brand pulling the weight and carrying the load. But these things won't last. We expect a rebound. And we believe that Shakey's and the rest of the brands come into play,' he said.
As part of the measures to ensure profitability this year, Gregorio said they continue to look for ways to 'take stock and take advantage of the challenges and the tough times to streamline and be more efficient.' Thus, he said there will be some rationalization in their store network, and there will be a review of their organization to lower expenses.
Gregorio said their customers will remain their priority because 'the last thing we want to happen is consumers perceiving that our value perception is totally weakened.' 'We want to go back to the fundamentals. We want to make sure we provide quality products and services despite the challenges. We give them more reasons to come back,' he said.
Gregorio said they also bid to lock in prices and hedge against foreign exchange to cushion the impact of elevated inflation, as well as improve their operations. 'And lastly, in very fluid, unpredictable times, we have to conserve cash.We want to make sure we try to conserve cash and make sure any further expansion will go to a very tight screening. And we want to make sure we do it more strictly and conservatively so that the cash can be utilized more properly,' he added.
