Hello, everybody. Welcome to Credit Suisse offices. We are very honored to be hosting today Alsea's Investor Day 2022. I'm Vanessa Quiroga, research analyst covering Alsea for Credit Suisse, and I'm very happy to have you all here. I'll give the word now to Salvador Villaseñor, Chief Investor Relations Officer for Alsea.
Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming. It's been a while since we have an in-person event, like a couple years ago. Today we will be having presentations from our Chairman of the Board, Alberto Torrado; Fernando González, our recently appointed Chief Executive Officer; Rafael Contreras, Chief Financial Officer; and Dario Okrent, our Chief Digital Officer as well. I will leave you briefly with a video of the company, introductory video, and afterwards, at the end, we will have a Q&A session as well.
Happiness is a path. It means feeling, caring, creating and growing together. We create happiness every morning we open a restaurant, with every cup of coffee shared, with every breakfast served, with every pizza delivered. Alsea, the leading restaurant operator in Latin America and Europe with globally recognized brands in the following segments, fast food, coffee shops, casual dining, fast casual dining and family dining. We enjoy working on what we do best, operating leading brands that live in the hearts of our consumers and are part of their lifestyles. We are present in eleven countries. Our team of collaborators works to bring to each restaurant the passion and enthusiasm that characterizes Alsea's culture. Committed to operational excellence and making technology our best ally, we focus on creating unique customer experiences under strict quality standards. We believe in corporate social responsibility.
We support society's development and wellbeing to close social, economic and cultural gaps and fight poverty. Happiness is not a destination. It is a path we walk down every day. A task assigned to each Alsea family member to bring happiness and experiences full of flavor.
Well, thank you to be here with us. I'm very happy to present the full-year results of Alsea, 2021. In terms of sales, we achieved close to MXN 16 billion in terms of sales and MXN 5.4 billion higher than the numbers that we had in the full year of 2020. In terms of same-store sales, 10.3% positive same-store sales versus 2019, with some brands that achieve a pretty good same-store sales growth. Like Domino's Pizza in Mexico, close to 30%. Starbucks higher than 30% and Burger King close to 20% same-store sales growth. In other geographies, Burger King Chile with 48%.
Starbucks in Chile also 26%, and in Colombia, Domino's Pizza 45% and Starbucks 60%. We have a pretty good same-store sales growth in all of our geographies and in the QSR brands. We also have a positive EBITDA, four quarters with a positive EBITDA in all of our geographies, with a margin of 25.5%. We achieve higher than MXN 1.1 billion versus the full quarter of 2020. In terms of net income, we have MXN 1.2 billion, 1,270% higher in terms of net income than the full quarter of 2020, and more than MXN 857 million higher than the full quarter of 2020.
With our earnings per share of $0.94 per share. For the whole year, we have also a pretty good 2021 year. Sales were up MXN 14 billion more than the whole 2020 figures. We reach close to 97% if we take out the sales of the stores that we closed in 2020 and 2021. We achieve 97% of sales that we have in 2019. Some of the things that are pretty good also is the share that we have in terms of home delivery with Domino's Pizza, 23.4%, and without Domino's Pizza, close to 10%.
The amount of home delivery sales were MXN 12.5 billion. Also, in terms of for the whole year, in terms of same-store sales, 30% higher than 2020 and almost the same from same-store sales of 2019. Only 3.4% negative from 2019. We have a positive also EBITDA with a margin of 23.1% and MXN 14 billion higher than the one that we had in 2020. We end the year with a pretty good cash position, close to MXN 6.9 billion, even though we acquired 10.5% of Alsea Europe in September with an amount of MXN 1.3 billion.
At the end, we have a pretty good cash position even though we have a CapEx of MXN 2.4 billion. We issue a US bond of $500 million at the end of December with a tenure of five-year non-call two and with a cost of 7.75%. We use these proceeds to pay some bank credits that the maturity was in June 2022. We have a new duration of 3.8 years with this issue of this bond. At the end, the debt structure was 63.6% in Mexican pesos, 36% in euros.
This U.S. bond, we have a hedge to Mexican pesos. The rate of this bond in Mexican pesos was 10.6%. At the end of December, 92% of the credit it's on a long-term credit and 8% short-term, and we have 66% fixed rate and 37% variable rate. Now this, at the end of December, these are the amortization that we're gonna have in the next years. I'm gonna present after the amortization that we are gonna have after the issue of the European bond in January. In 2021, we have a CapEx of MXN 2.4 billion. We open 84 new units.
30 was Starbucks and 37 Domino's Pizza, so we are focused on the more profitable brands to open the new units. The breakdown, we also focus in maintenance during the year, so 40 or close to 43% was maintenance, 30% openings, 20% in other strategic projects, and 6.3% in technology. I'm gonna leave you with Alberto. Alberto, please.
Thank you, Rafael. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. It's an important day, as Rafael was saying, and Salvador, we have not been here with you guys for some time. Obviously, after two years of a very tough situation for the sector and for Alsea due to our leverage after our acquisition in Europe, I have to tell you that I am very happy with the results that Rafael just presented. I think we had an exceptional 2021. As you can see in the numbers, we achieved and we're above most of the goals that we have set in all the P&L and in our balance sheet numbers. I think the team did a great job, and we should be happy for that.
The important part of that is that it set us in a privileged position to take market share and to keep growing the company in the future. As you saw, we've been able to maintain sales. We've been able to maintain our margins, and in some cases, we are better than we were before 2019 in terms of margins. We were also able to fix and to arrange our financial structure. As Rafael said, not only we did the bond last year, but we also were able to do the bond of $300 million this year, and we will present that at the end of the first quarter. I do believe Alsea is set in a great position.
You will see by the presentations from Fernando, Dario, and after Rafael that how we are gonna approach the 2022. I definitely believe that we are back on track, that we are gonna continue growing as we have always done, and that the opportunity in the market is bigger than ever. I'm happy to see how technology has changed the game and how Alsea has been able to adapt in all our geographies to this new convenience of the customer. So as you know, from now on, Fernando will be the CEO of the company. Remember that he has been in the company already eight months. He arrived the company in June. He was working with me together hand by hand for the last six months, well, the six months of the second semester of 2021.
And now, in January and February, he's leading the company, and I'm gonna be the Chairman of the Board, as I have been for some time, making sure that our corporate governance and everything we do is based upon what our board wants and what our Board directs. So thank you for being here, and I'll be here answering any questions after Fernando presentation and the team. Thank you very much.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for your time. It's a pleasure for me to be for the first time in the Alsea Day. As explained, Alberto, my name is Fernando González. I'm working in the company eight months ago, mainly focused on the first semester to understand the business, the team, the strategy in the company. I'm preparing with the rest of the team the strategic plan that today probably we are going to introduce briefly to all of you. Firstly, when we are talking about the strategy, basically we base our strategy in 2022-2026 years in six main axes. The first one is probably it's obvious, we are a retailer. We are a retail company. The base of our business is the people.
To attract and retain the best talent is mandatory for a company that is working intensively in terms of network and intensively in terms of headcount. What we are doing is to try to have a strategic base so that the decision-making is a process close to the business, close to the customers. Of course, based on the meritocracy. We have to recognize the talent opportunities in order to create the best brand and to be one thing that is mandatory for a company, a leadership, as I said, that is the best paying employer in the industry, in our case.
Of course, it is the base to make something that is the origin for our strategic plan, the customer loyalty, the experience for the customers to enjoy and to delight. This experience for the customers in order to do something based on the innovation, based on the efficiency in terms of operation, in order to bring a disruptive value proposition and continuously surprise to our customers. Of course, something that I am sure that today you are going to ask some questions about this, that is to manage the different situations that in terms of worldwide we are going to face. For example, the cost inflation.
In order to manage this probably not controlled by us, the pollution worldwide, it's mandatory to work in advance and to be very dynamic and very efficient in order to prepare our big company in order to answer very fast to the business. Secondly, in third term, sorry, the most important is the innovation and the technology. Our target is to use the innovation and the technology in order to increase our sales, to increase our customer experience, and at the same time, to improve our efficiency every day and to be every day much more productive, much more profitable. Okay? Something that is the base of our business plan is that, of course, growth is not enough. We have to grow in terms of profitable and, of course, consistently.
That means, of course, we are going to introduce to you, to present to you a strategic plan based on the organic growth, based on our space and our current geographies, independently of the alternatives and the possibilities that the market, of course, in five years can offer to us. The most important is based on the development with our main partnerships, our sub-franchisees, our franchisees. We have to develop this growth in terms of organic growth with our partnerships, our suppliers, our franchisees, in order to create much more stronger value proposition to the final customers, that is the customer for all of us. Of course, to create then we are going to have the possibility in a short video to introduce all our ESG targets.
It's not enough to grow. We have a responsibility in front of our people, our customers on the planet where we are, we are living. I'm going to try to summarize very fast because our this growth based on the transparency and the detailed management includes more than 400 KPIs in terms of ESG, in terms of ODS, and the United Nations. The most important for us is to maximize Alsea's values. The Alsea value is not just growth and how we are growing. The generation of cash flow, in this case, cash for the company to face and to improve the asset balance sheet of the company.
That is the main target in our short-term strategic plan for five years. Sorry. In terms of human resources, during the video, you saw our purpose or the new purpose in the company. This purpose much more than one sentence to bring happiness and experience full of flavor represents the strategy of the company. That is based, firstly, in a strong culture based on the customer centricity or the customer centric. That is the base to guarantee the growth and the stability of the company in the future. Based on the people, to attract the best talent and, of course, to create productive teams and that allows us to deliver directly this value proposition to all the customers in every moment of habits consumption that we offer to them. Okay. Sorry.
How we want to do this, finally, much more than that I explained before, is to guarantee to be the best paying employer in the industry. In order to do this, of course, we have till 2023, sorry, 2030, strong targets and goals for the company. The first one, of course, is the fair income in all the geographies for all our colleagues that are working in Alsea in order to create the best environment for working and for jobs for all of us. Of course, base salary competitiveness. We want to be very efficient in order to have the best talent and the best professionals working in Alsea as we are today.
Of course, reduce the turnover, something that in terms of retail is one of the headache for all the retailer companies worldwide, and means that basically, the commitment is not about how we're doing the things. Is everything that we are doing. In order to enlarge this experience, to reduce the turnover, that means that, of course, we are doing the things every day a bit better, and of course, to retain the key talent in the company. Now, when Rafael had the opportunity to introduce to you the big numbers in terms of strategic plan, I try to explain that we base our strategic plan in the organic growth. Why? Mainly due to this slide that I'm going to try to summarize very fast.
In the upper part, you have the number of stores that we have in the core brands, the four main brands in the company, Starbucks, Domino's, Vips, and Burger King. We have today around more than 3,600 stores worldwide in all our geographies, and we have a space. When we're talking about a space, it's possibility of expansions with the current geographies around 64-60% of the total network that we have today. In the below in the total regions, that is the lower part of the chart, we have around 4,300 stores in all our geographies with a total space of more than 2,700 stores in the next five years.
We have the possibility to grow in our current space, in our current definition of the geographies in order to be much more efficient, to create cash flow and the better control of the investment and the better warranty about the cash creation, mainly for the targets and the objectives of the company. When we are talking, I'm going to try to explain very fast some numbers about the four main brands in the company. I'm not going to detail of the action plan, mainly because sometimes you are going to observe some consistency in these plans. Sometimes the plans are relatively similar between the different brands. In the case of Starbucks today, total in our total geographies, more than 1,500 stores.
We are expecting to open between 110-130 stores per year, with a total market holding capacity, total space, total possibility to create a different network, around up to 2,500 stores. Really, we have a big opportunity to be very efficient and very productive in the current space that we have today. Of course, all the expansion plan, we try to compensate in all geographies that we are working today, in Mexico, in South America, and of course, in Europe. Based on something that I explained before, the innovation, the new moments of consumption for all the customers.
We are talking about the drive-thru, we are talking about delivery, we are talking about pick-up, we are talking about take-out, that are different moment of consumption that probably due to the recent crisis or pandemic worldwide, probably is much more clear for all of us. But our expectation is that this is not going to disappear. It's going to remain, probably in different percentage, but it's going to be different attitude and necessities for the customers. And the most important for us is to try to understand what they are expecting from us and to anticipate their necessities and the emotional link between the company, between the different brands, and the expectation from the customers.
And of course, to improve the customer experience in terms of innovation, we are facing the possibility to migrate all our systems in order to guarantee the best experience for the customers in any relation moment that they have with all of us. In terms of Domino's, today we have 1,300 stores. The expectation in our plan is to open between 75-90 stores per year in all the geographies with a total market holding capacity close to 2,000 stores. The targets for Domino's, mainly because it's a company where the participation of the delivery is higher than other kind of brands, is probably much more important, this innovation and this technology transformation, than in other kind of brands. Why?
Because we try to maximize exactly this digital approach with the customers and, of course, to improve something that is probably base or basic, that is the delivery times. In the case of Domino's, we are expecting that you make a request and you receive the pizza, all the complements as soon as is possible in order to guarantee your experience as customers. Of course, to continually work in the new channels, new commercial model in terms of Domino's in all the geographies that we are working as today. In terms of Burger King, today we have 400 units in our geographies and we are expecting to open around 15-20 stores per year.
Probably softer than other brands that we are managing as Starbucks or Domino's, but probably in Burger King, the transformation of this QSR and this fast food in order to adapt and to keep the innovation and based on the efficiency that is historically a base of the model of Burger King with the help of all our franchisor, is much more relevant than in other kinds of geographies. Of course, in terms of market holding capacity, Burger King has big brands worldwide. The market holding capacity is quite big. We are talking just about our perimeter, our superb licenses that we have today. We have a big opportunity to be very disruptive in something that is fast food, that is QSR. Finally, I want to finish with Vips.
Vips is one of our main brands in the company in terms of sales, in terms of profitability. Of course, we are in a business model evolution. In this chart, we are talking about Mexico, of course, but that is much more relevant. Today, we consider that the space and the opportunities in the market is amazing for a formula as Vips. That, of course, we have been focused in the last five months probably before in to try to have an evolution in a commercial model. To be very operational model, to be very delighted model, to warrant this relationship between quality and experience for the customers, and in order to warrant a profitable expansion in the future. That is the main things.
We are finally defining new loyalty programs in order to have a better experience and communication with the customers and to have a differential offer versus all the competitors or any competitors that we have in our market. In terms of supply chain, we try to transmit to you much more our focus on the management of the probable instability that we have today in recent worldwide. That is the cost inflation, the evolution of the commodities, the evolution of the energy cost. The most important for us is to use our volume and our capabilities in order to create and to guarantee for the customers the best relationship or best relation between quality and price.
In order to do this, we are focused in the sourcing of suppliers worldwide, including comparing our sourcing of suppliers in all the geographies where that we are working, to use the volume of purchases and the purchase anticipation to try to work in advance against something that probably is not under our control. That is the worldwide instability. The most important is to improve not just efficiency in terms of operation in our network, including in our supply chain, to guarantee that we are the best logistics operator in terms of the industry, okay?
In order to guarantee that we can face this kind of probable instability that we can have in the future in terms of prices and to trade off that this efficiency helps us to have a differentiation versus the competitors and at the same time to create a better experience for the customers. Now just, we are going to introduce a short video about the ESG targets in the company. After this, I promise that I am going to try to summarize these KPIs that we have in the company and some big numbers in order to make this transformation, this evolution of the ESG is not just a number. It's a way to make every day most profitable our business. Thank you. I have to pass.
Our purpose is to bring happiness and experiences full of flavor, creating a business model that generates value, joining forces to create wellbeing, and rethinking how we live with our planet. Under a corporate governance model that guides our management with clarity and transparency, we adhere to the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations. Throughout our value chain and learning from the sector's best practices, we have created programs to meet the needs of the various stakeholder groups with whom we interact. We select and work with suppliers that comply with our sustainable practices. We operate under strict quality standards in all our restaurants. We create the best teams and contribute to their personal and professional development. We streamline processes and optimize infrastructure to reduce our environmental footprint. We endorse social programs to support communities in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.
To further our commitment, Alsea shares its global, environmental, social, and corporate governance goals to positively impact the world. By 2030, we will increase the number of independent members and women on our board of directors. All of our stores will offer dishes with no artificial colors or flavors. Our consumers will have access to clear information about the nutritional value of our dishes. We will audit our supplier sustainability policies at 100%. Our diverse and inclusive team will have access to training and job growth opportunities. All of our stores will be equipped with green infrastructure. We will recycle, reduce or reuse our waste. We know that if we all participate today, we can preserve a world for tomorrow. At Alsea, we bring happiness and experiences full of flavor.
Thank you very much. In order to try to summarize roughly the target of ESG in Alsea, the most important for the company is that to be the leader in the industry is a big responsibility. We have a responsibility with our colleagues, with the customers, and with the planet. That we define this strategic plan is, of course, a very detailed target of more than 400 KPIs in order to guarantee that we are following the international rules, and of course, that we are doing in a correct way, in a profitable way. I'm not going to try to insist.
Finally, we are working in three axes, as explained in the video, in terms of community, in terms of stakeholders, to guarantee that until 2030, more than 1 million people is going to receive the benefits of our action in our fight against discrimination to fight for the integration in the communities, in the integration in the company, and of course, guarantee that 90% of our workforce is volunteering. That is crucial for us. Our target is to invest to give more than $15 million in these periods to improve the necessities in all the societies where we are working.
Of course, with not just the fair incomes, as we explained, including in terms of corporate governance, the company and the board is working to guarantee exactly everything that we are saying. Something that is important is not just that the 100% of our suppliers has to be audited in order to guarantee that it's not just Alsea, it's on the value chain who is guaranteeing this, who is working in these targets. Of course, not to use an artificial taste and flavor in our products. But the most important, probably the most clear, is to guarantee that we call the balanced. The 100% of our stores has to be sustainable.
Of course, we have a target to reduce around 25% the consumption of energies in the company, 35% the consumption of water and waste, and to guarantee the waste in the company, and of course, the emission of the CO2, in this case, that we call greenhouse gas emission. This is a target that is sustainable, today we are managing worldwide in our geographies in order to guarantee that this is a reality. We are continually working on it to guarantee that we are over the expectation, not just for all of you, including for our targets that is very ambitious.
Now, I would like to leave you with Dario Okrent, our Chief Digital Officer, in order to explain all this innovation transformation plan and this digital transformation plan that we are following in the company. In the previous year, of course, is going to be the base of our efficiency and our operational model. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Fernando. Hi, everyone. Nice to meet you. Okay. Let's do it briefly. Last year was really great for the digital channels. We grew up more than 40% regardless of 2020. That for the digital was a great year because the COVID-19 started. We processed more than 42 million orders. Just to give you a little example, more or less half of these orders were processed in Mexico. The biggest e-commerce players process around 30-32 million orders per year. Some of them deliver these orders, 40% of these orders, in the next day. We process in Mexico more than 20 million orders that we deliver in less than 40 minutes.
What we did in terms of delivery is to stress our network is massive, and we process more than one order per second in the market. We have different digital platforms. Of course, the biggest one is Domino's. The second is Starbucks Rewards. We are building our digital backbone that is called Wow+. It's just in Mexico, but we are going to see that later in the presentation. In the spirit of building our digital transformation backbone based on that. And Wow+ is based on that. We are building more than 16 different digital channels, apps, websites, WhatsApp, marketplaces. We have a great relationship with aggregators that are critical for our business.
During last year and in 2020, we were building our digital capabilities, and we were changing the tires of a car in movement in 2020. We consolidate our digital position in 2021. Now we are the leading digital operator of restaurants in Mexico and in the countries we operate. In Mexico, we are about 12% of digital sales in delivery in Mexico. We are building our capabilities, and we are growing our delivery channels. These are some of our digital KPIs. The only one that is going down is the average ticket, and there is a reason. Because our fastest-growing channels and brands are Domino's, Starbucks, and Burger King that has the lower ticket. That's the reason of the ticket decrease.
In the other indicators, as you can see, you see a consistency growing that is great. Talking about our digital channels, as I was talking before, we have our own channels, Wow+, that is our omni-channel strategy. Why it is very important for us? More than 75% of our business is in the stores. Wow+ is an omni-channel platform that allows customers not only to interact with us in the digital world, order for delivery or takeout, but also when the customer go to a store, do a kind of a check-in, so our operation knows that the customer arrives and knows some data from the customer.
We are building very strong to build our data capabilities to know a lot about our customers and how to interact in a better way with the customer, knowing what they do, what they want, and to predict next best offer and many other things that we are building with Wow+. Also we changed last year, in 2021, our loyalty program. We changed our platform from Oracle to SessionM. That is a company owned by Mastercard. Now with this new technology, we are ready to provide a great experience to our customers with gamification and different capabilities to surprise our customers, and we still delivering a great experience to them.
On the other hand, we have another omni-channel platform right now, that is Starbucks, where the customers not only can interact with the brand in the store, but also, at least in Mexico, they can order for delivery, takeout, and car pickup in the same app. That's great because now we are crossing all the moments of the interactions with the customers, so we can provide them a really omni-channel experience. On Domino's, we also have a WhatsApp channel where we have processing more than 100,000 orders last year in the last three months. We are really happy with these results. The channel is growing very fast.
On the other hand, we have a great relationship with the aggregators, Glovo, Uber, Rappi, DiDi, and all the players in the countries where we operate. We have strong plans with them to develop great experience for the customers, and not only based on the delivery area, but also in the offline business. We are a kind of agnostics in terms of working with aggregators and with our own channels, and in some cases, we are better, like in Domino's, with our own channels, and in others, aggregators are the leaders, so we work with them to provide the best experience for the customer. Our goal is to stay where customers are, and if the customer wants to order through Uber Eats or Glovo, it's fine. What we have to guarantee is to provide the best experience.
We are developing new channels, not only WhatsApp, but others like Microsoft Teams. Imagine that you are in a meeting, you can order from now on your coffee from Starbucks from Microsoft Teams. Okay? What we want is to stay where the customer is interacting with us. We also are working very hard to stay where our future or present customers are, like in the e-games. We are trying to do many different things with companies that are in this, in these fields. Also with Amazon, and in particular with Mercado Libre, trying to develop new channels because the customer now is everywhere, so we have to assure the best experience where customers are watching Prime Video, Netflix, Mercado Libre, and other platforms. They are our customers, so we have to stay there.
To finish, for us, it's vital to think in a glocal way. What is that? To be present in the markets where we operate, but also to think global, acting local. What we are developing our platforms to centralize, on one hand, the development, but on the other hand, to provide the best experience to each different country. Our idea is to have the best platforms possible for each country with the same development. Now we are ending our local model, passing through the glocal strategy, building the global capabilities, and our north star is to build our hub model that I'm sure that it will be great to provide the best experience for our customers, providing us also better improvements in terms of platforms, technology, management, and so on.
To finish, all of that is possible through the data. We are building really strong data capabilities because for us, it's really key to understand our customers, where we are, where they are, what they are doing, and with the data to offer the best experiences. Basically it's what we have right now. We are working really hard to build the Alsea of the future based on data and to be the major player in the digital transformation in the food and food tech environment. Thank you very much. I pass through Rafa again.
Thank you. Thank you, Dario. For the next years, we are focused to increase profitability and returns. Now, as you can see, the return of investment of some of our brands like Domino's and Starbucks and Burger King, if you compare with the 2019 returns, it's almost the same. In casual and family, we lose a lot of profitability in those brands. Our target is to increase returns for the whole company. So that's why in 2022, we're gonna open mostly in Starbucks and Domino's Pizza. Around 75% of our openings will be Starbucks and Domino's, and out of that 75%, 60% will be Starbucks and 40% Domino's Pizza.
Also our target is to increase the returns in our casual and family restaurants, just to be back in the returns that we used to have before the pandemic. We closed the units that were losing money, so we closed between 2020 and 2021, close to 240 units, the ones that were losing money. That also will increase our returns in the company. In January, we decided that Europe was open to issue a European bond. The target was to increase the duration of our credits. In December, we had a duration of 3.8 years.
With this issue of this bond, we increased from 3.8-4.2 years, the duration of our credits. The breakdown, Mexican pesos 62% and euros 37%. Also the long-term credits increased from 92%-98%, and the fixed rate from 66%-80%. If you can see the maturity that we're gonna have in next years, we can pay these amortizations of the credits, and we are gonna do it to deleverage the company. So around MXN 1.6 billion in 2022, MXN 1.7 billion in 2023. Also, we think that with this, the leverage of the company and the increase of EBITDA, we think we can achieve an investment grade.
So we think we can refinance the U.S. bond with a better cost and also to increase the maturity of our credits. I'm gonna give you a guidance for 2022. So, we're gonna open corporate units between 170-200 new units. As I mentioned, 75% of these units is gonna be between Starbucks and Domino's Pizza in all of our geographies. 50-60 sub-franchisees. Also, we think we have a huge opportunity in some of our countries with Domino's Pizza and France with the Starbucks as sub-franchisees. With our capital expenditure of MXN 4.8 billion. I'm gonna give you the breakdown after this slide. Some numbers.
Pre-IFRS 16, EBITDA growth of 25% and with a margin of a little bit higher than 13%, that is 100 basis points better than the one that we had in 2021. Gross debt, we're gonna be able to be in 3.8 times. We are coming from 4.9 times, and we're gonna be in 3.8 times gross debt EBITDA, and with a return of equity between 11%-12%, from 6% to close to 12%. Post-IFRS 16, EBITDA growth of 20%, margin of higher than 23%, gross debt to EBITDA 4 times.
We came from 4.5 times, so we're gonna be lower to 4 times, and also return on equity between 11% to 12%. Revenues growing higher than 20%, and same-store sales versus prior year between 15%-19% same-store sales growth. The breakdown of this MXN 4.8 billion, 45% from Mexico, 37% for Europe, and 17.7% for South America. The breakdown openings and remodeling close to 58%, maintenance 26%, technology 10%, and other strategic projects 5.5%. I'm gonna leave you again with Alberto for some closing remarks.
Thank you, Rafael. Just to finish and before the Q&A, I like this slide because obviously it represent exactly what we are, no? I do believe there is a great opportunity to winning for Alsea, you as the shareholders and the company as a whole and the brands we represent, because we have proved that we have a very resilient business. We have a very good diversified portfolio of brands, of sectors, and our geographic footprint has proved successful, especially in this crisis, as you saw in our numbers of 2021.
That continuous growth, as Fernando said, we are gonna focus on growing our organic growth in the markets where we are with the markets investing primarily in our most profitable brands like Starbucks, Domino's, and other international brands, and growing same-store sales. The opportunity that we see because of the space that the pandemic has created with the competition, I think put Alsea in a very privileged position to do that. As you saw, we're focused in technology. That's why we asked Dario to present to you guys what are we doing, how we are doing.
I think, again, having the opportunity to see the technology of our franchise source globally put us in a position to lead the technology and the convenience opportunity for our consumers. It's gonna be very hard for our competitors locally, especially the small ones, to compete in technology with us. We are important for the aggregators. We are working very closely with them. Even in brands like Domino's, where they represent, in some cases, 10%-12%, we do believe there is an opportunity to continue that trend and we are very well positioned to that. We see a high growth industry where we are in most in all our markets.
We are today, as you saw, with more than thousand stores, in some cases of our franchise, so we're a strategic partner for them. They are very supporting to Alsea's strategy and growth, and we plan to capitalize on that in all the brands that we represent for so many years. Our shared services model has proved more than ever successful with all our geographies. As you saw, we have been able to reduce G&A, we've been able to benchmark the best practices in each brand, in each geography, and have been able to capitalize on those to get better margins throughout our portfolio. Our proven record at Alsea today with more than 30 years, not only the company, but also the team that is running the company, we've been here for 30 years, and we know how to do it.
We've been proving the brand successful in the different crisis. I think that has a lot of value for the future. You know, Alsea is a very corporate governance oriented company. I'm leading the board. As you saw that in the ESG goals, we have a goal to increase the participation of women. We already have two. We have also the goal to increase the independent members of the board. We definitely believe that's something not only that we have to do because ESG, but that's our culture, and we're gonna continue that. In the graph on the right, you can see that the brand or the stock has performed since April 2020 to February 2022 as of today, probably a 205% growth.
Obviously, this chart shows the minimum that we got, but if you see the other, the high history, if we're able to achieve the goals that we have set, I have no doubt that this will be a great investment for our investors, and the returns are gonna be very good. Again, we are open for questions. Thank you for your participation, and thank you for always being very close to us.
Thank you, Alberto, Fernando, Rafa, Dario, for the presentation. My question is about your existing covenants on the remaining debt. Do you have a limitation on still some limit to the CapEx that you can invest? What would be your appetite to issue shares in order to quickly delever and accelerate growth?
Yes. We have some covenants with bank credits and also with the issue of the bonds. Some of the covenants are a minimum liquidity of MXN 2.2 billion. Also, gross leverage for 2022 around 5.8 times, and for 2023, 4.9 times. Yes, we have our restrictions in terms of CapEx. So the amount that we have in terms of restriction, it's close to MXN 4.8 billion for 2022, and almost the same amount for 2023. But if we have a better EBITDA than the one that we have agreed with banks, that happens in 2021. So we can increase the amount of CapEx, no? In 2022, the restriction was MXN 4.6 billion.
We have a better EBITDA result around MXN 170 million, so we could increase to MXN 4.8 billion. I think for 2023, it's gonna be from MXN 4.8 billion- MXN 5 billion.
I can take the next one, if you want, Rafael.
Yes.
First of all, we don't need to do that. We don't need to think about a follow-on right now because, as Rafael said, we do believe that for the plans that we have, not only the CapEx is enough, even with the restriction and the governance of the banks, to open 200-250 stores, including our licensees, which is really the average that we were doing even pre-COVID. Second, as you saw, the debt is completely refinanced. If you saw also, net debt to EBITDA will be less than 3.5 by the end of 2020 if everything keeps looking as it is in January and February.
Also, as Rafael said, we closed the year with more than MXN 6 billion in cash. If you include acquisitions that we did in Europe, it's MXN 7 billion. That's about 20, a little bit more than 20% of our debt. We think we are in very strong position. We are not seeing any inorganic growth. As always, Alsea is open to generate value to our shareholders. If there's any opportunities in the future and we need to issue some shares or do a follow-on for some reasons, we'll definitely evaluate it.
Right now we're gonna focus on same-store growth, we're gonna focus on inorganic, I mean organic growth, and we're gonna focus on closing that 2022 with the net debt to EBITDA that Rafael presented to you less than 3.5x. Hopefully we start 2023 in an obviously better position, no?
I think that the leverage of the company is gonna be pretty fast, because the growth of the EBITDA that we are projecting and also the prepayments or payments that we're gonna made in 2022 and 2023 are the maturity of the credits.
Thank you, Rafa and Alberto, and congrats on the recovery process.
Thank you.
Hello, this is Alan Alanis with Santander. Thank you for hosting the question event. Sorry, I think I'm losing the microphone here. The obligatory question, right, Fernando? Cost inflation, food inflation. We're seeing your suppliers of bread, soft drinks, meat, raising prices in the high single digits, double digits. How much are you gonna pass to the consumer, and how much do you expect that in terms of affecting your elasticity, and what is the risk for your guidance? That would be the first question. The second question would be for Dario regarding technology. How are you using data right now in the present, and how do you think you will be using that data in the future in order to enhance the competitive advantages of Alsea? Thank you.
Perfect. If you want to, I'm going to start with the first question about the cost inflation. As I explained during the presentation, of course, the instability worldwide is a challenge for all of us. It's true that when we're talking about cost inflation in the commodities that we are working is in order exactly to prepare the company for the sourcing of suppliers to the purchasing advance, the management of the evolution in the markets, in order to guarantee that the impact for the customers as lower as is possible. Of course, including we have started to work in 2021.
In 2021, if you can check in our P&L, the evolution of our cost management, COGS of the management of the company, has been very positive, and it's mainly because we are working in advance. Additionally to this, all the working, the targeting the company to improve the efficiency, to improve the productivity in all our added value chains, is the warranty to try to reflect to the customers the lowest increase that was possible in a situation that probably we cannot know perfectly today, you know.
Till now, including January, February, the management of the cost has been very positive, including not increasing the prices in order to guarantee that we are preparing the company in order to improve the customer expectation, the customer satisfaction that we consider that is very important. How it's going to impact in our P&L, finally, something that is we are working in advance, but it's very tough to explain. Why? Because when we are talking about the commodities, finally, an increase in the commodities sometimes is reflected on prices, and this is affecting the ticket, the frequency, because finally the inflation is not just affecting to the consumption or the commodities. It's affecting including to the salaries.
In this way, the target in the company, despite the management of the purchases, is focused on the management of the efficiency because it's the way to guarantee that the customers is going to take advantage of this policy. If you want, you can answer about the technology.
Sure. Regarding the data, for us, data is key to understand the customer journey. We are a multi-brand company, so the customer can start with a coffee at Starbucks in the morning, have a burger for lunch, and then order a pizza for dinner. If we can understand the customer journey and to provide the right product for the right channel at the right time for the customer is key, and data is vital to do that. What we are doing is to build this data layer to do that. We are investing lots of money and effort to understand our customers because, as Fernando said, what we want is to increase the frequency. And to do that, the only way is data.
Just to add it, one thing. When we're talking about the data, we're talking about the front and the back. We're talking about the operational data, the better knowledge about operation in order to improve this productivity, this efficiency that I explained before. At the same time, you remember in one slide that we were talking about the marketing management. Marketing the data allow to you not to offer everything for everybody at simple. It's to try to satisfy your expectation and what you want, what you need, what you are expected from Alsea.
And in order to guarantee that this marketing strategy is a warranty through the data to offer that, every customers that, finally, all of us, we are different, are expecting from all the different consumption or moments of consumption that is not the same during the day. It's not the same for the habits, for experience. And the data is managing not just in order to have the data. It's to put the data at the service of the commercial activities and operational activities.
Thank you.
Hi. Alvaro García, BTG . On the guidance for 2022, I'm curious to see the opportunity for casual dining specifically. Maybe if you could talk about what you're underwriting for growth of your casual dining brands, maybe relative to 2019, to see how much of that 20%+ growth in EBITDA comes from those as opposed to maybe a normalization or some pressure of Starbucks and Domino's.
In the fourth quarter, casual dining were close to the numbers of 2019, except the family that it's Vips in Mexico, no? We are predicting that Vips is gonna be close to 95% at the end of 2022. It's gonna increase from 80 that it's right now, 80% versus 2019, to close to 90%-95%. One of the main things is that we expect that in the second quarter, the corporate offices are gonna be not at 100%, but they are gonna be back, no? Our clients in Vips are mainly this corporate offices open.
Also, of course, our main drivers, because of the openings that we are gonna have, it's gonna be Starbucks and Domino's Pizza, no? As I mentioned, the same-store sales versus 2019 were up, some of them, like Starbucks, more than 30%, and the other ones 25%. In terms of the other geographies, LatAm is performing pretty well also in terms of all of the brands, no? Colombia is performing pretty well. Argentina is not losing money, so it's having a positive EBITDA. Europe also, it's gonna be close to 95% in terms of sales. We are there this first quarter. Yes, casual dining is gonna be better than the first quarter that we had, no?
In the fourth quarter, we are close to the 2019 sales.
In almost all of our brands.
Great. Just one follow-up on Vips. Specifically, I saw you mentioned, I noticed you mentioned sort of Vips Mexico holding capacity, but I didn't see a Vips Europe holding capacity. My understanding is you're a little bit more excited about growth in Europe actually than Mexico. Maybe I'm wrong. If you could talk about the growth opportunity for both and maybe real estate opportunities now for both would be great.
Uh, we-
Do you want me to take it, Fernando?
Yes. Very fast. In order, it's true that the slide that we introduced is mainly Vips Mexico. In terms of investment in our strategic plan, the distribution, Mexico represents a 47% of our sales and we are dedicating the 47% of the investment. So finally it's very compensated, including the potential of our non-Vips and casual dining is very exciting and demanding during 2022. Why? Because probably we'll have more spaces in order to grow and to recover something. And secondly, because the evolution of the model is in all our geographies in the case of Vips. But the possibility of growing is quite similar between the distribution on sales and investment. It's actually well distributed in order to guarantee that the growing in the company is symmetric.
Because we have a big potential of development in all our geographies. It's not just in one geographic. Sorry, Alberto.
Let me complement that if you want, Fernando. Remember that when we acquire Vips in Europe, which is not really Europe, it's Spain. It's a brand that has been in that market for four years or more. It's a very well-positioned brand, very strong in the market of Madrid. Then we're starting to grow corporate and franchise outside of Madrid. So yes, we have still a good market holding capacity to fulfill in Spain.
I do believe that the major growth that you will see in our European market will be with brands like Starbucks, where we have a bigger market holding capacity because the other acquisition that we did in France and Benelux, as well as Domino's in Spain, which the brand is less penetrated as Vips was penetrated. If you ask me, and I'm gonna just think aloud here about, because I don't know the exact numbers, about, I think Vips will be 65% already growth in Spain. We have probably another 35%-40% more to grow.
We are projecting for 2022 openings in Spain, around five, six, new Vips in Europe. In Mexico, until we have the returns that we used to have in 2019, we're gonna start opening new Vips in Mexico. Now, even though we have a market holding capacity opportunity, until we have the returns, we're gonna start opening new Vips in Mexico.
Hi, good morning. This is Antonio Hernández from Barclays. Thanks for the event. Actually, two questions. The first one is, I just wanna make sure that all the losing profitability units are already closed. I mean, you don't have any other closures planned. The next question is regarding the digital strategy. Can you give more light on specifically Wow, on the Wow+, and also on - I think you mentioned gamification. If you can mention a little bit more on that. Thank you.
Yeah. Almost all of our non-profitable stores are closed. We leave some stores that were in some places that weren't open 100%. We leave the opportunity of those stores to see if we can achieve the amount of sales and the profitability that we need. We are talking about 10 stores that we are gonna wait until these stores is still with the demand that we need. Now, like, some schools, some offices, and so on, some places like that. But mainly we closed all the units that were losing money.
Regardless, Wow. Wow is our backbone of the digital transformation. Why? Because what we need is to understand what customer does online and offline.
So first, we migrate our technology and platform to a new one that is really strong. On the other hand, we start with delivery and takeout to have our own aggregator, but with our own loyalty program that is giving back to you 5% of each in money for each order. Now we start the rollout for the offline installation of Wow. What does that mean? The idea of interact with Wow not only for the delivery but also in the restaurant. Now customers can do the check-in, as I told you before. The idea is that the operation knows the customer that arrives, the name, the birthday, and how many points they have i n the future.
Our idea is to provide the operation information on what to offer to the customer as a next best offer based on data. But on the other hand, in the customer side, the customer should choose if the customer want to interact with the waitress face-to-face or with the app. They can order with the app, pay with the app, and have different features. In terms of the gamification, now what we have in Mexico is a kind of badges. I don't know if you are familiar with the badges.
So, for example, if you are a recurring customer of Cheesecake Factory and your badge is your objective is to have 25 visits in the year to have a free meal or something like that, we are experiencing with this kind of badges, and we are doing a kind of evolution of Wow to provide these kind of experiences to the customers. Basically it's what we are doing. It's a multi-brand platform.
Also what we are pushing is a cross-sell in Wow, not with multi-brand right now, but a cross-sell. If you're a customer of Starbucks and we know, and we notice that maybe you will be a customer that could, I don't know, eat a cheesecake, we will offer it to you and the right moment or the right time, the right channel, a cheesecake for you. Basically it's what we are doing for Wow. And again, we are building a strong back end to provide and serve different front ends, not only for Mexico but also for the different countries when every country it will be ready.
One thing that is quite important is that in the company, we trust in the omni-channel. It's not digital or it's not delivery versus on/off. That is the typical language worldwide. That we are thinking is that the customer is the same customers that want the same treatment, the same experience. It doesn't matter if you are ordering at home or you are entering in one of our restaurants. Basically, Wow, that is the transversal system that allow to us to be multi-brands and multi-experience, and the possibility to have a connection with the customers despite that you are just digital or you are as off or just off. This is the way. Finally, all the our relationship in the different brands is through Wow.
In the case of the digital transformation, it's manageable to have 17 or 11 different apps on the telephone. Nobody is going to have this. What we need is exactly this channel that's common for different brands, different consumption moments, different expectations for the customers in the same brand. That same platform that allows us to manage all the experience online and offline.
Yeah. As Fernando said, something that maybe it's common in other industry, but now we have the golden record. We know and we have this traceability of each customer online or offline. That is key for us.
Hi there. Jerónimo Cobián with Northgate Capital. Can you talk about the opportunity to improve margins in the sort of medium term, both as you scale and get bigger and also maybe leverage some of the technology investments? I guess, how do you expect margins to progress over the next sort of three to five years? Thank you.
Okay. We are projecting to improve margins and go back to the 14% pre-IFRS that we had in Alsea. Mainly came from the better performance of the G&A. Also, we are expecting in 2026 to be close to 14.5% pre-IFRS 16. As you saw in 2022, we are gonna be a little bit higher than 13%. We expect to increase to 14.5% to 2026, but mainly from the G&A expenses that we have.
Hi, good morning. Can you comment on the performance of the same-store sales between traffic and ticket? How is it performing, and how is it driven? The profitability difference of the online or delivery operations between the inside operations?
Well, in terms of same-store sales, we have some brands that are positive in the fourth quarter in terms of orders, no? That is Domino's Pizza, Starbucks and Burger King, no? There are some things that are not easy to account, no? Because of the delivery part, no? We have a percentage higher than the one that we used to have. Without Domino's Pizza, it's a little bit higher than 10%. So, the ticket is higher, but the orders are lower, no? Because it's just, for us, it's just one order, but a pretty high ticket, no? In the other brands, the same-store sales growth mainly came from ticket. It's not an increase in prices.
It's an increase also in the number of units that we have in each ticket, no? Right now, this is the thing in 2021. What we are projecting for 2022 is to have positive orders around 1%-2%, no? In terms of orders and not only by ticket, no? This is in terms of same-store sales. It's different in each geography and in each brand, no? It is the average that we expect for 2021 to 2022.
Profitability of the
Yeah. Also profitability because we already have the inside sales in the same amount that in 2019. All the home delivery sales are an increase of sales. Because we increased prices in home delivery close to, on average, close to 15%. With that, we almost mitigate the fee that we have to pay to the aggregators. It's very profitable when the inside sales already cover our fixed expenses. Also, everything without the cost of goods, everything goes to the EBITDA. It's an increase of EBITDA right now that we have with the sales inside the restaurant that covers the fixed expenses.
Just one last question. Can you comment a little bit on the dynamics expected for the different markets in this year? What is like the key thing that the customers are liking the most of the changes you've made since the pandemic? And regardless the pandemic, what is like the key element customers are liking the most of the company that you should remain with for the rest of the days, let's say?
Um-
To Vanessa? Yes. The most important is that I hope finally this pandemic is finishing. All of us, we are hoping. That is true that the habits and expectation for the customers worldwide has changed. Now it's much more demanding. Demanding because the customer request innovation, surprise, a nice shopping experience when experience of the restaurant. We are a restaurant channel. One thing that is important is that there is some changes in the habits from the consumers that we are not expecting that change fully now that we come back to relative normality about e-commerce, for example, delivery worldwide. It's true that the target in our strategic plan is that we don't want to decrease the participation of the delivery after the COVID-19. We want to continually growing.
Another thing is that, as you said, has to be in a healthy growth, a profitable growth. Of course, after this pandemic, we are working actively in the company in the last months in order to prepare to define our value proposition in terms of delivery. But of course, you are expecting to be treated exactly in the same condition because you are a customer of Alsea. It doesn't mean that the experience has to be the same in all the moments of consumption. In terms of delivery, we are working in order to guarantee that this value proposition is much better in terms of packaging, in terms of menu, in terms of temperature, in terms of quality of the products when you receive at home. Okay?
And the most important now for the customers is mainly these surprises. We try to be very dynamic, very innovative in this capability to surprise the customers, to innovate to the customers in order to guarantee the best relation. When we're talking about raising price quarterly, it's not because we are talking about the quarterly, it's because we're talking about this experience that is today much more demanding. After the restriction to the mobility, it's true that the customers are expecting probably all of us to come back to some relative normality. We want to visit our restaurants by presence.
But it's true that now the customers is much more demanding in terms of safety measures inside the restaurants, quality of the service, guarantee the distance, guarantee the flow, of course, that which is mandatory for all of us, but mainly the customer is appreciating so much the moment of consumption. It's not the same at dinner, at birthdays, not the same, a meeting with the friends. This kind of experience, in the different moments of experience that we are offering to the customers, we are multi-brands, and this allow to us to improve the wallet share in front of the customers is now much more crucial.
Mainly this omni-channel relationship is much more crucial because the customers is much more demanding because probably the life forced to all of us to learn about this new situation. The target in the company is very simple. We have to work five minutes in advance than the expectation from the customers or the expectation from the markets in order to guarantee that we have this loyalty with the customers and this interrelationship that is the guarantee for all our strategic plan and the profitability trends in the company.
Yeah. To give you an easy example. A year and a half ago, customers just could order from the digital channels just for Domino's and a little more. Now, the customer has not only Domino's, but also Starbucks in an omni-channel platform, World Class in an omni-channel platform, WhatsApp, websites. We are providing convenience to customers. The customer is, as Fernando say, wherever. So we have to offer the best experience in every channel. We build already these capabilities to provide this experience, and we still grow, working to provide a better experience on and on, working with aggregators, working with other key partners, and with our own capabilities, not only in Mexico, but also in the other 10 countries where we operate.
Also because 90% of our sales is in the restaurant. To have innovation, to have the client with a pretty good experience is also one of our targets. No?
I think we still have some questions from the webinar, so if we can open the line.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yeah. Good.
Hi. Good morning. This is Rodrigo Alcantara from UBS. Thanks for taking my question. I have one for Fernando, one for Dario, and one for Rafa. For Fernando, just curious, your thoughts on this month that you have seen you have been here at Alsea. How you see the Vips brand in Mexico evolving over time? I mean, it's no doubt that Starbucks, Domino's, Burger King have been amazing brands for you guys. On the other hand of the question, we have a volatile type performance at Vips, right?
Just curious, your thoughts on how you see the brand evolving, perhaps like a family dining concept to a fast casual or any sort of that evolution. That would be my question for you, Fernando, and I can ask my other questions to Dario and Rafa then later.
Okay. Thank you very much for your question. Firstly, when I had the opportunity to belong to the Alsea's company, I knew before that it's a big company. It's a leader in the industry. When I had the opportunity to enter in Alsea, firstly, we are very dynamic company. It's a surprise for me. In a multinational company, in an international company as is Alsea, I will have a big opportunity to continually being disruptive and easy-going on the things that we are doing. It's a company quite close to the decision-making in the business, quite close to the restaurant, in order to explain, in order to make much more close to the customers, the decision-making process.
I consider that is one of the main advantages or competitive advantages of the company. That because it's not as normal. Personally, I consider talking about the, you know, Domino's, Starbucks, Burger King, we have a big potential, a great potential, worldwide and of course in Mexico. We are investing so much despite these numbers that is true that in term of expansion, in term of development, we are quite focused in the four brands or main core brands in the company, but with big investment in all the brands that we had it, and including worldwide, and with a number of openings so relevant.
That is true that our target in the short term is to be quite focused in the sales per square meter, in the efficiency, to guarantee that in this casual brands, we are recovering or we are coming back as we are doing as today, to better number than 2019, in order to offer a much more consistent offer to the all the customers. And I consider, and we are working on this, that we have a great opportunity. I'm not thinking that the customers is going to decide one side or the other side of the fence. It's not true. That we want finally all the customers is everything, if it's possible.
In terms of casual brands, we have a deep evolution in terms of commercial model to guarantee that really we can support all the expectation from the customers for different moment of consumption in casual model, between breakfast, all the day parts, lunch, dining, dinner, that allow to all the different brands to have a complement offer that allow to us deal with cost, that finally we are much more profitable. Additionally to this, to be much more efficient in terms of pocket share that we have in front of the consumer.
That's great. I mean, you mentioned a specific strategy there to make restaurants to build smaller restaurants, right? For a case of Vips as an alternative to improve sales per square meter. Just curious, I mean, is there any plan B, you know, should traffic to those corporate locations, you know, never normalize? I mean, what would be a plan B for you, Fernando, for those units that depend on that, on those regions?
Including in these terms, it is true that all of us, we are expecting that finally the restriction to the mobility is going to be finally changed, as is changing today worldwide. There's no difference in Mexico, in Spain, in France, in South America. We are working in all these stores or the relevant number of stores with much more weight of the offices, and convenience to the moment of consumption to develop different alternative for these stores. When I said the alternative, finally the position is the position, but how we are attracting different moment of consumption in these kind of stores, and including working on what we call clusterization of the stores in order to have, for the same brands, the same value proposition, but different-
Adaptation to the expectation of the different customers. It's true that it's finally affecting the restriction of the mobility worldwide. If you see the last numbers in the fourth quarter 2021, it was much more profitable and better, and we find that finally this habit of consumption is helping to the normal or the evolution of the business, and including finally we are seeing a mix of consumer habits for the different stores. This is true. This is logical in all the industries. This is obvious. Including for these stores, despite that, we really believe that certain normality is finally happening, that we are preparing these surfaces, these spaces, in order to complement the value proposition to attract different customers that probably before it was not possible.
That's great. Thank you very much, Fernando. Very quick one for Dario. Just on the digital. I mean, we discuss a lot about knowing the customer. Just curious about the developments here on using data for price architecture, price strategy. I mean, what are the latest developments or how you have used data on this front, Dario?
Yeah, it's a very interesting question because we are working on that right now to provide to the brands with the data and the information, the right product mix for digital channels, but in the future to the other channels. What we are trying to do right now is to understand the customer behavior, collecting data. With this data, we provide this information to build the right menu for each brand to be more profitable and to reach the right customers.
Great. Thanks. Lastly, Rafa, on the EBITDA margin guidance, 23% slightly above pre-pandemic levels, right? Just curious here, the role of delivery sales as an incremental channel, meaning higher operating leverage for you guys. Can you comment on your expectations on delivery penetration for 2022? That would be it. Thank you very much, Fernando, Rafa, and Dario.
Yeah. The percentage of delivery that we are projecting for 2022, it's around 9%. Before this in some quarters it was higher than that, no? We were close to 12, 13%, without Domino's Pizza, no. With Domino's Pizza it was around 25%. We are expecting around 9% participation in terms of home delivery. As I mentioned, when we have already covered the fixed costs or the fixed expenses inside our restaurants, everything of the home delivery it's incremental. The prices of home delivery is higher, in average around 15%. With this increase in prices, we mitigate the fee that we have to pay to the aggregators. We only have the cost of goods.
In some brands we have to pay royalties and advertising. It doesn't hit us in terms of marginality the home delivery participation. I will say that it's the other way, no, it help us.
Just a follow-up, Rafa, on the financial side. You said that you expect to be able to pay down debt on maturity. Is that for 2022 and 2023 or the whole calendar?
Yeah, 23%. 1.6%, 2022 and 1.7% in 2023.
You will refinance.
Yes. Not all. No. Maybe we can also pay around the same amount, about MXN 2 billion. If we can refinance the other part, yes, we would like to. Because it's the bond, the U.S. bond that's a five-year non-call two, we can refinance that bond in two years. And as I mentioned, if we have a deleverage of the company, we can refinance the bond with a better tenor and with a better cost than the one that we have here. We would like to refinance the U.S. bond also.
What level of leverage means investment grade for you?
Lower than three times.
Okay.
In our strategic plan, of course that is not so detailed in the presentation, the cash generation is crucial. Cash generation that compensates the CapEx, of course, and including all the payments that we have to do in order to improve the asset balance sheet. Initially today, including the year-end cash, as explained by Alberto Torrado and Rafael Contreras, in 2021 means that we are cash creator. This cash creation is a way to guarantee the ever-better structure in terms of balance sheets, and at the same time, the possibility to obtain a good ROI on our investments and to guarantee the efficiency of investment.
Thank you.
We have a pretty nice problem, no?
Mm-hmm.
We have almost MXN 7 billion in cash, so we have to decide what to do and what is better in terms of return for the company, no?
Next question comes from.
Hi.
Rodrigo Echegaray.
Thank you. Congratulations on the execution throughout a very challenging time. I guess my question is related to the following. If we assume that the trends on the delivery continue as robust and as strong as we've seen, give or take, and given that with the price increases on the delivery, you have been able to offset some of the fees paid to the aggregators, arguably the return on investment of certain brands like, obviously Domino's, Starbucks, and the brands that travel well could potentially be higher in the coming years versus pre-pandemic, because there is no cannibalization, I guess, on the delivery.
If that's the case, it would seem like the gap in terms of attractiveness of the formats would widen relative to the casual dining formats even though there will be some recovery, of course, in the traffic. I guess my question is: would it make sense in light of these trends, to be perhaps more aggressive with the sub-franchising on the casual dining side, especially on brands like, for example, Vips in Mexico? Thank you.
Okay. About the delivery,
Yeah. Well, yeah,
Sub-franchising.
We have, as we said before, a great relationship with aggregators. The commissions that they charge us are not fantastic, but are good. We also do marketplace with brands with Domino's and other brands. We are happy on that. Let me clarify. Delivery is just one side of the digital. The other is the in-store. For us, the key is the understanding of the customer with the data. We see one customer online and offline, and our goal is how to increase frequency among the different channels, among different platforms.
For this reason, what we are building is the capabilities, for example, as I told you before, in Starbucks, where the customer now can interact with us not only for the delivery, takeout or curb pickup, but also in the store. Basically it's the reason to increase our capabilities and Wow+ it's key in our digital transformation.
Okay. About your question about sub-franchise. Finally, the sub-franchise for us is operational model, you know. It's not a commercial model. But in terms of operational model, we trust on this formula. We consider we have big opportunities in the market, big opportunities for the better management, of course, adapted to the possibilities and making a consistent formula that has to be a benefit for all of us, in this case, our partnerships, sub-franchisees, and of course the company in terms of where, how, in which condition is much better to operate with a formula, with a, with another.
That is true, that we are including intensive plans inside the company, not just because today in the expansion plan is included this expansion in formats of sub-franchise in Starbucks, including Starbucks in Europe, obviously, in Mexico, in LatAm. But despite this, what we believe is that we'll have to go faster and most aggressively in order to combine the corporate stores with a sub-franchise model in the cases that was much more profitable for both parties. Okay. It really is already included in the strategic plan. Additionally to the strategic plan, we are working in the company to achieve this plan, including to surpass this plan and to accelerate the growth, when it was possible and when finally was a sustainable formula forever.
The franchisee has to win money, earn money. We have to earn money.
Thank you. I guess maybe just a conceptual question on the delivery side. Would it be fair to say that the return on investment of certain brands that travel well, where the delivery is high, could potentially have higher returns post-pandemic than pre-pandemic given the delivery trends we're seeing? Is that a fair assessment?
Really, it could be. And again, before the COVID-19, we didn't have delivery. Now we are building these capabilities and we are building our own profitability in this channel. We hope so. We are betting on doing that, partnering with the aggregators, with our and also in our own channels and with other channels that we are developing right now in other verticals.
Yes, I would say that if I may, as I mentioned, if inside the restaurant we achieve the sales that we need to.
To cover the fixed cost. For example, P.F. Chang's is one of the brands that delivery it's pretty high. It's close to 30% in P.F. Chang's because of the product. The product delivers better. Yes, I will say that it must increase the margins because of the home delivery, you know? Because we cover the fixed cost. We increase the price for the product for home delivery that mitigates the fee from the aggregators, and everything goes directly to the EBITDA. Yes, I will say yes.
Thank you.
Just thanks for the follow-up. On aggregators in Europe, in Spain specifically, there was regulation passed on sort of labor restrictions or labor requirements. Impact to your brands this year and going forward, and what sort of risks do you foresee on that front? Thank you.
The challenges happens on and on, and we have to adapt our business to these challenges. We again work with them, and we are looking for options to grow the channel. In the meantime, as regulations are more challenging, and not only in Europe, and in other geographies too. So, yes, we see the channel growing even with the new regulations.
Thank you. Next question comes from Ulises Argote.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the space for questions here. This is Ulises Argote from JP Morgan. Thanks for all the details that you have shared today. Obviously, very helpful. So I have two quick ones. One is actually a follow-up there on home delivery. But I was trying to get a sense here of what is actually like a sustainable level, maybe on the long term that you see for that 9%, Rafael, that you mentioned in home delivery for 2022. Maybe how that trend looks like in a couple of years' time. And the other one is maybe how much higher can penetration go with the system and the structure that you guys currently have in place?
The other one is kind of related to the KPIs on the digital side and the relevance of data that you have obviously mentioned. So any details that you can share here on how many of the current transactions are actually being identified and how much are actually feeding that information flow through your data lake? Thanks, guys.
Rafael, if you want to.
Our target is to maintain this 9% in the coming years. That's why we are doing this digital platforms or omni-channel platforms, no? Because with the Wow+, the percentage of participation in home delivery is still pretty low if you compare with the aggregators. We think we can achieve this 9% participation of home delivery in the coming years, no? It's one of our targets also, no? Because people habits change. When you decided not to go out to eat in our restaurants, we have to be there, no? We have to have our products in everywhere they. We want that they can find us everywhere.
Oye, Rafael, can I make a comment if you don't mind? This is Alberto. I really like the question that you... Somebody has mentioned these questions a couple of times about if the brands can be more profitable because of this new convenience, customer experience that we discovered in the pandemic. Well, first of all, I think we knew that convenience because we've been in Domino's 30 years, which is a delivery business, so we know the business well. Second, we also know the business well of sub-franchising because we have done that in Domino's for 30 years again. I do believe there is a huge opportunity now more than ever to capitalize on two things, our experience to sub-franchise and sublicense some of the brands that we have.
As you probably know, we've been able to sublicense now Starbucks in France. That's the way we bought that company early 2019. The opportunity is there. We plan to grow with that. Second, there's no doubt that we can capitalize in this new convenience delivery because omni-channel, as Dario said. If we maintain or we recuperate the volumes pre-COVID in our restaurants, plus the 10, 15, 20 or 30% in term, in the case of P.F. Chang's of delivery, and we are able to maintain that, which I think we will for two reasons. First, I think the customer is there for that convenience. We have the technology to be the leaders in the market, and we are working, and the aggregators are working to decrease the timing of delivery for those products.
I do believe that we're gonna face a business where we're gonna be delivering products in 15 minutes, so that convenience is gonna be hard to win by other players. My personal opinion also is that in the case of a Starbucks, for example, that we have to be able to maintain both the experience in the store and that effectiveness in the delivery. We have to balance that
To both. If we do both at the same time, which I think we can, because remember, the difference from the U.S., the volume in our stores is still a lot for the in-store experience and to dine in. I think the opportunity is huge. We're trying to capitalize that. For example, in Starbucks, I think we should aim to be more than 10% delivery in the future, but maintain the orders at the store level and the experience in that store.
Yeah. I think the opportunity is great.
As Alberto and Rafa said, we see one customer online and offline, and what we are doing right now also is to acquire digital customers. Digital means that have our digital platform, not that are buying on our digital platform. They are interacting with us in the digital platform, through the digital platforms. In the restaurant with Wow+, in Starbucks with the Starbucks apps. Understanding the customer, we can drive this traffic online or offline to increase sales, to increase margins, and so on.
I just had a very simple question. My name is Robert Ford. I'm at Bank of America. What do you expect 5% to buy you in terms of the penetration rate of Wow+?
Pardon?
The penetration of Wow. You know, with the 5% back in terms of the value that you're returning to the consumer, where do you think that gets you in terms of the penetration rate of your overall business, both on and offline?
What we see on the cashback, the 5%, is a matter of loyalty with the customer to move the customer to do a next action with us. So giving this money back is a kind of reward for the customer to interact with us. What we expect is to have with the customer our next best action. And what the customer looks is to spend money in Burger King with the families. They accumulate this 5%, and then six months or four months later, they have a Starbucks coffee for free. What we want is to increase loyalty. Wow is a matter of aspirational on the other hand, with these kind of customers.
And to finish, what we expect this year is to increase our customer base, not to have 2 million like right now, but to have around 6 million by the end of this year, acquiring customers to be more loyal with us.
Dario, when you look at the best-in-class penetration rate
This year is around 20%. We are far away right now, but we expect to have by the end of this year 20% of penetration or at least in Wow+.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from Jeronimo De Guzman.
Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
We can.
Okay, good. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe I could start with just the market holding capacity input that you gave. Could you give a little more color on how you get to these figures? Kinda what factors do you use?
Okay. About market holding capacity.
Sure.
It's true that we make a summary. Of course, this is an internal exercise in order to understand the capability that we have in each geography, in different geography to make expansion over the current format of the stores, over the current commercial model in the stores. It is something that is alive because it's continuously growing. Growing why? Because finally you are defining new commercial models and you're defining the geography and the population inside the different perimeters are changing. Of course, making with this that we try is that much more than of course will be a pleasure to define how we are doing and continuously updating all this model. This is not a problem. It is a definition for us about the capabilities. In terms of presentation, about the total capabilities, total space, free space that we have yet in the geographies.
In terms of development, we are using to define exactly what we want and where we want, is including street by street or address or city by city. So it's really an operational exercise and tool in order to do as much more efficient the investment and expansion within the potential of this market holding capacity. And today, including the market holding capability we have by geography, finally in the slide, is relatively summarized in order to give a total number. That something that is much more important is that it's alive. We are changing every year. Finally. Normally, the big numbers are not changing. One thing compensates for the other. It's true that, if you want, of course, we have freedom in the...
We are absolutely available in order to try to give much more definition about this in the future, much more than in the shorter presentation.
Just to clarify, you're doing this kind of more bottom up, like more street by street and then kind of aggregating, or are you doing kind of top-down metrics?
Yes. Basically, in terms of market holding capacity, there is two ways. One is the total. How many stores in order to fit the population in a geography. The other, including the development tools that we are using based on statistics and econometrics, finally we can define it exactly, which is the potential in every point through geomarketing software that all the retailers were using. Finally allow to us to define exactly what we want and where we want. We combine this, that is technology, with the expertise from our operational team. Really we are trying to think, for example, in the case of Domino's, thinking in the catchment area in order to optimize exactly the shadow areas in this catchment area that we can deliver for every new or existing Domino's.
Finally, something that we're using normally in other companies. I promise that this is quite common for us to work like this everywhere. Including is something that is updating due to this, because finally the population by region is changing, the sectors are changing. Secondly, including the operational model, biggest space, shorter space, probably clusterization space in other different commercial model for different brands allow to us to increase, to enlarge, or to adapt the market holding capacity.
Okay.
Thanks.
Makes sense. Thanks. Just another question, just kind of jumping around. I saw on the returns that you have for the different restaurants or different banners. I thought it was interesting that Burger King kind of the sales to investments were up there with Domino's and Starbucks, but the ROI isn't. Just wanted to understand. I mean, I assume then that's margins, but what does it take to kind of get that ROI higher?
In Mexico, the margins are lower. That's why we have this return on investment lower than in other geographies. In Chile, the returns are pretty high. In Chile, the returns are higher than 30%, and that's why we are opening more Burger Kings in Chile than we are opening in Mexico. No, mainly margins in Mexico and some of the things that we are changing, no? That we change in Argentina, and we are also changing in Mexico are the promotions, no? We have some promotions that were very or they took us a lot of margins, no? Because we were almost giving free some of the products. We took it in Argentina.
We have less orders, but we have a better marginality. No? We are doing the same thing in Mexico, trying to have a better margins than orders, no? Because we have a promotion that we're very, very cheap. No?
Including something that is quite important in terms of Mexico, we are working with the franchisor, with Burger King, International Burger King, in order to create a differentiation in the value proposition versus the other players. In order to make it in a profitable way, including in the last quarter, the profitability of our business in Mexico has improved so much, exponentially. Thanks to the work of the team, the focus on the customers and the value proposition. Including during this year, we are working on the digital offer.
In terms of efficiency, looking at the efficiency for a value proposition as is common that is of course in our case, Burger King, that all of us do know very well, in order to guarantee the efficiency and the best offer and experience and digital transformation to guarantee this innovation that we always had in the channel.
Yeah. Also, in that number, Argentina hit us a lot, no? Because of the inflation that we have there and all the restatement that we have to do in terms of the assets that we have there.
Thank you.
Okay.
We have one more question from Sergio Matsumoto.
Yes. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes. Thank you.
Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks for the question. I have a question on the multi-brand strategy. We heard a few times about focusing on these large brands, Starbucks, Domino's, BK and Vips. Just wondering more on like a broad strategy, if there are synergies in working the peripheral brands. Or do you see any opportunities to optimize the brand portfolio? If you were to focus on these large brands, then would entering a new franchise territory of these existing brands a possibility? Let's say that debt covenants weren't an issue, like would that be a possibility in the medium term?
Can I go?
Yes. Yeah.
Thank you for the question. First of all, I think that, actually, the last time we were here in the roadshow day, we mentioned that we have too many brands, that our portfolio has become a little complicated, especially after the acquisition in Europe of Grupo Vips.
As you've seen, we're starting to get out of the brands that will not get to critical mass in Alsea as a total, but also in Alsea as a local market. There's no doubt, and especially now after the pandemic, that we should focus on the more resilient brand, on the bigger brands, and yes, use these brands in other geographies if we can. We have achieved our goals in France only one year in 2019, but obviously had to stop the growth in 2020 and 2021. What I would...
What you will see in Alsea, and I'm sure you will see less brands, and we use kind of a measure internally, which is, when we do our financial projections, and we have brands that will not reach at least 4% of our generation or EBITDA in the future, we really question the participation of those brands in our portfolio. Now, that's at Alsea level. If you see that brand at a local level, it might be that, for example, let me say Archie's in Colombia, it's 20 or 25 or 30% of that EBITDA. We will clean the portfolio.
We will focus in the more resilient and high profitable brands, but we will also take into consideration, for that cleanup, what is a critical mass in the market, in its own market, but globally as Alsea. When we have to open 200 stores per year or 250 stores per year, we have to focus. That's exactly what we are doing. We started doing that in 2019. We sold brands like wagamama, we sold brands like...[Non-English content ].
P.F. Chang's.
Italianni's. We sold P.F. Chang's in Argentina. We closed now P.F. Chang's in Colombia, et cetera. We're cleaning the portfolio as we speak and focusing on development of, you know, organic growth.
25% of the total units we are gonna open in the not these three or four core brands. You know, around 50 new units we are gonna open in the more profitable brands in that casual family portfolio.
It's important what Rafael said. I mean, we have some very profitable brands in some markets, but we question the size of those brands. We have to see both the unit business model and the profitability of it, but also the critical mass that it can achieve to take the decision.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you. You just mentioned France, Alberto. Just one quick comment on the Starbucks in France. What makes it today the right moment to expand the store network? You know, we see a successful rollout in Spain. You know, I guess France, you know, it has that potential too. You may have already had this goal, you know, back in 2019, but what is the opportunity for Starbucks in France?
Thank you. You know, as I said, we only operated fully in France for a year in 2019. What we discovered in that 2019, and even in 2020 and 2021, that the brand is very powerful in the market, that our licensees there, our two licensees are making money, and if we operate the brand correctly, the returns are there. Therefore, our ambition is to keep growing the brand. We have to be very cautious of how we grow the brand through sub-licensees, through corporate stores, not making mistakes in locations, not making mistakes in rents. If you see today our unit economics of that market, we are getting very good returns.
Not only that, Starbucks in Spain, for example, was the most, after Domino's of course, was the most resilient brand through the crisis. My opinion, and this is a personal opinion, I do believe that the bet that Alsea made in France and Benelux with the Starbucks brand is very, very big. I foresee a thousand-store market in France. Why not? When you see what other brands are being able to achieve in that geography, time will tell. I don't want to promise anything, but things are looking good. We're facing more problems in the Netherlands, for example, no? Because the government has been more strict about restrictions, et cetera.
In France, which is the biggest market that we have in Europe, we are very, very positive about it.
Thank you for taking all these follow-ups. I wanted to get back to your slide on returns at the store level and get more details, if possible, on how you are calculating the number. I mean, give us some context on what are the targets for the different brands, with which levels you are not very happy or represent, you know, a threat for those brands that are at the lower levels and what are your targets at that consolidated level in terms of returns?
We have an investment committee in each geography. No? The lowest return on investment, that is the EBITDA, the adjusted EBITDA, versus the investment that we are doing, the lowest is 25%. No? Right now that we see a lot of opportunities in some of our brands, we are achieving a 33% return of investments. No? Lower than 25%, I will say that we don't like it. No? In Europe, because the cost of money, it's lower, can be maybe 23%, the lowest in terms of return of investment. Lower than that, we don't feel comfortable to start opening new units.
Well, can I make a comment here? I was talking to Fernando about this chart yesterday and with Rafael through the presentation. I think this is very interesting because if you see how far we are in some of the brands to our 2019 ROI or annual sales to investment the gap is quite big. If you see our results of 2021 we were able to get to the numbers even with this disruption. We were very efficient in running the company. If we can maintain which we are generally in theory maintain our efficiencies and make these sales increase where. Because obviously the left is the one that feeds the right it is for obvious reasons.
Exactly that is what is happening. Every quarter that we advance, the sales per unit per brand is growing to the levels of 2019. If you also include the delivery, which was the question that has been mentioned a couple of times, the ROIC per store that we expect should be increasing. Not because I say so, because if you see the numbers of 2021, you can see that that happened even with these numbers, because this is a full year. If we see this in the last quarter, obviously numbers will change.
In terms of ROIC at the consolidated level, do you have a target?
Well, the return on equity was around 11%-12%, and the ROIC will be around 13%-14%.
Michael Kahan, North Peak Capital. Could you guys give just a color on the same-store sales guidance? It was obviously a very robust number. Relative to 2019, how you're gonna keep driving it, how it is such a high level, maybe.
It's versus 2020. The same-store sales in guidance, this 15%-19% is versus 2021. It's versus 2021. That's why you see a 15%-19%. If we can see the same-store sales versus common year will be around 6%.
I thought you guys were, like, maybe 3% below, 21 versus 19, so 15% more than that is a lot more than 6%?
15%-19% is versus 2021. We were in the fourth quarter, we were up 10% versus 2019. Versus 2019 will be around 8%, something like that.
One thing in the strategic plan is that always, as our same-store sales has to be positive and up to the inflation in the perimeter. Because if not, you are deteriorating. We are losing profitability. Okay.
Yeah. It depends on Argentina. Without Argentina, it's around 6%. With Argentina, it depends, it can be 8%-9% same-store sales. A normal year.
Thank you.
I think there's no more questions. Thank you very much for attending.
Thank you very much to you for your time and your availability.
Thank you, everybody. Take care, and thank you for being always with us.