Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Q3 FY24 earnings conference call of Barbeque Nation Hospitality Limited, hosted by Ambit Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Viraj Sanghvi from Ambit Capital. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Q3 FY24 earnings conference call of Barbeque Nation Hospitality Limited. From the management, we have with us Mr. Kayum Dhanani, Managing Director, Mr. Rahul Agrawal, CEO and Whole Time Director, Mr. Amit Betala, CFO, and Mr. Bijay Sharma, Head of Investor Relations. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made in today's conference call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. Kindly refer to the earnings presentation for a detailed disclaimer. I will now hand over the conference to Mr. Kayum Dhanani. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. A very good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I take the pleasure in welcoming you to Q3 FY24 conference call of Barbeque Nation. The demand environment continues to be challenging, and we expect a slow and gradual recovery in the near term. However, our strategic focus on portfolio rationalization, strong execution, and multiple cost initiatives have helped us in delivering strong operating performance during the quarter. During Q3 FY24, we recorded a revenue of INR 331 crore, which is 1% growth on year-on-year basis and a 10% growth on sequential basis. It should be noted that the performance was achieved with relatively similar store count as last year. Our dine-in business, with revenue of INR 283 crore, remained flat compared to the same period last year and grew by 10% sequentially.
Delivery business accounted for revenues of INR 47 crore, with a year-on-year growth of 5% and sequential growth of 8%. Our focused efforts on margin expansion have delivered good results. During the quarter, our reported EBITDA margins were 20.5%, and adjusted EBITDA margins were 11.4%. The margins were at six-quarter high. During the quarter, we opened two new Barbeque Nation Indian restaurants and consolidated six Salt restaurants into our network and closed four restaurants. As a result, our total network stood at 216 restaurants with 106 Barbeque Nation India, 16 Toscano, eight Barbeque Nations in international, and six Salt. We have already started building pipeline to drive network expansion. We target to open 25-30 new restaurants in FY 2025. The network growth would be broad-based across brands.
Our Toscano, International Business recorded strong revenue growth, and both the businesses continue to report very strong operating margins. During the quarter, we also completed the consolidation of Salt, which is consolidated in our results from November 2023 onwards. This business also performed well and recorded year-on-year revenue growth. The integration of the business is on track, and we are focusing on strengthening teams for the business. We continue to focus on enhancing guest experience through initiatives such as culinary festivals, special menu activities, guest engagement initiatives, and restaurant upgrades. These initiatives are anticipated to enhance overall guest experience and drive footfalls. While the overall demand scenario continues to be weak, the trend of improvement in SSFG and operating margins in our business is very encouraging. We remain committed to further drive growth through SSFG and store expansions and maintain our operating margins.
Our medium to long-term growth forecast remains intact. Any favorable shift in the demand trend will further support our journey. Thank you.
Should we open the question?
Over to you, Rahul.
Thank you, Kayum. Good evening, everyone. During the quarter, we delivered a revenue of INR 331 crore, a growth of 0.8% on YoY basis and 9.7% sequentially. On YoY basis, the revenue growth was relatively flattish due to slower new store expansion, network rationalization, and relative same-store sales growth. Our dine-in revenues for the quarter were flat at INR 283 crore and grew sequentially by 10%. Due to seasonal shifts this year, October month was impacted with higher share of vegetarian days. Our dine-in revenue growth was over 3% year-on-year for November and December 2023. Our delivery business grew by 5.2% on year-on-year basis and 8.4% sequentially. The growth in delivery segment was predominantly led by increased penetration of our biryani brand, Dum Safar.
Our SSG for the quarter was -4.9%, of which the majority of decline was attributable to October month due to higher rainy days. Excluding October, the SSG was -2.2% in November and December 2023. We have been observing gradual improvement in SSG on month-on-month basis. We anticipate the trend to continue and SSG numbers to be relatively further better next quarter. During the quarter, mature restaurant portfolio delivered annualized revenue per outlet of INR 6.6 crore, with restaurant operating margin of 18.5%. While the mature portfolio has experienced some SSG decline, we have been able to maintain the restaurant operating margins. New restaurant portfolio reported annualized revenue per outlet of INR 5.1 crore, with restaurant operating margins of 10.6%.
This improvement is on account of increase in average aging of the portfolio. Gross margins for the quarter improved by 117 basis points on year-on-year basis and 192 basis points sequentially. Around 80 basis points improvement in gross margins during the quarter is due to reclassification adjustments, and balance improvement is primarily led by lower food costs per cover and better realization in beverages. Just to clarify, the reclassification adjustment is between gross margin and food cost and employee cost. There is no impact on the data because of this reclassification. Consolidated reported EBITDA for the quarter was INR 68 crore, an increase of 7.6% on year-on-year basis and over 40% on sequential basis. The reported EBITDA margin for the quarter was 20.5%.
Our pre-IndAS adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was INR 38 crore, with a margin of 11.4%. Pre-IndAS adjusted EBITDA also increased by 7.8% on year-over-year basis and nearly doubled compared to previous quarter. The improvement in margins was largely led by improvement in gross margin, impact of portfolio rationalization, cost initiatives, and operating leverage that we registered in this quarter. During the quarter, we generated operating cash of INR 37 crore, which is around 11% of operating revenues, and we continue to have strong operating profit to cash conversion. International business also continued strong performance with year-over-year revenue growth of 24% and strong operating margins. During the quarter, we have added two new, during the year, we have added two new restaurants in the portfolio.
Our focus would be to enhance capacity utilization of the newly opened restaurants and ensure they reach out their optimal levels faster. The performance of Toscano remains strong, with year-on-year revenue growth of 23% in quarter three FY 2024, and strong operating margins. During the year, we have already added two new stores in the portfolio. In our Toscano business, the focus would be expansion led growth, coupled with maintaining same-store sales growth. Salt was consolidated for two months during the quarter. Integration of Salt with Barbeque Nation and Toscano is progressing well. Our restaurant network as of December 31st, 2023 stood at 216 restaurants. During the quarter, we opened two new Barbeque Nation restaurants in India, consolidated six Salt restaurants, and closed four restaurants. Our network expansion efforts are also well on track.
Currently, we have five restaurants under construction and have an advanced pipeline of 10 under -discussion sites. These restaurants are expected to come in operations in H1 of FY 2025. We plan to add 25-30 new restaurants in FY 2025 and expect this expansion to be broad-based across Barbeque Nation, Toscano, and Salt. Going ahead, we remain cautiously optimistic that various initiatives undertaken by us, coupled with renewed focus on network expansion, will further enhance our operating performance. Thank you. With this, we can open the session for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have a first question from the line of Vishal Gutka from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Congrats on a nice show despite muted SSG growth. I have two questions. First thing is on the gross margin front. Could you highlight how sustainable the gains are? What led to this kind of gains of around approximately 120 basis points and the YoY? I think something you told on reclassification. Apart from that reclassification, any other thing is that driving this gains? Second thing is on the restaurant operating margin related to new stores. When I see one through FY 2024 number, and for new store you had done a revenue of around INR 52 million. At that point of time, you reported a restaurant operating margin of 4.3% for new stores. This time around, you're on similar kind of revenue, but restaurant operating margin has shot up to 10.6%.
Can you please explain what is driving this kind of improvement despite sales remaining the same?
Sure. Thanks, Vishal. So first, on the gross margin, as you said, we have 120 basis points improvement on YoY basis, out of which 80 basis points has come from reclassification and 40 basis points has been the structural improvement in the business. Let me explain the 80 basis points first. As per our new auditors who have joined us, we have food costs for our employee meals in the outlets, and that amount was earlier parked in the food costs for the overall business, and now that amount is classified into employee costs. So that 80 basis points is one-time improvement, or a recurring improvement, which will continue.
On the 40 basis point, the improvement has been driven by lower food costs per cover, which again, also is sustainable. And, there's been better realization on our beverages. There are some offers that we used to run on beverages, which, once we removed those offers, we haven't seen any impact on those beverage sales, and has positively contributed to our gross margin. I think both of these efforts will continue and, you know, the lower levels of gross margin that you saw in quarter one and quarter two, I don't expect that to be repeated in, say, quarter four and going forward. That's one. The other question on restaurant operating margin.
Yes, in quarter one, there was a INR 65.2 crore of average revenue from new stores. Just similar in quarter three, but the margin profile is different. There are two reasons for that. One is a clear improvement in the gross margin. If you look at our gross margin, this is the lowest in quarter one of this financial year, wherein in quarter three, these are among the highest. So, barring the reclassification adjustment, there is approximately 2%, 2.5% improvement in gross margin between quarter one and quarter three. Secondly, in quarter one, whatever restaurants were closed and, you know, some of the losses that were incurred during the time of closure, they're all categorized under the new restaurant portfolio.
So mature restaurants are the one which has, which has margins of more than, which have been operating for more than two years, and everything else was classified under new restaurants. As we have been as we have done through our reclassification portfolio readjustment, most of these costs related to the closed outlets have gone and led to improvement in our overall numbers.
Great. Great, thank you so much. Wishing you all the best for future quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Vishal.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we'd like to remind participants to press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Harshil Shethia from LadderUp Wealth. Please go ahead.
Sir, what kind of cost initiatives are we taking, you know, to deliver such kind of gross and EBITDA margins?
So, like I said, on the gross margin side, the food cost per cover has reduced. There has been, you know, packaging cost reductions that have happened, which has led to improvement in the gross margin. Further on the other cost initiatives, there has been rationalization on employee costs. In some places, rents have been relieved at, and other small initiatives have been taken to guide this profitability.
If you can just give us some examples, you know, to understand the same.
So, like I said, on the beverage side, we were operating at an overall company level gross margins of around 55%. That number has itself gone up to around 65%, and beverage contribution in the business is approximately 7%. So 0.7% margin expansion has also come from that side. So and this is, these two numbers are comparing between sequential quarters.
Okay.
This is just an example. Like that, there are many others that have been undertaken.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Harshil.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press Star and One on your phone now. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I just wanted to understand the math of your SSSG versus margins going ahead. So see, what has happened is that over the last couple of years, the revenue per restaurant has fallen, and at the same time, there is normal inflation in all the costs below EBITDA. So what is the interplay of this? Like, if you have going forward, if you have a 5% SSSG, does that bring you back to a normalized annual margin of, let's say, 13%-14% on the full company level, new and old stores put together?
Or do you think that that is not possible because the equation of revenue per store decline and cost per store increase over 2 years compounded will mean that you need two to three years of SSSG to be strong to come back to that kind of 13%-14% margin at an overall company level? What are your thoughts on this?
So, thanks, Percy, for your question. So overall, if you look at the current quarter, at a portfolio level, including the new and old restaurants, we had an average annualized revenue of INR 6.2 crore and delivered around 16.7% restaurant operating margins, right? With a negative SSG of 5%. I think without this negative SSG of 5%, the operating leverage story is fully intact. Just to say, the revenue numbers are higher by 5%. Out of this 5%, at least 2.5% will flow down to your bottom line, right? And we've seen that. So if you look at the current quarter, the month of December generally is one of the best months for us.
Specifically in the month of December, we have seen restaurant operating margins upwards of 20%, right? October month was one of the bad months because of high number of rain days, and we have seen operating leverage play and it's been lower. Overall, on the entire quarter basis, we are around 10%-11.5%, and I think it's just about high sales. A 10% higher sales from this, at least 4%-5% will further flow down to our margins. Just to also mention on the margin improvement, like I said, there are four attributes of margin improvement. First one is improvement in gross margin.
Second is the impact of portfolio rationalization, which means that some of the closed store margins are obviously dragging, and some of the new stores that now added to the mature portfolio, they are performing better than other closed stores are performing, so overall percentages have improved. Third is obviously cost initiatives. There are multiple initiatives taken, some of the examples that I gave recently. And fourth is operating leverage. I think the first three are structural changes. And in my view, you know, the mid-single digit margins that we saw in the previous three quarters is something that should not happen now. And the fourth factor, which is operating leverage, is clearly a function of market.
Once that comes in, we expect our margin to go back to 13%-14% that used to be historically.
Sir, two follow-ups on this, Rahul. One is that Q3 is your seasonally strongest quarter, and therefore, if you have done 11.5% in Q3, all other things being equal, just the seasonality would mean that this would translate to an annualized margin of somewhere in the region of 9%-9.5%. So, if we have to go on a full year basis, this journey from 9, 9.5, to let's say, 13.5, 14, do you think that just the SSSG coming back to 5% is enough, or would you need to do something more also in addition to this?
No, I think it's enough, because if you look at this quarter three and your math on the annualized number of say 9.5%-10%, this also bakes in around overall for the first nine months around 8% of SSSG decline, right? So just that reversal of that 8% SSSG decline would lead to margin improvement by by 3-4 percentage points.
Okay. So basically, if I were to just say it in a nutshell, supposing if you deliver, let's say, 4%-5% positive SSSG in FY 2025, then the full year margins would be possible in that 13.5%-14% region. Would that be a correct interpretation?
Yes.
Okay. Okay, understood. Secondly, just wanted to understand what are your plans in terms of, new store openings for FY 2025, and if you can break it up, by segment, and also do you have any closure plans for FY 2025 or, or it's now more or less going to be done by the end of FY 2024?
So, in 2025, we expect to do around 25-30 sites, and, broadly, 50% of this will be for Barbeque Nation brand, and the balance 50% would be for both Toscano and Salt. So this is a broad breakup. In terms of closures, I think they're largely done in this financial year, in 2024. In 2025, I don't expect any closures, you know, to be there. But the focus on overall profitability is very high. So, at max, for the next year, full year, I don't expect to go beyond three to four closures, which is, I think, a usual, you know, closure rate, which the company will maintain going forward.
Okay, understood. There is no plan for any international store opening next year?
No, there are. So, when I say Barbeque Nation brand, I mean also international. We can do two to three, you know, international stores. International business is delivering around 20% EBITDA margin, so there is cash accumulation there, and we may, based on the availability of good sites, we'll utilize the same cash to expand.
Okay, okay. Yeah, that's all for me from now. I'll come back in the queue if I have further questions. Thanks.
Thank you, Praseek.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phones now. The next question is from the line of Rajesh from B & K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. I just wanted to understand what goes into the decision-making of you know, opening the new restaurants, and then what goes into the decision of closing the old restaurants? Because we have been seeing, like, you know, we are adding eight, closing four. This has been repeating for the last three, four quarters. So in the first place, what are the drivers of opening that restaurants, and then why are we closing them now? This has been happening for a long time now, right? So that's why I just wanted to understand what are the parameters that are used to open and close.
Thank you, Rajesh. I think we have to look at the history of last three years. After stepping out of COVID, you know, we have delivered good results in our business, and based on the success of the existing restaurants, we started to map the market and went ahead and opened up a few more, both in mature market and Tier II markets. Over a period of last four to five quarters, in general, there has been a demand issue in the market, which has been impacting a lot of our restaurants. So, we took a hard call of halting the store expansion for some time and relooking at our entire portfolio to rebalance in the right manner.
And that is why for the entire year, we have closed a few restaurants and very selectively looking at opening of the new ones. I think by end of this year, we are done with that, and we are at the right stage of resuming our growth. One other change that you'll see between our expansions last year to this year is that... Last year, FY 2023, is that FY 2023 was largely, you know, led by Barbeque Nation.
But today, given that we have three to four strong brands in our portfolio, we want this to be more broad-based so that the impact of any possible cannibalization or impact of maturing of these restaurants, and the impact on our financials is managed well. This is broadly our strategy. We have to react to our strategy based on market condition, and that's what we have done.
So when do you revisit your decision to, you know, open, okay, now that we have opened some new restaurants, so when do you come back and review, okay, is this the right decision or not? And what goes into it?
So frankly, last quarter also, we had mentioned that, we believe that our expansion or the restaurant rationalization program is pretty much done. You know, last quarter when we spoke, in November, we clearly knew what needs to be done in terms of more closures. And, we had already started to build our pipeline, from January onwards. And, obviously, the lag in terms of building pipeline, and then there is construction, and then the restaurant starts trading. So I think, as an organization, we are already, you know, two to three months into building our pipelines, and then some of these getting under construction. So I think as in, we have already got into that phase now.
Okay. So one other question I have is like, see, you have made this statement at least twice already, that, you know, this quarter's margins are like sort of the base, so we will not be seeing lower margins like in last three quarters going forward, right? So if you see this, SSG, same-store sales growth, right, it's still in the negative zone, and then our margins have moved up. Can you please explain that difference? Because those things are clearly not matching here, and then your confidence that, you know, going forward, it will not go down, the margins will not go down. So I just wanted to understand how these things work out, actually.
So, when we compare our this quarter's margin with the previous three quarters, obviously, like I said, there's delta because of gross margin. There's delta because of portfolio rationalization, right, which is, which was not built into last three quarters but is built into here, because all the closing costs, one-time costs, have all been factored into. You know, there is impact of cost, cost initiatives. Now, the initiatives, even if you start something, it doesn't start selling from day one. You make a decision, you implement that, and there's a lag of anywhere between one to two quarters, depending on the initiative taken. So all of these things have come into play in quarter three.
So, the only comment that I'm making is some of the efforts taken are more structured and permanent, and the margin improvement this quarter, which is a seasonally good quarter for us, driving from the operating leverage, is something that is always at play. So if the revenues dip in quarter four, then to some extent margins will dip only from the factor of operating leverage. But the other three initial factors will continue to play.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Rajesh.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Vicky Punjabi from UTI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one. I mean, what surprised me in the result was that, I mean, if I look at your peer set , the dine- revenue has somewhere been under pressure. I mean, sequentially, I think on a per store basis, they have declined. It's not something which you have seen. I mean, what has driven this? I mean, and as I understand, I mean, if I read the comments properly, it's actually led by footfall, higher footfalls. I mean, and this is on a sequential basis. I want to understand what's actually driving this, this change in behavior of Barbeque versus the other QSR companies?
So, on the sequential basis, obviously, quarter two is one of the weakest, with high numbers of vegetarian days. If you look at quarter two, pretty much 70% of the month was impacted because of various vegetarian days. Whereas, it continued in October, because of factors like Adhik Maas. But, that consumption pattern, you know, came back in November, December. And frankly, this sequential improvement between quarter two and quarter three, if you look at our historical numbers, six, seven years back, you know, history, these are similar. December month, like I said, was very good. The month itself was extremely positive for us, right? So, it is all led by footfalls.
Yeah, but actually, frankly, to be fair, even for QSR companies, Q3 used to be better than Q4. I'm sorry, Q3 used to be better than Q2. Just that this year, I thought, was an exception. You know, it kind of gave me a perception that potentially there was a decline in consumer sentiment somewhere. But, I mean, your results kind of hint at the opposite side of it, especially on, given that you are high on dining. But I mean, as consumer demand environment improves sequentially, is that true, or has the store closures somewhere helped here?
I mean, both have helped. Look, no doubt, portfolio rationalization has helped. Portfolio rationalization also has shrinked our, our overall, you know, top line, but, has expanded our margins, right? And in some cases, you know, if the demand was, moving into splitting between two restaurants, have now moved into one restaurant. And when I talk about portfolio rationalization, this is done across, only 15 markets, out of, say, 80 markets that we're operating, and, and that has delivered some results. But also on sequential basis, you know, quarter three, dining business have been, have been better. Corporate business, for example, between, you know, 10th of December to around 24, 25th of December was very good.
Even during the last week of December, the business was very good. You know, my peer check with a lot of you know, peers, dining peers or casual dining peers, they have pretty much seen similar improvement in the month of December.
Okay. And just, just to understand the commentary, I think you said that at least on the SSG basis, sequentially, the trends are improving. I mean, can I take the fact that the demand environment continues to improve? Is that what's being mentioned?
So I can't say that clearly that, you know, demand has improved considerably. But on the other, you know, empirical study that that I believe also is the overall supply in the, in the restaurant industry, you know, has gone up, you know, a lot. So there's also been distribution of, you know, of the customers across more number of players. So to that extent, the entire industry environment, you know, remains challenging. And that is why in this, you know, challenging environment, your own in-house or or internal, you know, execution becomes very important. And you have to have a very tight control on your, on your costs, so that, you know, the operating performance is delivered.
Obviously, in our own business, you know, some of these things take time, which is what we have gone through over the period of last three quarters. But I won't sort of stand up and say that no demand has completely improved. To some extent, the base impact will also kick in in the next financial year. But I still don't see the same level of demand that maybe we have seen, for example, you know, pre-COVID days, right?
Okay. And just last one on this, on the store expansion side. So, I mean, there were certain decisions that led to, you know, higher accelerated pace of store expansion early, and now we have ended up rationalizing those stores.
Right.
So and we resume our expansion now, but how confident are we that, you know, this same, if we resume our expansion, we won't be in the same position of, you know, possibly rationalizing stores two years, three years down the line? I mean, how well have we rectified the reasons because of which this rationalization took place?
Yeah, I think, you know, FY 2024, the period of new store expansion has been, has been very, I think, slow and, and, you know, cautious. FY 2023 store expansion one, it was focused on only one brand, which is Barbeque Nation, right? And, that has put a lot of pressure. And the store expansion was also done in an environment of, of, of declining industry, you know, trends. I think next year, given the base impact, given that there has been rationalization done, and is also being done across the industry, there would be some improvement, and, I see, well, it will be slow.
A store expansion done in that environment versus 23, and secondly, store expansion being done across few focused brands will put less pressure on the operating performance of one brand. So that, to that extent, I think it's different. Plus, our internal evaluation criteria also have been strengthened. Some I can speak about, some I can't speak about, obviously, but overall, I feel confident that the drag that happened from expansion FY 2023 should not be there.
Sure. And just last one, I think I missed this. What is the, what's the guidance for expansion?
We are looking at 25-30 new stores in FY 2025.
Okay. Sure. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you, Vicky.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Resha Mehta from GreenEdge Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yeah, this is Resha. Thanks for the opportunity. Most of my questions have been answered, just two more. So the first one is on the Salt. Can you share what is the revenue number for the two months, November and December, as it was consolidated? And also, would the similar consumer demand trends reflect in Salt's revenue growth profile as well? If you could just comment on that. That's the first question.
Yeah. So Salt for two months did approximately INR 6.2 crore across their six restaurants. And they did an operating margin of around INR 1 -odd crore from that. So the impact is not drastic on the overall numbers. Yes, Salt also has reflected similar demand trends. Just one comment on Salt. Salt, number of restaurants are very small, and they have one restaurant in Chennai, which got impacted a lot in the month of December because of floods. So just one restaurant there. But Barbeque Nation also has restaurants in Chennai, but in the entire scheme of things, it balances out, but for Salt, it matters. Yeah, so that's it on Salt.
I think this is your question, Resha, right?
Yeah, yeah, right. The second one is on the cloud kitchen. If I recall correctly, we also did get into this format, since it does not get mentioned in the presentation, I'm not sure if whether we are still continuing or not. How has it, how has been the experience for us, and, you know, what's the unit economics there, if you can just elaborate on that?
No, we are not continuing with this, so we have consolidated this from our existing operations itself. We experimented with this during a period when average revenue per store from our delivery business was higher. But as this stabilized at around INR 24,000-INR 25,000 per day, which is an average revenue of, say, INR 8 lakh-INR 9 lakh per store. It was not making sense to incrementally spend on rent, manpower, supply chain, and therefore we stick to only doing it from our own outlets.
Understood. All right, that's it from my side. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you, Resha.
Thank you, Resha. We have our next question from the line of Manav Vijay from Deep Financial Consultants. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much for the opportunity, sir. First of all, if you can, tell us regarding the Salt restaurants, so they have been classified as mature ones or as new restaurants?
So out of six restaurants that they have, five are more than two years old and classified as mature, and one which is new and classified as new.
Okay. My second question is, sir, if, so if you look at the sales breakup, last year, roughly 75% of your sales came from, came from metro and Tier I towns, which in nine months has roughly moved to 77%-78%. Now, so going forward, should we assume that the proportion of sales coming from metro and Tier I towns, where I believe the focus is well for the new restaurants opening as well, so this number will continue to move up?
No. So we don't give numbers on share of business. We give numbers on store counts. And I think that will remain at 75:25. So the plus minus delta is based on, you know, the opportunity that we might get in that quarter, but strategically, that percentage will remain at 75:25.
Okay. Okay, fair enough. Sir, my last question is, so, so let's assume for a second that, let's say, demand environment doesn't improve, SSG doesn't improve, so from the current cost base that we are sitting on, since we have taken a lot of steps or efforts in last, I believe nine months, 15 months, to correct, the base that we had, so are there further levers available if, let's say, demand were not to revive even in next six months, nine months?
So, look, there are efforts being taken, and there are ongoing efforts, also, which is there, right? I think on the demand scenario, I don't believe that, you know, this will not improve. And obviously there's a lot of work being also done, at the, at the store level for guest engagement. You know, you must have seen a lot of food activation work that we are, that we're doing in the outlet, which is also giving us, good results. So, I think eating out will not, completely go away. You know, some of the supply also will correct, because, at these levels, I don't think, you know, people can continue.
While this business throws out a lot of cash, but if not managed well, this can also lead to losses, right? So, you know, I think it's a matter of time. We have to stay put and keep giving our efforts towards that. In a scenario wherein this continues in the same fashion, we obviously will, margin will not be at the same level that we used to do earlier, but we'll continue to drive efforts and see how we can optimize our business.
Okay. My last question to you, sir: so you intend to open roughly 25-30 next year. What will be the CapEx for the same, and, and whether the operations will generate enough cash for you to open them?
Yes. So, the overall CapEx, including maintenance CapEx and other one-time CapEx, should be in the range of INR 80 crore-INR 90 crore. And our operations are good enough to generate that. Even this financial year, for the first nine months, we have generated around similar numbers, and despite a weak year for us because of H1, I think we've generated more than this. So, you know, this is how the company has been built. We grow largely from our internal rates.
So what has been the cash generation in first nine months of this year compared to last nine months last year?
So, this quarter has been INR 38 crore, which is higher by around INR 16 crore. For the full nine months, we would be approximately INR 80-odd crore. Last year, nine months, would be INR 150-odd crore. Sorry, Bijay or Amit, if you can help me with those numbers.
INR 105-odd crore last nine months.
INR 105 odd crore last nine months.
Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you, Manav.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Resha Mehta from GreenEdge Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the follow-up. So, you know, you spoke about the increase in supply or increase, competition in the eating out space, right? So, do you think this is structurally, you know, increased and is here to stay? And, you know, when was the last cycle when we saw, you know, such an increase in supply, and then, you know, how things panned out in that cycle?
Well, very difficult for me to put a number in the past, but you know, if you look at our trade area, our trade market, we see lot of casual dining, you know, restaurants opening up, new concepts opening up. And normally, when some of these things open up, you know, consumers do go and try. And in most of these cases, the real trick is whether that excitement is maintained, you know, by that restaurant over a period of time.
If it is, it's normally, in my experience, if it is a fad, if it is something which is new and, and doesn't catch the fancy of the consumers for a longer period of time, this normally, sort of dies off and autocorrect, and consumers go back to their usual, you know, favorites. I think this is where, where we are. Unfortunately, we don't have any, any formalized industry report to quote these numbers, but, based on our internal, study of, of some of the trade areas, we, we do see supply, has gone up.
Would you say that it's also not only because of the subdued demand, but also because of you know, this increased competition, that you know, you are seeing a dip in your the number of your repeat customers or your loyal customers? I mean, have you seen that in your numbers?
I think it's both. I think it's one, obviously, you know, not that the entire consumer space is, I think has been struggling with this. So it is, it is a mix of both, which is declining consumer demand, discretionary spend, and also increased supply, at least for restaurants.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Resha.
Thank you.