Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let me welcome you to the call with AmRest. The company is being represented by CEO Luis Comas, CFO Eduardo Zamarripa, and Santiago Aguilera, Chief of IR. Well, guys, not to take too much of your time, I'm passing the mic to you.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. I hope that you and your families are doing all well. As you know, my name is Luis Comas. I joined AmRest as a brand president of La Tagliatella, and in April, I was appointed CEO of AmRest. I have spent my entire professional life, already more than 30 years, in the retail and restaurant industry, with management positions in Europe and Middle East in brands such as Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC, as a general manager of Denny's Iberia. Today, I'm truly honored to have the opportunity to present AmRest's annual results for the financial year 2021 and to share with you our expectations for 2022. AmRest is Europe's leading restaurant operator with a portfolio of 2,436 restaurants in 25 countries across Europe, Middle East, and China.
At AmRest, we offer a service based on excellence that is enjoyed by more than 1 million customers every day. Our offering is centered on eight leading brands, combining franchise brands with proprietary brands that we are gradually scaling up by the openings of our own restaurants and franchisees, who are carefully selected to become our partners and brand ambassadors. Additionally, AmRest is always at the forefront of innovation. As a result, we are currently developing a portfolio of unified virtual brands under the Food About concept. Let me focus now on summarizing the main issues that have taken place during 2021, which, as we can see on slide four, concentrate on how we have coped and adapted to what living with a pandemic entails and the continued advances in terms of efficiency. Traditional business models and logistic networks have been challenged more than ever with the COVID.
Businesses need to evolve as quickly as consumer behavior is changing, and successful businesses need to meet the consumers on their terms. Consumers prefer trusted brands that are well-known with strict safety and hygienic protocols. At the same time, the customer experience needs to be multifaceted, and the use of takeaway or delivery channels are now essentials. To master in the use of these alternative channels and to adapt the business model to them requires big efforts in terms of digitalization and efficiency enhancements, for which it is indispensable to have a proper integration of brand and businesses. AmRest has made decisive progress in those aspects, and we will continue to work to quickly and profitably adapt our business to the changes demanded by our guests. AmRest is much more than the individual contribution of eight different brands.
Finally, the second half of the year has seen a turning point in the evolution of the pandemic. Advances in terms of vaccination, coupled with the lower levels of lethality of the new variants, have allowed a gradual reopening of economies that have started to show AmRest's revenue generation potential. If we turn to slide five, we can see some metrics on the annual results for 2021 that show a clear trend of recovery towards pre-pandemic levels. Later on, Eduardo will analyze these results in depth, but let me give you three main ideas. First, the group revenues reached EUR 1,917 million. This represents an increase of 26% compared to the full year 2020.
Equally important, there was a clear improvement in revenues generated quarter-on-quarter, which led us to reach two consecutive all-time records in the third and fourth quarters. Likewise, our EBITDA reached EUR 359 million, which represents a margin of 18.7%, recovering 5.5 percentage points compared to 2020. Finally, it should be noted that all this has been possible thanks to the continuous progress in the new sales channels in e-commerce and delivery. Before COVID, the dine-in channel accounted for more than 50% of the group sales. In 2021, it accounted for barely 30% due to the fear and limitations resulting from COVID. However, this channel still has a huge latent potential that we are confident can be realized as the restrictions and fear of COVID continues to ease.
I would now like to share with you our expectations for 2022. However, these assumptions are challenged by the unpredictable developments of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia that we obviously did not expect. Allow me on this matter to hope that this conflict ends as soon as possible. From a macroeconomic perspective, the baseline scenario we envisage is available in slide seven. Let me convey two main shared ideas across countries. The first is that in the main economies where we operate, strong economic growth and high employment rates are expected. This situation, together with a high level of savings accumulated during the pandemic, led us to believe that there will be a high level of disposable income in households that will be used in leisure services, favoring tourism and restaurant sectors.
On the other hand, the tensions created in supply chains and the high prices of energy generation will continue to create high inflation and pressure on our costs. Our strategic approaches to address this scenario are sales growth, efficiency gains, and active management of cost pressure. I will elaborate these ideas in the following slides. If you go to slide eight, please. 2022 must be the year in which we firmly accelerate the path of growth, but growth oriented towards sustainable value creation. In this slide, I would like to show you how the group's strategy priorities have evolved over the last few years. In 2019, the priority was to increase the group's presences. In 2020, managing the impact of COVID's emergence and adapting, as we have seen, to the changes resulting from this situation became a priority.
In 2021, we return to the path of growth, which we never abandoned, but with the priority of exploiting the generation of synergies, making progress in terms of efficiency, and all of this underpinned by greater digitalization, process optimization, greater integration at group level of our brands and countries, and with humility, making our allocations of resources more efficient. This path led us to expect 2022 to be a year where we will achieve record levels of revenue based on quality sales growth. In other words, profitable and sustainable revenue growth over time. A good way to track this metric is through average revenue per restaurant. As we have explained on previous occasions, sales leverage is fundamental to make progress in terms of efficiency and to be able to face the challenges posed by the increase in costs.
In this regard, we will continue to work on optimizing the allocation of resources. The value management of our restaurant portfolio is a key exercise from this perspective, assessing at all levels this strategic fit for our business units. These points led us to slide nine, where we will show relevant changes that our portfolio will undergo during 2022. In May 2022, Russia and Germany MFA term will end. As a consequence of such termination, the Pizza Hut outlets in those two territories will be transferred either to JAM or to a third party designated by JAM. AmRest and JAM are currently discussing the terms and conditions for the transition of the business in those markets, which could extend beyond 31st of May, 2022, if the parties so agree in writing.
The final impact will be an aggregated reduction of 143 Pizza Hut restaurants in those territories, of which 25 are equity and 118 franchise. Based on 2021 year-end figures, this would mean a 6% reduction in the total number of restaurants, a 1% reduction in owned restaurants and a 23% reduction in franchise restaurants. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can also find the impact from the perspective of lower revenues and the positive impact it would have in terms of the EBITDA, once more based on 2021 figures. Turning to our expectations for 2022, we have mentioned cost pressure management, but also supply management. That's two of the big challenges of this year.
We covered these aspects in the previous quarter because their effects are already visible, but they will only tend to increase with the escalating warfare. On slide 10, we will expand these ideas. The most direct way to preserve margin is the direct transfer of the cost increase to the final customer. The way we accomplish this is through revenue management, focusing on the value generated by our sales. In this sense, the cross-selling driven by offers is a central tool. The second large block of initiatives is pointed to mitigate cost increases, but also to warrant our supply. Leveraging our procurement capacity, securing prices and inventory, diversifying suppliers and negotiating contract terms are crucial aspects. Charging for non-essential items discourages the use of items that have a relevant impact on our costs.
Also menu optimization that allows us to offer attractive dishes adequate to the market dynamics. Finally, we have already covered the importance of the restaurant portfolio optimization and the value of our enhancements in terms of our digital capabilities that are improving the customer experiences that we offer and are leading toward less labor-intensive processes. All this contextualization led us to the summary of our main KPI expectations for 2022 in slide 11. We expect a strong growth in terms of quality sales that would increase our revenues more than 10% year-on-year. In terms of EBITDA, our aim is to maintain margin levels. In the current environment, I don't hide from you that this is an ambitious objective for 2022. However, all the decisions we have taken have this objective in mind.
In terms of CapEx, we will increase significantly our capital expenditure that we expect will surpass EUR 150 million. This CapEx will be deployed to accelerate the refurbishment of our stores, the advances in the digitalization, and to increase the number of restaurant openings. In this sense, we will aim to open more restaurants than in 2021, setting a target of above 150 new openings. All this with keeping leverage under control. Our leverage ratio will be between two and 2.5 times. Consolidating the progress made in 2021, where new store openings were financed with internal resources for the first time. With this, I give way to our CFO, Eduardo, who will proceed to explain the group's financial results for 2021. Eduardo, the mic is yours.
Thank you, Luis, and good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to have our CEO as a speaker today in this presentation. Today, I will cover the full year 2021 and the fourth quarter results. In the slide 13, you can find the main financial highlights for the year 2021, which have already been briefly covered by Luis. The group's revenues increased by almost 26% to EUR 1.9 billion. More than 99% of our restaurants were operational at the end of the year. We managed to open 147 new restaurants during the current financial year, and remarkably, these openings have been financed for the first time by the generation of internal resources. The group's profitability, expressed in terms of an EBITDA margin, reached 18.7%, approaching very fast to the pre-COVID levels.
Finally, the leverage ratio stood at 2.3 times at the end of the year, thanks to the reduction of net debt and the business improvement. All these, while maintaining a CapEx level above EUR 100 million that was accelerated during the last quarter of the year. In slide 14, we will focus on the highlights for the fourth quarter of the year. Revenues reached EUR 539 million, registering the second consecutive quarterly record and a growth of almost 36% compared to the same quarter of 2020. The same-store sales index stood at 131% compared to 2020, but it is still at 92% compared to 2019.
In terms of EBITDA, the generation reached EUR 98 million, which represent a margin of 18.2%, which an advance of more than six percentage points compared to the same period of 2020. The cash level remained stable as during the whole year with a level close to EUR 200 million. However, CapEx accelerated significantly to almost EUR 48 million, more than doubling the level of previous quarters. As usual, we would like to share with you the most updated possible information. At the end of February, the same-store sales index stood at 129% compared to 2021. As you can appreciate, almost all our shops are operational. We are seeing a gradual easing of pandemic-related restrictions in most of the countries where we operate.
This trend was interrupted in November and December by the appearance of the new Omicron variant, which practically cancel out our positive seasonal effect of the Christmas holidays. As we have commented on several occasions, we are aware and prepared to live with a certain level of pandemic-related restrictions in the near future. As a result, despite of these vicissitudes, quarterly revenues marked the second consecutive all-time high for the group. On slide 16, we can see how this level of revenue flows into generation of marginal EBITDA of 18.2% in the quarter and 18.7% for the year. This is a total EBITDA of more than EUR 359 million, almost doubling the figure achieved one year ago.
As Luis has commented, our objective for 2022 is to strive to maintain an annual margin in line with the achieved during 2021, but a significantly higher revenue base level. Slide 17 shows a breakdown of cash flow generated by quarter. Once again, the strong generation of operating cash flow above EUR 100 million allows us to meet the cash flow needed derived from investment and financing. Two messages stand out for slide 18. The first is that the number of openings in 2021 is accelerating with 147 new restaurants being opened. This is 13% higher than the target of 130 that we shared on previous occasions.
The second is that despite the portfolio optimization exercise, we are setting a new record for the number of restaurants in the group, which stands at 2,436 restaurants after increasing by 98 units during the year. Slide 19 shows evolution of our net debt, which stood at EUR 467 million at the end of the year. A reduction of more than EUR 100 million during the period and EUR 162 million since COVID erupted into our lives. The leveraging, together with the improvement in our revenues and margins, allow us to close the year with a leverage ratio of 2.3 times compared to 12.5 times a year ago. Our objective is to operate with similar level during 2022, between 2-2.5 times EBITDA.
On slide 20, we show our debt profile following the agreement with our club of banks at the end of the year to extend the maturities of the outstanding debt by three years. As you can see, there's a maturity profile over the next few years. Next. We focus on the results by different segments. On slide 21, you can find the revenue, EBITDA, and number of restaurants we have in each regions. Starting in CEE, in slide 22, sales reached almost EUR 251 million during the fourth quarter of the year, registering a year-on-year increase of 46%. The main catalyst of the performance has been to lower the level of restrictions than in previous year. That has allowed some recovery in the dine-in restaurant that nonetheless is still well below 2019 levels. The EBITDA generated reached EUR 55.5 million.
This is an EBITDA margin of 22%, 7 percentage points higher than in the fourth quarter of 2020. This region concentrated the largest increase in installed capacity during the year. The restaurant portfolio reached 1,085 units after increasing by 60 restaurants. At the end of the period, 100% of the region's establishments were operational. For Western Europe countries, we can see in slide 23 that revenues in the fourth quarter were almost EUR 202 million, 27% higher than in the same period of 2020, registering a quarterly record sales through the takeaway channel. EBITDA reached EUR 35.5 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 17.6% and an increase of more than 12 percentage points versus fourth quarter 2020.
As last point, the total number of restaurants in the region reached 996 units after the net opening of 22 units. At the end of the period, 98% of the region's outlets were operational. For Russia region, remind you that this is a region that includes Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the fourth quarter, revenues amounted to EUR 50 million, 30% higher than in fourth quarter of 2020. Despite the good performance, the region has been one of the most affected by the restrictions in recent months, with severe impact on the dine-in activity. The EBITDA reached EUR 9.4 million, representing a margin of 18.8%. The installed capacity in the region was 278 restaurants after increasing by 11 units during the year. At the end of this period, 100% of the restaurants were operational.
Last but not least, we can find the main dynamics of China in slide 25. Quarterly sales reached EUR 25 million after a year-on-year increase of 11%. The China region continues to be one of the group's most dynamic. Revenues generated during the year exceeded the EUR 100 million mark for the first time. In terms of EBITDA, it amounted EUR 6.5 million with a margin of 24%. AmRest currently has 77 restaurants in the region after increasing the portfolio by five units in 2021. At the end, 99% of them were operational. At the end of the presentation, as always, you can find a series of annexes with information that we consider relevant to understand the evolution of AmRest results.
In these occasions, due to the uncertainty arising for the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the effect that it may have, we want to share with you the direct exposure that we have in the region that you can find in the annex in slide 27. Needless to say is that AmRest's management is closely monitoring the situation. For the moment, what we can share is that our 278 restaurants in the region are open and trading. We have a self-financed business model with mainly local sourcing. Our presence is concentrated in Russia, and we have no presence in Ukraine, and more than 60% of our restaurants are located between Saint Petersburg and Moscow locations. Once more, we hope that this conflict ends as soon as possible. Now I'll turn the mic to Luis.
Many thanks, Eduardo. 2021 was another challenging year for the hospitality industry globally. Despite that, AmRest continued its recovery trends across major regions. The figures achieved proved the success of our company business model based on the strong presence in online and delivery sector, continuous development of digital tools, as well as the exceptional service and product offer. Our priorities are to grow in a profitable and sustainable way with quality sales and gains in efficiency. Today, we presented that we are on the right track and with the confidence in the future despite the significant challenges ahead. I just wanna say many thanks to everyone. With this, we are open to any questions that you may have.
Thank you so much. We will now start our Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star two. If you have joined us online, please press the red flag icon.
Okay, maybe I will take my privilege of a moderator and start with questions.
Oh, we do have a question.
Okay, great. Let's leave the room for others.
Okay, our first question comes from J.P. Hernandez from VLC Funds. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, hello. Thank you very much for taking my questions, and congratulations for these results once again, once more. I have several questions. One is, could you elaborate a little bit on why you are exiting Pizza Hut from Germany and from Russia? I have a question about Burger King. You no longer have the right to develop your chain. The same happened to Ibersol in Portugal. Ibersol received an offer from the restaurant group on its Burger King restaurant. I was wondering whether this might be the case for your Burger King restaurant as well. The third question is related to your Starbucks in Germany, which is not an easy country for selling expensive coffee.
I was wondering where you stood in terms of your Starbucks franchise in Germany.
Good. Thank you, JP, for joining the call. Thank you for your questions. I'm gonna address the first one related to exiting Pizza Hut in Germany and Russia. On those countries, the MFA that we have came to an end. In alignment with John, we decided jointly to return those markets to the franchisor. Now, as you can see in the slides that we share, of course, it's an irrelevant number in terms of restaurants, but in terms of the impact on the EBITDA, it's a minor one.
Now, as I was mentioning, this is mainly related to an agreement that we got with John on those two markets.
Yeah, thank you, Eduardo . Thank you, JP, for your questions. I think we can answer also your question about Burger King. As we stated a few weeks ago, we remain committed to run our business as usual in our 93 restaurants. Business is being run, restaurant trading, and we are happily managing those restaurants in those countries. However, to answer straightforward, no, we haven't received any offer from the Restaurant Brands International to us. We are just considered nothing because we are just operating the business as usual. This is a straightforward answer. The Starbucks Germany situation, I think if you know the market, which seems to be the case, Germany has been probably one of the most affected markets in the last recession because the COVID restrictions.
Namely, two main factors: the home-based structure, where most of the people were not working at offices, so there were no, let's say, morning commuters at train stations and office workers present, which are one of the biggest large base of our Starbucks business, and so the other restrictions that affected the rest of the restaurant chain. Lastly, we have seen lately that those restrictions has been eased and the traffic, morning traffic and lunch traffic are getting back to the previous numbers, and we are happily seeing the performances starting to come back on track. Yeah, Germany was one of the toughest markets last year.
Perfect. Thank you so much for your question. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad, or if you have joined us online, please press the red flag icon.
Maybe now I will step in. I wanted to ask a few questions regarding the guidance for 2022. Balance sheet is under control. Business, in terms of the sales per restaurant, is pretty much together with EBITDA margins to the pre-COVID level. Still, you are not guiding for acceleration of growth. Should we still expect from you that there would be more of a pressure on quality of restaurants? Should we expect another exit like Pizza Hut, or it's just out of the question? Is there also an upside to your guidance in terms of rollout? Like, well, package of rollout questions.
Okay. Thank you for the questions. I think the growth, as you mentioned, a very important adverb is the quality. As we have stated, we're looking after quality sales, so quality margins. Margins is a key KPI for our future strategy, maintaining not only profitable sustainable sales, but also profitable sustainable margins operation. Saying that, we are not in a mood of right-away-growth attitude. Definitely, we are considering and listening to options and for the future. May happen, may not happen. In short, that's something is still to be discussed. Obviously, we are in a position where growth opportunities can be faced, and we are considering anything that lands in our table, so we also keep at it to search and see. Because growth will come, no doubt.
How and when is still to be determined, but definitely our quality margin will drive to that position in a time. About exits, as we have stated, at the moment, we have no other plans on the table, so we are just managing our current portfolio as it is.
Okay. If I also may ask question in terms of the food inflation, because we are seeing inflation going through the roof globally, and it's even more pronounced in CEE, especially Poland. What could we expect in terms of your margins and the pass on to customers of the inflation? How much of your food supplies you've been able to lock in at lower prices on long-term contracts, because I understand that your guidance is the flat margin versus last year, but does it mean that we should expect major increase in prices or you're managing on the cost side?
Were you gonna go, Eduardo?
Yes. Well, Łukasz, this has been going on for quite some time now. If you remember, even in the previous quarter, part of the remarks that we made in our investor presentation was related to the cost of sales and the pressures that we were seeing on the different raw materials that we use to attend our customers in our restaurants. No? We have been tracking that, and we have, let's say, depending on the country and depending on the brand, we have some of those products that we have a coverage because we have contracts with the suppliers. One of the things that we always bet on is our long-term relations with our suppliers. No?
Given that we have that in some of those materials, we have long-term contracts. On some others, we have open positions. Let's say that we have a mix, no? We could say that part of that pressure, of course, we will be able to absorb, but other parts, of course, we are at market prices, no? As you say, you mentioned, no? Chicken is one of the effects, but we have energy. There are a lot of costs that are increasing, no? Given the pressures that we have, the thing is to focus on our consumers, no?
We are making initiatives in terms of revenue management, because some of these costs we are able to offset with efficiency, and we work very hard on the restaurants and in all the chain in order to be as efficient as possible. Part of those inflation, we will not be able to absorb within our efficiencies, no? We are following the path as other competitors that we are seeing in the market, that we have no other choice than pass some of that price increase to our consumers. No? The idea here is to do it in the correct way. It's not only throwing a price increase and that's it. No, we have different products we need.
We have a segmentation of products, we have a segmentation of pricing, and always trying to give a value product for the different consumers that we can have. No?
Now, I would add to that, Łukasz, from what Eduardo said, that one of the strengths of AmRest is namely the scale of the company, and therefore our purchasing power is more resilient to inflation waves because we have longer contract, more established with proven, solid vendors who can accommodate also the inflation their way, and it's not such a big impact as minor operators may have. On the revenue management that Eduardo expressed, a lot of marketing analysis and activities are taking place, so we all combine the right sales mix with the right product mix and the right promotion mix to manage that properly without damaging customer experience and leveraging the sales trends all the time.
Okay. Can you tell us?
Margins, as you were saying, Lucasz, of course, we're working onward to, as we were mentioning, to keep the margin. That's as Luis was stating in his remarks, we have a very challenging year ahead of us. No? We have always like challenges in AmRest, and we work towards that.
What kind of trajectory of margins should we expect? Because you are speaking of a flattish margins versus last year, but should we expect lower margins in the beginning and then price increases and improvements in efficiency to bring the margins to a higher level, or should we expect fairly flattish throughout the year?
We have several parts and you mentioned an interesting point, Lucas, because as you know, we have a big seasonality across the year. Now, of course, usually at the beginning of the year, it's a more challenging time. Then in spring and summer, it's a very good time for us. In here, it's a matter of how revenues behave, how the volume of those revenues behaves, because that helps to absorb an important part of the cost. The transaction and the same-store sales is something that is quite relevant for us. No?
I would say that the seasonality is gonna be present, as you mentioned, in terms of the different margins that we could be saying. No? The first one, the first quarter is a challenging one, but we expect that as we continue in the year and we face the most important season for the company, we would be able to increase the margins. No?
Is it fair to say that we should expect a bit of a change in the sales mix with more of dine-in and takeaways and less of deliveries, especially through third parties? Is it fair to say that it can support your profitability?
Yes. That's a very likeliest scenario to happen. As soon as the restriction has been taken off from the dining environment, we already have observed that trend. However, the good thing is that the other channels in volume-wise haven't suffered decrease. We have maintained either new customers or new occasions on delivery, takeaway or drive-throughs that were not present there. That's why we were able to have this positive trend. But obviously, as you clearly stated, sales mix is one of the key players as well on how the margin impact can come through.
The channels also, as you were mentioning, Łukasz, dine-in has recovered in the latest quarters, but we still see room to increase the percentage between the portfolio, you know. Something that we want to see is the increase of these channels, because that means that things are becoming better.
Okay, thank you very much. At this stage, operator, do we have any questions from the room?
At this stage, there are no further questions.
Okay. Let me pass on to the inevitable set of questions given the current situation. As you can imagine, we are all thinking what's happening in the East, and can you elaborate a bit more? What does it mean that your restaurants are all operating and operational in the Russian market? What kind of traffic are you seeing currently? Maybe a bit in terms of sales, how you are seeing. Well, taking cash out of the Russian market with being out, so a bit of technicals, how the life is looking on the ground there.
Łukasz, I think this is a very hot topic as we speak, and it need an address, attention. Yes. Just to remain clear, we have no business in Ukraine itself. Regarding Russia, in the latest days, since all these events took place, we haven't seen any impact on the sales line. It's business as usual, and everything is behaving and happening as in the previous days. We haven't really seen any different trend that may make us think a different way. As per today, just even this morning, business has been remain same wise in the same positive trend as it was on the previous weeks.
On that, Łukasz, really, we are closely monitoring the situation. Now, this is something, of course, very unfortunate, but our job is to monitor what is happening over there. Every day, we are receiving new pieces of information, no? Right now, the question mark that we have, I'm sure that we share with you all those question marks. This is something that we will be looking and monitoring on day-to-day basis.
Okay. Regarding the banking system, is it possible to get cash out of the Russian operations, or it's both staying there? How does it look from a technical point of view these days?
On that, what we can say, Łukasz, today we are, let's say, looking how things evolve, and we really do not want to speculate on what is gonna happen, no. It's something that we need to see and day to day be following the situation that we have on the region.
Okay. For now, I understand that what you are not thinking of any kind of leaving the market entirely together with the Pizza Hut restaurants being closed. It's a totally different case.
Right now, we focus on the operations of the business and continuing serving the customers that we have on KFC in Russia. No.
You are not seeing any interventions of authorities or regulator regarding that, well, you are running the American brands on the Russian soil.
That's something that we will need to. As I was mentioning, we have the same questions that you have, no? Right now, we are monitoring what is happening over there, and that's it, no? I think the information that we have could be similar to the one that we can have, and we prefer not to speculate on things that could be happening.
Okay. I believe that's all from my side. If there are any questions from the room, operator will please take them.
Thank you. Yes, we have received a question from Gamze Alpal. Oh, Gamze has reverted question. At this time, there are no other questions. Oh, we did. Gamze has asked the question again from Imperial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. I just have one question. In terms of the restaurant openings, that you plan for next year, if you can give us some color in terms of whichever these will take priority and which brand. Thank you.
Next year. Sorry, Gamze, can you repeat it because sound is not very good. You talk about openings but didn't get it right.
So the-
I understand it was about the market and brand, the focus.
That's right. Which market-
Okay. Thank you, Łukasz, for the help. I think the proportion of restaurants openings are well distributed among all our brands. I think this is a good reflection of the good performance of all the brands and regions. Definitely, as our current portfolio has a very dominating QSR presence, there is a big chunk of those 150 which are devoted to those chains. There are also some opportunities on the casual dining sector in all regions, and there are also some franchising opportunities that we're also considering. All the three pillars will follow kind of the same profitable path we observed last year.
Thank you. Our next question comes from J.P. Hernandez from VLC Funds as a follow-up. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. As a follow-up, I have one last question about Bacoa. It's an interesting concept, but it's rather limited in terms of numbers of restaurants. What is the intention there?
Sure. Thank you for your question, J.P. The Bacoa brand for us, as you know, is strongly one of the smallest ventures that we run. Obviously Bacoa was part of the unfortunate situation in the Spanish territory, both the high level of restriction in the Catalonia region, which was probably the toughest region across the Spanish territory, plus the lack of tourists, made the performance of all businesses in those regions affected. Definitely Bacoa was another brand that was affected as well. We have taken the opportunity while this period on revitalizing and digitizing the offer and the channel sales mix, so we are now much more prepared to go with the new territories and the new opportunities ahead. The growth hasn't been there.
We were probably more focusing into recovering and adapting to the tougher scenario last year, more than focusing on growth. We are now ready to have better operations and better performance, and we are still considering opportunities for Bacoa ahead.
Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions.
Well, if there are no further questions, thank you for joining the call today. Please feel free at any moment to contact our investor relations team if you want to have a deeper dive into our results. We are very happy to be able to share with you this. It was very good news for us, the results that we released, for that, and we work towards outperforming the results in future quarters.
Yes, Eduardo. Thank you. Thank you all for joining the call. It was a very happy call for us, sharing these great results of the company, and looking forward to share more successes with you in short.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Stay safe.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Łukasz. Thank you all.