Pres­tige Hold­ings con­tin­ues to be neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as in the fis­cal year 2021, rev­enue de­creased by 21 per cent to $712 mil­lion from $897 mil­lion and this re­sult­ed in a Loss Af­ter Tax of $28.3 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s Con­sol­i­dat­ed Au­dit­ed Re­sults for the 12 months end­ed No­vem­ber 30, 2021 this loss in­clud­ed a non-cash ac­count­ing ad­just­ment for IFRS 16 of $6.1 mil­lion be­fore tax.

“Dur­ing the pe­ri­od, our group gen­er­at­ed $51 mil­lion in op­er­at­ing cash flow and end­ed the year with $55 mil­lion in cash. Our net debt to eq­ui­ty re­mained strong at 13:87 (ex­clud­ing the ef­fect of IFRS 16), and at year end we op­er­at­ed 129 restau­rants with three new restau­rant open­ings, two clo­sures and no re­mod­els or re­lo­ca­tions dur­ing the pe­ri­od,” Chair­man Chris­t­ian Mout­tet said in a state­ment.

He al­so not­ed that all of the com­pa­ny’s brands were neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by COVID re­stric­tions, though some more se­vere­ly due to a high­er de­pen­dence on in-house din­ing.

“Apart from the pe­ri­od in which our in­dus­try was com­plete­ly closed, man­age­ment adapt­ed quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to the new re­strict­ed op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment. Through­out the year, we con­tin­ued to make con­sid­er­able head­way in dri­ving our dig­i­tal, de­liv­ery and dri­ve-thru chan­nels and we are build­ing a ro­bust plat­form to dri­ve fur­ther growth in these ar­eas,” he ex­plained.

Fur­ther, Mout­tet said ris­ing com­mod­i­ty, trans­port and en­er­gy costs glob­al­ly have im­pact­ed all in­dus­tries and in par­tic­u­lar, the food in­dus­try.

“At Pres­tige, we have worked close­ly with our long-stand­ing lo­cal and for­eign sup­pli­ers as well as de­vel­oped new sup­ply chain and op­er­at­ing ini­tia­tives to min­i­mize the im­pact of these in­creas­es to our busi­ness and our cus­tomers,” he added.

Not­ing that the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial year 2021 was al­so the sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic, Mout­tet said like the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year, COVID has had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the in­dus­try and busi­ness, and by ex­ten­sion op­er­at­ing re­sults.

“Through­out all of 2021, the restau­rant in­dus­try was se­vere­ly hin­dered by var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment man­dat­ed op­er­at­ing re­stric­tions which in­clud­ed lim­i­ta­tions on in-house din­ing and open­ing hours, the com­plete clo­sure of all restau­rants for 80 days and safe zone op­er­at­ing re­quire­ments that are cur­rent­ly in place,” Mout­tet ex­plained.

He added that while these re­stric­tions neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed op­er­a­tions and earn­ings, the com­pa­ny’s fo­cus through­out the year, as it was in 2020, was to pro­tect the health and well-be­ing of its em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers, min­i­mize the fi­nan­cial im­pact se­vere dis­rup­tions would have on its busi­ness and iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties and im­ple­ment changes that would ben­e­fit busi­ness in the long term.

“I am pleased with the ef­forts and progress that the man­age­ment has made in each of these ar­eas, which has made our group more adap­tive and re­spon­sive to our cus­tomers and to a dy­nam­ic busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment,” Mout­tet added.

Look­ing for­ward, he said the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of the pan­dem­ic and its ef­fects on the in­dus­try in the last two years has made it dif­fi­cult, if not “un­wise” to make for­ward look­ing state­ments with any lev­el of ac­cu­ra­cy.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Mout­tet said he ex­pects to con­tin­ue to be chal­lenged by ris­ing and volatile food and ma­te­r­i­al costs in the new fi­nan­cial year.

“How­ev­er, giv­en the trend in the last quar­ter of 2021, the clear sig­nal from our Gov­ern­ment to keep the Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my open and the strength and re­silience of our brands and our peo­ple, we ex­pect im­proved re­sults in 2022 and be­yond,” he added.