Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd yes­ter­day de­clared au­dit­ed af­ter-tax prof­its of $55.9 mil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed No­vem­ber 30, 2023, an in­crease of 57.7 per cent over the $35.5 mil­lion the restau­rant com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

In con­sol­i­dat­ed re­sults for the 12 months end­ed No­vem­ber 30, 2023, Pres­tige Hold­ings gen­er­at­ed $1.32 bil­lion in rev­enue, 20 per cent more than the $1.10 bil­lion the com­pa­ny record­ed in its 2022 fi­nan­cial year.

In his chair­man’s re­port, Chris­t­ian Mout­tet de­scribed the 2023 fi­nan­cial year as one of in­vest­ment and growth for Pres­tige Hold­ings.

He said there has been sig­nif­i­cant ef­fort and suc­cess to­wards re­turn­ing the busi­ness op­er­a­tions of the group to pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els and achiev­ing sus­tain­able growth and prof­itabil­i­ty.

Mout­tet said the group’s prof­it be­fore tax of $84 mil­lion for the 2023 fi­nan­cial year was a his­tor­i­cal high and re­flects in­vest­ments in peo­ple and as­sets.

“We have made sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in grow­ing our op­er­a­tions, both in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as our ex­ter­nal mar­kets. The open­ing the Star­bucks brand in Guyana marks our en­try in­to a third mar­ket, adding to the two ex­ist­ing mar­kets T&T and Ja­maica,” said Mout­tet.

He not­ed that the per­for­mance of Pres­tige Hold­ings’ first Star­bucks cafe in the Ama­zo­nia Mall in Guyana “ex­ceed­ed our ex­pec­ta­tions” and the group looks for­ward to more in­vest­ments in the South Amer­i­can coun­try.

The group plans to open two more Star­bucks cafés in Guyana in its cur­rent 2024 fi­nan­cial year.

The Pres­tige chair­man said that as at its No­vem­ber 30, 2023 fi­nan­cial year end, the group op­er­at­ed 134 restau­rants, in­clud­ing five new units, four Star­bucks in Trinidad and the one in Guyana.

The group al­so com­plet­ed three KFC re­mod­els and re­lo­cat­ed one Star­bucks cafe dur­ing the 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

“Dur­ing the pe­ri­od, our group gen­er­at­ed $182 mil­lion in op­er­at­ing cash flow, re­paid $22 mil­lion in debt, which re­duced our to­tal bor­row­ings to $49 mil­lion and we end­ed the year with $114 mil­lion in cash,” said Mout­tet.

He said the board of the com­pa­ny ap­proved a fi­nal div­i­dend of $0.30 per share, which, with the ap­proval of share­hold­ers, would bring to­tal div­i­dends for the 2023 fi­nan­cial year to $0.45 a share. Pres­tige Hold­ings paid $0.32 a share in div­i­dends in 2022.

The com­pa­ny’s fi­nal div­i­dend will be paid on May 29, 2024 to share­hold­ers on the reg­is­ter as at April 26.

Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd is the par­ent com­pa­ny for KFC, Piz­za Hut, Sub­way and Star­bucks. The group in­cludes Week­enders Trinidad Ltd (TGI Fri­days Trinidad) and Pres­tige Restau­rants Ja­maica Ltd (TGO Fri­days Ja­maica) and PHL Guyana Inc (Star­bucks Guyana).

About 68 per cent of Pres­tige Hold­ings is owned by the Mout­tet fam­i­ly.