History 2021 / 2024

2023

The Ibersol Group continues to be a model of modern catering management, respected by partners and stakeholders in the markets where it operates. That’s why, even in a year marked by negative challenges, such as continued global geopolitical tension and inflation, we continued with our expansion and remodelling plans at our Pizza Hut, KFC, Pans and Taco Bell brand restaurants, to which we added the high dynamics of our Travel business unit in the Spanish market.

In order to fulfil this goal of growth and sustainability, we have been very attentive to, and focused on, our customers, responding to their expectations and keeping up with market trends through relevant value propositions for each segment, in the knowledge that a relevant value proposition in itself determines a number of very sensitive variables that require the high level of know-how we possess.

In this sense, we had to continue to find balances in the Group’s structure so that the pressure from the price increases in raw materials would not be a factor in reducing our results, and these efforts have been driving growth in our volume of transactions and increasing market share in the locations where we operate, whether on the high street, in the shopping centre or through home delivery.

We continue with the great challenge of training and retaining our employees, as they are a key factor in our business. Our employees have been catalysts for positive experiences and excellence at all levels: in care, service, product, operations, attention and availability.

And we have done all this in line with our values, which we renewed at the end of 2023, and which are now represented by the acronym SPICE, bringing together the five major dimensions of our values: Sustainability, People, Innovation, Customers and Excellence. These values strengthen our DNA and reaffirm our principles and ambition for the future.

We expect 2024 to be another year of major challenges and continued high levels of uncertainty. In this context, now as in the past, we are a leading modern catering group that has demonstrated its solidity and unique character.

We have overcome a pandemic and portfolio acquisitions, we have grown our brands and won concessions, we have increased sales in a highly volatile scenario and all of this has only been possible due to our resilience, mobilisation capacity and recognised leadership in the segment.

In this journey, it is important to emphasise the support of all those who have shown their recognition and preference for our Group, namely stakeholders, customers, employees, partners, suppliers, investors and civil society.

A new financial year is approaching, and it brings new challenges, for which we are prepared and mobilised.

2022

2022 was a complex year because, at the end of February, the military conflict in Ukraine began and with it the worsening of global geopolitical tensions, which once again put the Group’s brand portfolio to the test.

The problems in the supply logistics chain, which had already begun in the years of the pandemic, were compounded by increases in fuel prices, which resulted in increased costs for our suppliers and finally, as a chain, inflation reached high levels, reducing the purchasing power of families. This was a scenario that persisted throughout 2022 and will also be unavoidable in 2023.

These challenges did not affect our expansion and refurbishment plans, and so throughout the year we carried out openings in our different brands, where I highlight the strong growth of Taco Bell and KFC, but also the openings and refurbishments of Pizza Hut, the leading brand in its segment.

Throughout the year, the Group’s portfolio once again demonstrated a high resilience, recording solid growth when compared with the previous year, which had been marked by a period of confinement and restrictions on mobility. A decisive contribution to this sales evolution was made by the recovery in tourism, with strong growth, greater mobility and a consequent increase in private consumption.

In this context of recovery and resilience, I would like to highlight the performance of the travel and catering segments, which recovered strongly from the impacts of the pandemic, both due to the recovery of the aviation sector and the increased mobility of passengers in airports, as well as the growth in consumption per client and the normalisation of corporate and private events.

The year 2022 is also marked by the start of our Sustainability Programme, which aims to give continuity and greater integration to our social, economic and environmental sustainability policies, aligning them increasingly with the sustainable development objectives of the United Nations Agenda 2030.

At the Ibersol Group, we take sustainability very seriously and, in that sense, we increased our social and economic sustainability profile as a large Group that creates jobs and social cohesion. We protected employment during the pandemic and created jobs through a consistent policy of new restaurant openings of different Group brands, which consolidate our presence throughout the country.

In the area of environmental sustainability, we continued to strengthen the practices and partnerships with a view to reducing CO2 emissions; moreover, we intensified good practice policies in the management of resources and waste, separation and recovery of the waste generated and investment in renewable energies, all with a view to an increasingly solid position in the circular economy and sustainability.

In 2022, we were also called upon to respond to an unexpected challenge: the proposed purchase by RBI of our Burger King operations in Portugal and Spain. This transaction was completed and we will now continue on the path we have followed since the beginning of our Group and in which we have demonstrated resilience, focus and determination.

It is in this context that we maintained a dynamic of openings, being attentive to opportunities and new challenges, which includes, for example, the development contract of the Pret A Manger brand in the Iberian Peninsula.

We are starting a new year full of strength and commitment, focused on our teams, training and retaining employees, who are the engine of our success.

We will also have to be very focused on our customers, meeting their expectations and following market trends.

We will continue to have to manage our costs very strictly, to seek efficiency gains and to ensure that these result in a competitive offer that meets the needs and possibilities of our customers, who are now in a more difficult situation due to the macroeconomic context in which we live.

We foresee 2023 as another challenging year, with very high uncertainty factors. Once again, we have the strength, the determination and the means to demonstrate our resilience, for which we count on the support and dedication of all those who have shown their recognition and preference for our Group, where I include all stakeholders: customers, employees, partners, suppliers, investors and civil society.

2021

The past year of 2021 was one of resilience, due to the ability to outdo ourselves and recover from adversity. Our expectations regarding the results of the Covid-19 pandemic were of uncertainty, and these were borne out during the year.

For starters, the restaurant sector had to undergo even more restrictions during the first semester than it had at the beginning of the pandemic. Comparing the lockdowns of the first semesters of 2020 and of 2021 one can see that the latter lasted longer and that when it ended, in June, new restrictions were introduced that lasted until after the semester was over.

During the second semester, when vaccination levels in the Iberian Peninsula were very high, restrictions on movement and on retail opening hours were partly lifted, so that the summer holiday season
was relatively normal for most residents, although tourism suffered substantially. The Group had to adapt to the circumstances, and benefited from a rise in consumer optimism that permitted a higher rate of recovery of the activity.

It was in this atmosphere of slow, but steady recovery that Ibersol carved out a path of dynamic resilience. First, the Group recovered its street and shopping centre restaurants business, and then its travel segment, although the latter was slower, given restrictions on mobility due to the pandemic. During this recovery process Ibersol maintained and increased its social sustainability profile as a large job creating Group, marked by social cohesion. In that sense it managed to protect jobs in Portugal and in Spain, through a combined strategy of making use of the state support mechanisms at its disposal, and a consistent policy of opening new restaurants of different Group brands, namely Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut units.

One should highlight the fact that although the policy of refurbishing and openings was affected, it never stopped and can even be described as very energetic. Ibersol added six new KFC restaurants to its portfolio, which were opened over the year, plus seven new Taco Bell units. I would also point to the good performance registered by Pizza Hut, which reacted brilliantly to the challenges of the pandemic, both in terms of delivery, and in-house, having even opened five new units.

The Ibersol Group showed itself to be the driving engine of the growing presence of Burger King in Portugal. In 2021 it opened 12 new Burger King restaurants and closed the year with a total of 119 Group operated units in Portugal, out of a total 150 in Portugal. To support the challenges resulting from the impact of the second year of the pandemic and, also, to strengthen itself for the required investments, the Group underwent a share capital increase, aimed at shareholders, which endowed it with the necessary means to carry out the strategic guidelines and, especially, to keep up the normal rate of investment and expansion and, thereby, sustain and increase business market share. This operation was successful and showcases the trust felt by shareholders with total demand standing at around 146% of supply. This resulted in a net financial increase of 40 million euros.

2021 was also a year in which the Group’s environmental sustainability policies stood out, and there I would like to point to the partnerships that allowed us to make use of 170 electrical motorcycles for the delivery services of the Burger King and Pizza Hut brands. The Group estimates that it achieved a reduction of over 500 thousand kilos of CO2 emissions, and 400 thousand litres of fuel spent annually through the use of these electrical vehicles in delivery services.

In environmental terms, the Ibersol Group continued to intensify best practices policies in resource and residue management practices, as well as in separating and reusing generated residues, investing in renewable energies with a strong reduction of energy consumption and the subsequent impact in the decrease of CO2 emissions, preventing the emission of 10 thousand tonnes. To this end, the Group restructured the teams, the energy consumed, supplies, products, waste and, above all, it internalised a high concern with process changes and forms of operation which translates into an active adoption of sustainability and a circular economy.

Ibersol expects 2022 to be a year of great challenges, both due to the effects of the pandemic on consumer behaviour and their confidence, and due to geopolitical tension and its global economic impacts. These is why we have a determined outlook on the future, viewing the circumstances and subsequent readjustment from a strategic and tactical perspective.
2022 will be a very challenging year, with very high levels of uncertainty. Once again, we have the strength, determination and means to demonstrate our resilience, which is why we are counting on the support and dedication of all those who have demonstrated their recognition and preference for our Group. This includes all our stakeholders, customers, staff, partners, suppliers, investors, and civil society.