March 9 (SeeNews) - Romania’s Sphera Franchise Group [BSE:SFG], the holding company that owns the business which operates the local KFC franchise, announced on Thursday the opening of two new restaurants within Rompetrol petrol stations located on the A1 motorway, near the western towns of Pecica and Orastie.
The new KFC DT Pecica drive-thru unit and the KFC Orastie restaurant are the 96th and 97th restaurants in the KFC Romania network and the first ones within petrol stations, Sphera Franchise Group said in a report filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
The two locations have an area of over 160 sq m each and their opening has created 50 new jobs.
In the near future, Sphera Franchise Group plans to open another KFC location within a Rompetrol petrol station located on the A1 motorway, in the western village of Giarmata.
The group currently operates 176 restaurants, of which 97 KFC restaurants in Romania, two in Moldova and 18 in Italy, 42 Pizza Hut Restaurants, fifteen Taco Bell restaurants in Romania, one PHD subfranchise and one Paul restaurant.
In October, Sphera Franchise Group announced the opening of a KFC drive-thru unit in the western city of Timisoara. A month later, the group opened a Taco Bell restaurant in the southern city of Craiova.
In 2022, Sphera Group Franchise booked a normalised net profit of 44.3 million lei ($9.5 million/9 million euro), up by an annual 71.1%, it said in a preliminary financial statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange in February.
Sphera Francise Group shares traded 0.32% lower at 15.7 lei as at 1143 CET on the Bucharest bourse on Thursday.
(1 euro=4.9157 lei)