Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd yes­ter­day re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax of $23.26 mil­lion for the six-month pe­ri­od end­ed May 31, 2024, an in­crease of 16 per cent com­pared to the pri­or year.

In com­ments ac­com­pa­ny­ing the fi­nan­cial re­sults, Pres­tige Hold­ings chair­man Chris­t­ian Mout­tet iden­ti­fied the stand­out per­form­ers in the fran­chise restau­rant chain.

“While all brands con­tributed pos­i­tive­ly to the top line in the half year, our Piz­za Hut and Sub­way brands re­mained the stand­out per­form­ers in­to the sec­ond quar­ter, dri­ven by im­proved ef­fi­cien­cies and in­put costs,” Mout­tet said.

He ex­plained, “Group sales in­creased by 3 per cent to $665 mil­lion from $637 mil­lion, and prof­it be­fore tax im­proved by 16 per cent to $35.1 mil­lion from $30.3 mil­lion when com­pared to the pri­or year. Cash flow from op­er­a­tions was $83 mil­lion and we end­ed the half year with $97 mil­lion in cash.”

Mout­tet ex­plained the com­pa­ny pur­chased the prop­er­ty which hous­es three Pres­tige restau­rants in Val­sayn.

“Net bor­row­ing for the same pe­ri­od in­creased by $18m, re­flect­ing the Group’s ac­qui­si­tion of the prop­er­ty in Val­sayn on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way that is oc­cu­pied by our KFC, Piz­za Hut and Sub­way restau­rants. Dur­ing the sec­ond quar­ter we re­mod­elled four restau­rants and added two new Star­bucks restau­rants, at In­de­pen­dence Square Port of Spain and Movi­eTowne, Guyana, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of restau­rants to 136,” Mout­tet said.

The Pres­tige chair­man al­so hailed the per­for­mance of the com­pa­ny’s two Star­bucks restau­rants in Guyana, and stat­ed plans to seek ex­pan­sion op­por­tu­ni­ties in that mar­ket. Mout­tet said, “Over­all, we re­main pos­i­tive about the Group’s growth prospects in the three mar­kets in which we op­er­ate.”

The board of di­rec­tors ap­proved an in­ter­im div­i­dend of 16 cents (2023-15 cents) per com­mon share to be paid on Au­gust 52024 to share­hold­ers.