It said restaurant sales dropped 25.6% on the year, to RON710 million.
In the fourth quarter, the group’s consolidated sales amounted to RON208 million, down 20% on the year, but up 5.3% compared with the third quarter, which helped alleviate some of the negative impact of the pandemic during the first half of the year.
The group ended 2020 with a normalized EBITDA of RON44.1 million, an operating loss of RON1.6 million, and a net loss of RON2.3 million.
The group said KFC Romania reached a normalized EBITDA margin of 12.5% in 2020 from 13.7% in 2019), KFC Moldova had a 13.8% EBITDA margin from 17.2% in 2019), while Taco Bell had a 0.75% EBITDA margin from 1.6% in 2019.
KFC Romania and KFC Moldova closed full year 2020 profitable, registering together RON67.3 million in normalized EBITDA, while Pizza Hut and KFC Italy posted negative EBITDA.
Throughout the second half of the year, the Sphera Group registered a gradual, month by month, increase in sales on all three markets of activity. The performance in the fourth quarter improved on a quarterly basis in Romania and Moldova but declined in Italy, where sales shrank by RON6.6 million compared with the previous quarter, and by RON21.9 million compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
Sales in Romania dropped 26% on the year in 2020, to RON625.5 million. Sales in Italy dropped 22.3%, to RON76.5 million, and sales in Moldova dropped 23.4%, to RON8.7 million.
Sphera had 158 restaurant units at the end of 2020, of which 138 in Romania, 18 in Italy, and two in Moldova. Throughout the year it opened five KFC restaurants in Romania, three KFC units in Italy and one Taco Bell restaurant in Romania. At the same time, it closed six unprofitable restaurants in Romania.
Sphera Group is indirectly owned by Radu Dimofte (43.7%), Nicolae Badea (21.4%), Lucian Vlad (11%), and other shareholders (23.9%).