AmRest Holdings SE (EAT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 26, 2021

Warsaw Stock Exchange PL Consumer Discretionary Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure earnings 59 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Lukasz Wachelko

attendee
#1

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lukasz Wachelko, I'm representing Wood & Company. And today, I have the pleasure of moderating the call of AmRest, which is represented by CFO, Eduardo Zamarripa; Chief Executive Officer, Mark Chandler; and Chief Strategy Officer, Peter Kaineder. And not go too long on my end, so Peter, microphone is yours.

Mark Chandler

executive
#2

Actually, I think I'm going to take over first.

Peter Kainder

executive
#3

I was just thinking.

Mark Chandler

executive
#4

Again, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us. I hope you and your families are doing well. I was probably -- actually about a year ago, exactly a year ago, during our 2019 year-end earnings call that we first discussed COVID. It was then that I told you about the drop we had in the China business, which was quite significant due to the virus. But at that time it was really more local. So we had not really seen any impact on our European business, and we're kind of hoping that, that was going to be kind of a minor effect for it. But of course, like many other companies, in our 20-year history, we really have never experienced such a degree of disruption. It was -- and really in such a short period of time. So thanks to our business that we had in China. We have kind of had a heads-up head start understanding of how serious this crisis was and also what actions to take. And that allowed us to kind of cut -- I think, really react faster than most companies in Europe. But despite that, early and really kind of bold actions to mitigate the impact of it, the first lockdown was quite severe for us in the spring, and we saw as much as 56% of our stores close. And also really cut in half our same-store sales compared to last year's. So for us, it was a lot to absorb in a very short period of time. But as the months restrictions started to ease and the first wave, we saw how strong our brands are and there how fast the customers were returning to our restaurants. And we actually went up to about 90% of our same-store sales number by September, we were trending really positive. We have -- Chris talked about that on some of our previous calls. And we also, at the same time, anticipated that there might be a next wave. So the second wave and more lockdowns that that would eventually hit us into Q4. So during the second wave, we were able to keep, at this point, over 90% of our stores operating. And also, our same-store sales were in the range of roughly 80% despite some really strict lockdown measures. But also, we really, I think, achieve some good things despite the restrictions in the lockdown. So we're able to manage to increase our cash position from about EUR 138 million at the end of the first quarter and almost roughly EUR 100 million at the end of last year to be closed at the end of this year at EUR 205 million. So nearly doubled year-on-year. And also about EUR 70 million more in cash. Also, we reduced our net debt versus 2019 by nearly EUR 50 million. So I'm not sure if too many companies have been able to do that during the crisis. For me, I'm very proud of the AmRest team. I've said this many times, they're truly committed to what's going on. We're really focused, laser-focused on executing the actions we needed to take. We're able to maximize the sales and costs, manage the costs. Also I think cash flow and balance sheet, which we were already talking about, they needed the attention, got special attention. We had a cash task force that we still have in place today that takes a look at what's going on globally for the company. And also people sacrificed a lot of time and effort. It was daily meetings and such. So I want to thank everybody at AmRest, the AmRest team, very proud of them. Also, at the same time, I would say we strengthened our partnerships with our key stakeholders, and I'm talking about the landlords, suppliers, our franchisors have talked about them before, our franchisees because we have a growing community there. And most importantly, and not last is the banks. The banks we've been dealing with since as formed the club back in 2009. We work with them very closely together on how we can deal with going forward. So since the last call, just so we have made a lot of progress on the cash balances. And also with the discussion with the club banks, especially with when we get to the definition of the covenants for 2021. Since our last call, and we talked about it, we were able to finalize the global transaction. We weren't sure if we were able to get that in by year-end. There was a lot of effort especially by Peter and his team to make it happen. We almost entire -- almost the entire amount of EUR 76 million we received in December, which certainly helped us. And the return on our investment was 3 or 4x what we put into it. So I was very, very pleased with the whole transaction. It was a point in time for us to sell Global. We had learned what we needed to learn. We're still in partnership today with Global and have a very good relationship with them, especially in the Spanish market. Also importantly, since the last call, we did come into agreement with our club banks. I know there's a lot of concern about that by everybody on the call. We were able to pay labors for the next 3 quarters, and that replaced through that period of time, our normal leverage covenant. And so we will be looking for liquidity covenants for EUR 80 million, which is going to be reduced to EUR 50 million for the third quarter. And at the end of this year, we'll go back to the liquidity covenant. So I think it's a great outcome. Especially, it helps us reduce some uncertainty that's out there. And then I also think it underlines how strong we have a partnership with the banks. We've also just completed revising our operating plan for 2021. For that one, I really wanted to have a proper balance between growth and cash management. Our recovery probably has taken a little longer than I thought versus -- because of the second wave. There's certainly some differences by country, by brand and by category. Peter will take you through a little bit more of the details on the sales trends. But I do want to touch on a couple of brands upfront. First, I'm very encouraged by the performance of Sushi Shop. Throughout this past year and also the beginning of this year, we've seen very strong same-store sales. We've been positive almost the entire time in the last we start off this year also in the 120 index versus 2019. So it's been very been very positive direction. Of course, profitability is what we're continuing to work on to improve margins, and we're making progress there as well, had a very strong January, both in sales and profit. In fact, last week, we had our highest sales week in our history at Sushi Shop. So -- and we have also a very strong pipeline in 2021, especially with our Corner project, which is with both Auchan and some other hypermarkets. Also, China. China has been 1 that's been continually probably, of course, went in first has went down from, I think that we on the call, a report, we went from 114 index down to 12. And same-store sales, it recovered quite fast. We actually finished ahead of last year, both in sales and profit, and also in terms of versus our internal plans. So -- and we've had another good month in January and February as well in terms of sales. So -- and we'll actually start reporting to you and people mentioned as well, given the fact that our numbers, now same-store sales numbers are going to be kind of hard to read year-on-year because of going in the -- of COVID being last year, we will compare -- show a lot of comparisons to 2019. So you can see really how strong the business is going. Also, the other, you'll see also that Russia also did very well in terms of margins, though it was probably other than Spain hit most strongly in terms of the impact of COVID and in terms of the market and our employees. So they did a very nice job in terms of cost control. And again, it's a good end of the year and a good start of the year on Russia. The most important market probably for us to deal with a COVID right now is Spain. As you know, we have 2 brands -- 2 very strong brands in La Tagliatella and KFC. Casual dining is certainly is the 1 that's going to take more time to recover for those people that are here and read or live in Spain know there's a lot of restrictions going on. We're hoping those will start to to be reduced as we're seeing some reduction in number of infections in the country. And for us, as you know, it's a good margin for us and also on TAG. So I think we're well positioned to rebound, very strong brands. We've also developed during this period of time a delivery and takeaway for us. So it's S so Spain is 1 son for us. If we can get that market to turn around quickly, then I think for the company overall that will speed up the recovery. And finally, QSR category, not surprisingly, has done very well. KFC, we talked about before but also Burger King has actually performed equally as well as KFC. We see a lot of momentum on the brand right now. And for us, we're looking at both KFC and Burger King exceeding being in the positive same-store sales versus 2019. So -- and Peter is going to touch more on that in more detail in his section. But certainly, we know that -- we feel that we're going to come out of this crisis stronger than we went into it. I think we're well positioned in several areas, and those -- that focus has not stopped. One of the trends we've seen is consolidation of the industry out there. We've seen a lot of small independent operators exit. We've also seen some activity even in the French market in the sushi business, too, where our competitors are exiting the market. So -- and we're seeing a lot more of the market share going to large operators like ourselves. So there's our opportunity right now to continue to take market share. We didn't close our restaurants when even some of the other big operators were there. So we took some market share. And we're -- and our intent is not to give that back once we exit COVID. So we're seeing the crisis really be more of an accelerator of that trend. There was already a trend in the market, but we're going to see that's something that will continue as we go forward. Also, importantly, for us as we develop channels. New channels have also expanded some ones that we were already in. Fortunately, we were already in the delivery area. But we weren't necessarily across all our brands. We had a very small business in China and -- with Tagliatella in terms of the casual dining business, having delivery that's changed a lot. We also took a concept from the U.S. also, I know it's used in the Middle East, it's called Curbside. So if you have somebody come out to your car and got contact and it's something that has worked out quite well for us, especially in the QSR side of it. So we're going to build that into our new -- as we renovate our restaurants and build new restaurants, we will make sure we have parking available to handle that in the new channel for us. We also have talked many times about our intent to have a multiple aggregator strategy. That's performing quite well. We've now started, and Peter can probably elaborate more in his section in Poland, where we had only 1 player. We've already added a couple more. And since it is our largest market and going to multiple aggregators, we've seen the numbers rise quite quickly in the delivery area. So we see that as the future opportunity for us as we fully expand. And finally, again, Peter will talk more about it, but our Shadow Kitchen project has proven to be quite successful. We've been cautious about it to make sure that we have everything together. We've also launched not only virtual brands but also our franchise brands. So -- and the results, again, are good, especially on the 1 we had to open up at the end of last year. And finally, we've also a look at our portfolio. It's something that I had talked about pre-COVID. There are some territories, some stores and some businesses that are then impacted negatively our results. We took some actions, and that's why we've seen a higher number in terms of closures, and that was on purpose to try to set ourself up for 2021 going forward with a more streamlined portfolio that's going to help us on our objective to improve cash flow and also improve margins. We're also seen some trends, important trends, more favorable for us in some cost categories and rents. We have been renegotiating our leases. We've a very successful with that. But we see probably a more positive impact going forward is going to be in citing new rents. We've seen a lot more properties on the market, more willingness to get a big player like ourselves into those locations. So far, we've been seen some positive news on that side. Regarding food costs, which, of course, is our biggest category. Our Foodservice division really has done an excellent job on keeping costs down. We're going to be probably about 50% of CPI. And then in some categories, important categories, we're also going to see some of the deflation. So I would think that most people think our food costs are going up, but we've actually been able to stabilize that and actually do much better than the market. And finally, labor, which is a little bit more unpredictable because a lot depends to intervention. There's certainly a lot more people in the marketplace. I hope that will slow down a bit the inflation that we're seeing on labor. But again, that's a harder 1 to predict at this point in time. So we also are making good progress on AmRest 2.0, and this is the name that we put to the business model that I outlined to use all of you since I took over as CEO. We are in that model, aiming to leverage off the strength of our brands. And that was -- in 1 area I talked about is being asset-light, which means doing a lot more in franchising. That's going to allow us to increase our margins, reduce our CapEx and also have a very healthy free cash flow, which is, again, something that I was been a concern to many of you over the years. So we are going to remain a growth company. I know this you're used to seeing much bigger numbers in terms of openings in that, but it is our intent, just want to see how this plays out in terms of COVID. So I don't want to send the state on that just because our numbers in terms of openings are in the area they are that we're going to stop growth. It's just taken us time to see where it's coming out with COVID, but we will see how we can reaccelerate profitable growth through both the combination of both franchise and equity openings. And certainly, if an M&A comes available at some point in time, and it makes sense, we would take it to the Board. So we are still in the growth mode. For the year, we're still going to be a little cautious on our new store openings. We opened up 88 in 2020. Right now, we're looking at approximately 130 gross openings this year. I'm really pleased with the franchise pipeline that we put together. We have 14 franchise openings in 2020. And we should triple that to roughly 45 to 50 for this year. So this -- the pipeline is actually going -- is building faster than I expected. And so that's good news for us. The focus on that pipeline is on Sushi Shop and Pizza Hut. So we're -- the asset-light model is, I think we're executing quite well that. So certainly, the benefit of that is going to be on the CapEx. We used to have very large CapEx numbers, and we used to do the calls. The budget is about EUR 50 million for store openings only. That compares to EUR 60 million in 2020, that number was already low compared to the past. So we do see it a significant decrease in spend, but also at the same time, though, our store -- new store openings is going to be increasing 40% to 50%. So I think it's heading in the right direction. So we need also to be able to ensure that we can deal with possibly another wave, which we don't anticipate, but we do. We have that end loaded a lot of this year's equity so that we can be flexible on the stand. But I do see a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. So I think we're very optimistic where this is going. I know some of you also probably always asked about CapEx spend year. We're going to be in the EUR 110 million to EUR 120 million, total CapEx. I want to make sure I note that. So I think where you're modeling and understanding that. But I think we're going to continue to generate profit margins, we're focusing on moving back up again and also on reducing our level of debt. So we'll kind of update you over the next couple of quarters. We're progressing on that. I'm hoping that we can have a little bit more positive news on COVID overall and by the next call. So again, I'm very pleased with where we're at. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Eduardo, who's going to take you through the financials. Eduardo?

Eduardo Zamarripa

executive
#5

Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everybody. Now if I move to the financial highlights of the quarter. The total store count is 2,337. We were able to keep in the range of 92% the stores open across the quarter. The net sales amounted to EUR 397 million, and implies a decline of 24.9%. The biggest decline was registered in November, while in December figures, we showed a recovery. On quarter-to-quarter basis, revenues decreased 9.9% versus third quarter but was higher by 46% versus the second quarter. Restrictions in wave 2 hasn't affected our numbers, but we are much better positioned compared to mid-year. Same-store sales for the fourth quarter reached 78.8%. On a month-to-month basis, the biggest drop was in November and we were able to recover to a 79.6% in December. Our dining formats were the most impact. The sales reduction had an impact on our results. But at the same time, we continue with our actions in cost and expense reduction initiatives. Rent negotiation and reliefs as well as government aid programs enabled to generate savings. The consolidated EBITDA amounted to EUR 47 million, representing a 63% decrease over the year. EBITDA margin reached 11.8% and shows a lower margin than we achieved in Q3 was higher than we achieved in the first half of the year. In the fourth quarter, we reduced a rental relief benefit of EUR 3.2 million. And for the full year, the relief amount is EUR 18.6 million. For the fourth quarter of the year, the penalties received from different governments related to payroll and social contribution programs amounted to EUR 5.8 million. For the full year, the grants amounted EUR 29.5 million which are included in the other income line. In December, we sold our 7.5% stake in Global for EUR 76.2 million. These transactions have no effect on P&L as in December 2019, we revalued the -- for our cash flow, this transaction injected additional liquidity in this center. Net profit attributable to AmRest shareholders amounted to minus EUR 23.5 million. Now I will move to the segment information, particularly on Central and Eastern Europe. The revenues reached EUR 171.5 million in the fourth quarter and were 26.1% lower compared to the same period of last year. Taking the advantage of QSR orientation with strengthens the position we delivery, drive-through and takeaway. The fourth quarter EBITDA stood at EUR 25.6 million and was 48% lower than last year. EBITDA margin stood at 14.9%. Adjustment to available channels strong operations and supportive government aid helped the region. Continuing with Western Europe. For the fourth quarter, sales reached EUR 158 million and decreased by 25%. And Spain and Germany remain the most affected due to more cash flow dining and coffee segment oriented business. France posted 5.8% increase in sequential basis due to more delivery and takeaway oriented brands. The fourth quarter EBITDA was EUR 8.6 million with a margin of 5.4%, highly impacted by lower top line. For Russia, sales for the third quarter amounted to EUR 38.3 million, down 31.2% versus last year, mainly driven by the close on course impacting the share of stores operation. In China, fourth quarter, improvement started recovery. Sales year-on-year were slightly off. In the fourth quarter, the EBITDA had a strong recovery with a margin of 31.9%, an impressive recovery versus last year margin of 25.2%. The improvement in sales, along with cost savings initiatives implemented helped to achieve a record segment profitability. Now with regard to the balance sheet. We have a very strong cash position of EUR 204.8 million. Cash preservation is still 1 of the top priorities in AmRest. Through the cash task force that we cover cash flow and EBITDA initiatives. The cash flow force is a global effort across all the functions and supported by each of the companies. It's hard to keep generating cash from operations, making the investments that give the highest returns and be able to have a positive net cash flow. The cash flow for operating activities in the year amounted to EUR 170 million. In terms of investing activities, we kept a very disciplined approach in terms of CapEx. For the year amounted to EUR 91 million, and we incorporated EUR 75.5 million from the sale of our Global sale. In terms of financing, we contracted all the stakeholder and amortization payments and we announced in December an agreement with our total banks for a longer covenant waiver. It covers the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first 3 quarters of 2021. It replaces the leverage and interest covenant ratios and a liquidity covenant for the period is in place. The liquidity level assumed by the growth is EUR 80 million and lower to EUR 50 million for the third quarter of 2021. In addition, we received a covenant waiver for a majority of 77% of our issued China bondholders. As a result of the above, net debt at the end of December 2020, excluding the impact of IFRS 16, equaled EUR 559 million. In these challenging times, we were able to reduce the out net debt in EUR 70 million. This is a very challenging environment, but we are allowing a series of initiatives in order to secure the continued and improvement of operations of AmRest. Now I will turn the call to Peter for his remarks.

Peter Kainder

executive
#6

Thank you, Eduardo. Hello, everyone. So what I will be trying to do is to give you a maximum out of disclosure on the trends we have been seeing since the beginning of this year. And hopefully, that helps you to increase visibility on your side in this environment of general uncertainty. So with that in mind, let me talk you through some highlights around current trading. As of beginning of this week, we are operating 93% of stores, which is a slight increase from the 92% we have seen in January and at the end of last year. Breaking that down into geographies, out of our main markets, we are fully or almost fully, so anywhere between 98% and 100% operational in Poland, in Hungary, in Russia and in China. But of course, it doesn't mean that we can operate all the sales channel in those markets. On the other hand, the share of temporary closures is highest in Germany, Spain and Czech Republic, where we operate around 80% of equity and franchise stores. With regards to same-store sales, and those are, as always, adjusted for temporary or COVID-related closures. As Eduardo just mentioned, we have been at 78.8% index in the fourth quarter of last year. In general, we have improved to a level around 80%. And in February, so far, we are in an 82% to 85% range. Now we make that in the third quarter of last year, where we had an environment mostly with lockdowns. We have been an 86.6% overall. So now with a full lockdown or pretty much a full lockdown in place, we are only a few percentage points of, which is not the bad achievement, I believe. One point mentioning also on same-store sales, train the key drivers, Sushi Shop, as Mark said, very strong, posting over 120% same-store sales index in February and 113% in January. Blue Frog in China, that's a continuation of positive same-store sales trends we reported also in the last quarters. KFC in 3 out of the 12 the markets we operate is the same-store sales positive in February. And in case you're wondering, these are smaller markets for now, it's Bulgaria, Croatia and Austria. Burger King, we are same store sales positive for the month in 3 out of 5 markets, which again in Bulgaria, but also Romania and Slovakia. So overall, when you look at the different brands and the trends we see, this looks very encouraging for us. And that's a result of our teams optimizing and maximizing the sales by the channels which are available to us. And that's visible also when looking at the structure of sales by channel. 44% of sales we have seen today are being generated through takeout. That compares to a level of 29% before COVID, 27% by delivery, which compares to 13% pre-COVID and up to 34% during the first wave in spring last year. 15% by drive-through versus 5% before COVID and 14% in dining and that obviously wasn't -- used to be a much bigger number that was 52% in the previous year. It is worth highlighting that the share of takeout is about 10% higher now, that it has been during the first wave. And then thanks to efforts of the team actively working on shifting business, especially from delivery, where we, of course, got the additional cost of the drivers. No matter if we do the last mile internally or through third parties. And therefore, as you know, takeout is by far the most profitable channel for us. And the increase we see is visible across overheads. To give you some feeling on how the structural sales might look like post COVID, given the permanent end of restrictions, hopefully, in the North East future. We got to grow by learnings and observations of last summer, where we could see the following. One people return to dining, up 43% to 44% share that summer despite the virus still being around back then. Delivery stays higher, but was back to 15% to 16% from the north of 30% during the first wave. But only higher than the 13% we saw before on the beginning of the year in January, February 2020. Takeout, that's very good news, takeout is still, was still about 10% higher during summer, and in fact, even higher than during the first wave. Of course, we can say how happy this will have changed post COVID. But so far, those trends are encouraging. Our teams are doing great job also allowing customers a smooth transition and are managing the migration between the different channels extremely well. Looking ahead, we certainly don't know any better than you do about the timing of vaccinations and the eventual end of the restrictions. But we believe that our business can recover fast once we reach that point and are coming out of these lockdowns. If we look about 6 months to get same-store sales from 50% to close to 90% during last summer, but back then the number of cases was lower, but there was still a risk and a threat to people affecting customer habits, especially in casual dining. Hopefully, very soon, we are talking about permanent reopenings and people being vaccinated. So our thinking is that the pace of recovery could be even faster than back in summer of last year. Especially also as our starting point in terms of open stores, but also same-store sales is higher than it was last year. A few comments on growth. Mark mentioned the 130 store opening target for this year and our focus on franchise stores. This year, growth will be organic. They're not in any acquisitions at this point in time. But as was said before, that, of course, can change in the future. At the same time, we have been working through the portfolio of unprofitable that we call them dog stores to do less what consistently cost us money. We certainly have been tough on those than in the past. And as a result, we have closed 87 stores in 2020. Probably enterprising to you and us around 30% of those closures have been in Pizza Hut, followed by close to 20% in Starbucks due to cleanup in Germany. Going forward, those closures will positively impact profitability that they have been dragging us down previously. We were not fully done on closures. The plan is to finalize the cleanup with about 40 to 50 additional closures this year. Finally, some words on an initiative we are very passionate about, which is our rollout of channel features and virtual brands. We got our full channel which is operating in 6 virtual brands so far following volumes. We are now starting to connect as Mark said before, aggregators other than Global and most beginning of this year reduced especially important when it comes to the largest platforms as the market which is taken [indiscernible]. But we also had [indiscernible] as a partner. And I'm very happy to reported as a result the order numbers are 2 to 3x higher when looking at January and February, which is another piece of evidence that the multi aggregator strategy, which we put in place some while ago is [indiscernible], and you can actually increase tiering of orders, and you can reach different types of customers. And the results, I was just reporting in Shadow Kitchens this year is without any promotions or other marketing initiatives so far on our side. A greater amount, and for this year, we plan to open 5 additional channel [indiscernible]. Let me close by saying that we are very optimistic about the shape of the company, the motivation and commitment of the teams and the prospects of recovering this year. And we think that, for us, this requirement will be strong. And with that, I will hand back to the moderator to open the floor for questions. Thank you.

Operator

operator
#7

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from João Pinto of JB Capital.

João Pinto

analyst
#8

The first one, you mentioned there is consolidation opportunities in the market. Would you consider M&A in 2021 if you see a good opportunity? And if so, which type of restaurants are you looking for? Regarding gross openings, 2 questions. The first one, just to confirm, this 130 gross openings plan for 2021 includes the 45 franchise stores as well? And does this include dark kitchen? And also on the gross openings, can you give us some color on the breakdown between brands and geographies? And finally, my last question is on rent negotiations. And do you have any estimates of how much you will be saving on a recurrence is versus pre-COVID levels?

Mark Chandler

executive
#9

Okay. So maybe I'll start off on this. In terms of the consolidation, certainly, if there is an M&A that's out there, we would come to the Board on it. So we are seeing consolidation. As I said, I'm a little cautious because of the COVID as to -- because cash is still important for us with our bank covenants and such. So but we still look for those opportunities. The multiples have dropped on those that we were -- we've always been approached by people on it, but the multiples have been kind of the same as pre COVID using pre COVID earnings. And so we've been waiting and then we're seeing a few more drop offs. So if I look for an area for it, it would be more in probably a QSR area, I think probably KFC would be of a particular brand within the portfolio, but we'll also look outside of that. But so that would probably be the area that we would look at. So we're not idle in terms of looking at things. We just haven't seen anything that meets kind of the criteria -- I really don't want something that we have to fix that's broken. And we got to take time. We want something that we come with a strong organization, has white space to grow and margins are going to be able to kind of be accretive to what we do today. So we have some pretty strict criteria. Size of it also would make a difference. We don't want a lot of little ones because they do take time on that. In terms of openings, you're correct on the 130 openings, the 45 franchise are part of the 130. That number, hopefully going to -- we still see a pipeline growing into 45. The dark kitchen numbers, the 5 that were mentioned by Peter are not in that number. We decided to -- because they have multiple brands now. So we have not just added that in. So those are additional openings to the 130 that we mentioned. So because sometimes it gets very confusing as to how to account that. So they're not in the numbers we talked about. In terms of where we do a lot of the openings at this point in time, we've renegotiated our franchise or agreements. So we're we're focused on the brands that we have. Certainly, in terms of our own brands, Sushi Shop, in particular, we'll see a lot of openings for next year. That part, we're going to see certainly a lot of corners, which are low investment that on very high-return for us. KFC also, especially in Central Europe, we have a large opportunity there. So we are going to continue to explore that one. So -- and of course, we have our Burger King numbers as well. We're probably a little more moderate on Starbucks because we have to see the recovery of Starbucks there. Same thing probably with La Tagliatella because it'll also be in casual dine. But we do see that probably the biggest amount of openings in our portfolio will be coming from -- for equity opening, half the equity openings will be from KFC, more than half of that. And again, the franchise into the 45, we see a very strong pipeline right now for the Pizza Hut and for Sushi Shop. So that's going to be very evenly distributed between the 2 of them. Hopefully, that answers the question that you had.

Eduardo Zamarripa

executive
#10

And the additional that you have in terms of rent negotiations, particularly for the third quarter, we got a relief of rent of EUR 3.2 million. Still, we have some relief for the following months. And we have that in 2 fronts. First, the negotiation, we got back to our landlords and given the effect the COVID having on our sales, we were able to negotiate some reductions and some would differ us. And we continue having talks with them to continue with those benefits. And the other part is that we also negotiate rents in a percentage related to revenues, so that went automatically, given the impact that we already have on that, we have already made it in our numbers.

Peter Kainder

executive
#11

As well, let me add maybe 2 sentences on M&A. We're now in an environment where not also rewarded for something begun. Now for quality businesses. And these are the ones we're looking for. There is no valuation incentive for any other kind of incentives to be quick and to be the first 1 to make a move. So that's why I said it's not a very moment there is nothing [indiscernible] on the table, right, generally being movers, of course, but there is nothing we're looking seriously right now.

Operator

operator
#12

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Krzysztof Kawa at IPOPEMA Securities.

Krzysztof Kawa

analyst
#13

So I would like to ask the follow-up question, if you could give more color about the multi aggregator strategy in February in Poland, how is it performing? And when do you plan to expand also [indiscernible] or takeaway that come with this? This is the first question. And the second 1 is the expected value, what may be the expected value of the state support when it comes to rentals or salaries in 2021? Do you expect anything to arrive from this front? And the last question concerns the asset life model. I've seen that, for example, in Russia, you managed to change some of the Pizza Hut equity restaurants to the franchise ones. Is it the only only market or on the examples when it's quite successful or do you manage to do so in any other markets? And how many restaurants may -- this year maybe transferred from equity to [indiscernible]?

Mark Chandler

executive
#14

So maybe I'll start and probably start at the last question first, and then I'll have Peter go answer the multiple aggregator. In terms of -- you're right, we did with the asset-light model. During 2020, we did convert by refranchising our Pizza Hut business, a result to current franchisees. And then where we focused actually was primarily in Russia, but also in Germany. We had roughly 10 stores, equity stores in Germany. So we've already converted a couple. Our intent is to do a few more stores in Germany because it's -- for us, it's that a couple of markets, as you know, has been hard make money on. We had -- we started out also with 40 equity stores in Russia. Some we've closed, as Peter mentioned, we also have been successful in refranchising some, and we have our desire as probably, and it leaves us now down to 20. We start out with 40 in equity. And so we're looking to see if we can reduce that probably in half. And we also have a couple of opportunities in Central Europe and in particular, probably in Poland. Because we do have -- our desires as you grow is to have not single operators, but people who are able to have multiple units. And sometimes, the easier way to do is also include a sell them a equity unit that will allow them to have a starting point and then they'll -- with the commitment to build some more. So our franchise teams, we spent a lot of time, probably a couple of years ago, the area that we were not so strong on other than in Spain was in franchises. Because there's a whole different set of skills. And we have a separate team, strong team only with experience in that area, and that's what they're working on is as they build the pipeline as are there opportunities also to convert some of our equity stores to help us in that opportunity there. So that's the area we're working on. In terms of state support, we're not planning on a lot of state support. We have had some in the first couple of months in some countries, Hungary, in particular, has been there some other countries. We have not seen much at all, any actions in Poland. And so -- which is the biggest market. So we are still seeking that. We're also speaking how we can get there through for employees, but also whether it's taxes in that, and we're certainly with a lot of associations we're on. We're on the associations with other big companies and that trying to make sure we get because there's some countries that we've been more severely impacted than others. But at this point in time, we're not forecasting that because I think we're still hoping we're going to get some help, but we're not planning for it. So -- but we have had several million euros come in, in the first couple of months, but some of those also carry over from last year. And then also, Peter, maybe you want to talk about that extend a little bit more on Poland, on the aggregator?

Peter Kainder

executive
#15

Yes, sure. Well, just to be on Shadow Kitchens. Shadow Kitchens have always been excluded from the exclusivities, right? And Poland was a specific case generally for our business -- delivery business, because we saw Pizza [indiscernible] also Global and part of [indiscernible] Global was that for a certain period of time, we go exclusive with Global, but Shadow Kitchens were excluded from that. And the reason why generally Shadow Kitchens has to go multi aggregators that the mall only works if you have the broad reach, and we actually have all the aggregate lined up to increase the number of transactions. So we could go very quick and the reason why we just signed up with Uber Eats and with [indiscernible] was not that whether it was a contractual or any other limitation to third parties, it was more technical and design of the process because we just opened the Shadow Kitchens, and there was a step-by-step approach. So we went slightly earlier in terms of the rollout. And the reason why I mentioned is that a number of transactions, as soon as we [indiscernible] have been 2 to 3x higher than the previous levels when we went with Global and [indiscernible] give you kind of a feeling that there is an impact. So obviously, we are now doing the same. We have been doing the same in the last couple of weeks for the remaining delivery business in Poland. We expect an impact. I'm not sure that it's going to be 2, 3x. I think it will -- the impact will be very high that's what we said in the last quarter call that we think we can get incremental orders by the time on the other platforms. Unfortunately, we are still in the process. We go pretty much on a store-by-store basis. So we are not nearly done and some people on this call asking when finally, they can get on [indiscernible] the KFC and the BK. It just takes time. So I can't report any hard basin but looking at Shadow Kitchens, we are encouraged to see a significant impact. But probably this first quarter results, we can give you some day on how much that is.

Operator

operator
#16

Our next question is from Jean-Pascal Rolandez of L.T. Funds.

Jean-Pascal Rolandez

analyst
#17

And first, congratulations for an outstanding job through this crisis and through the challenging last quarter. Crisis revealed weak spots. And in your acquired portfolio, there are 2 spots, which are Starbucks in Germany and Pizza Hut in France. So I'm curious to know what you intend to do with those 2 assets because crisis as the good time to shake things up and reshape things. So this is my question. But again, congratulations.

Mark Chandler

executive
#18

Thank you very much. So yes, so you hit on 2 spots. Certainly, they get a lot of attention for all of us, especially for me. In terms of Starbucks, Germany, we have been working actually with Starbucks in EMEA and also out of Seattle as well. And talk to people with Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks because it's a key market for them. And so we are working on a couple of initiatives with them. Some of the technology side, which are helping us with. And so it's been a very good partnership, and we're still continuing to talk about meeting next week to talk further about new opportunities there. The technology side is 1 where, certainly, we're going to work on mobile order to pay and the loyalty program, which don't exist. There's also some, call it, technology stack or asset they have. That's been introduced into the U.K. and has been able to add anywhere from 5 to 10 points in same-store sales. So we believe that the big thing for us is to drive sales. Sales is what's there. The market overall right now because of COVID and I guess the Starbucks overall has been tough. But even without COVID, we know we need to do that to drive sales in Starbucks. So we have several initiatives with Starbucks. And again, it's always to Seattle on those particular the market. So -- and we have our -- the brand president is going to be spending more time in Germany to work on how we can execute that program. So -- and Starbucks is helping us in that investment. So I've been very, very pleased with them for the very beginning on the journey. So it is for us as well. It's very top of mind for us. So we need to make that turnaround. But for me, we've been driving on costs and areas like that, but it has to be sales. Sales has to drive that. And again, we're lacking because of what we inherited over time and because of the -- how long it takes in Germany, especially with work [indiscernible], not to make things implemented. We're going to get there, I think, with the loyalty program. And the mobile order to pay is huge for us there. And we've also introduced a food platform that didn't really exist, and we're seeing that work well in some of the markets now that we've introduced it into. So several initiatives there. And again, with the focus on that. But certainly, we'll keep updating you along the way and how we're making the progress there. The other 1 is actually people at France, France was a lot of about cleaning up the franchise community. For what we bought, we had a lot of issues on how we select -- as we move forward and the discipline we've had, we've been able to kind of clean that up. Actually, the same-store sales we've been seeing even during the crisis here, has been actually close to 100% same-store sales. So that actually the market. And we've also agreed with -- we're working with Yum, Pizza Hut Yum on investing in that market and as part of what we've agreed to. So we will be helping to expand the franchise community working on some more platforms digital wise, which will also drive sales. So it is a market that I think was just not well-managed when we took it over and is something that we see upside to. So I see Pizza Hut France is not so much for us as difficult. I think Starbucks, Germany will probably be a little bit longer to do just because of the situation in Germany right now with COVID and also how that impacts businesses life Starbucks. But I'm more optimistic about Pizza Hut friends than I was a year ago, actually. And we have a new leader the team put a new leader in there and and strength of the team that we had in France. So I think we're heading in the right direction, and I'm happy in the future to give you updates on that.

Operator

operator
#19

[Operator Instructions] It looks like we currently have no further questions. So I will hand back to the team.

Mark Chandler

executive
#20

Very good. Well, thank you very much, everybody. Again, I know it's been an interesting journey this past year for everybody here. Again, we're all anxious to get through this. But I think we're well positioned going forward. And again, I think I don't want to get to send the message that we're going to stop growing. So I'm hoping that we can start seeing some positive news in the markets, in particular, in Spain and Germany, where we're seeing that happen. But I want to thank you for all your support. It's without that wouldn't all be possible. And again, I want to thank the AmRest team, that people work very hard to make this happen. So I want to thank you. Wish you the best.

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