Lian Fa International Dining Business Corp (聯發國際餐飲), which owns bubble tea brand Sharetea (歇腳亭), is to launch an initial public offering (IPO) on the Taipei Exchange (TPEX) on Friday, moving up from the Emerging Stock Board.
The company started trading its shares on the Emerging Stock Board on Jan. 7 last year, and closed at NT$145 on Friday.
Sharetea started as a black tea stall on Taipei’s Nanyang Street in 1992 and established Lian Fa in 2004. It now has more than 350 outlets in 13 markets worldwide, including Canada, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the US and Vietnam.
Photo: CNA
Its IPO prospectus showed that it operates 125 Sharetea outlets in the US, its largest market, and 44 shops in Hong Kong, the second-largest.
The company runs 22 stores in Taiwan.
Lian Fa is upbeat about the global bubble tea market, as it expects a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent over the next five years, with sales expected to reach US$4.3 billion in 2027 from US$2.32 billion in 2020.
In the first nine months of last year, Lian Fa posted NT$614 million in consolidated sales, up 31 percent from a year earlier.
Net profit hit NT$85.57 million (US$3.1 million), or earnings per share of NT$5.52, compared with a profit of NT$19.3 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.47, for the entire 2020, it said.
Lian Fa president Lai Po-yu (賴伯宇) said in the statement that Sharetea’s global expansion plan focuses on the US.
The firm expects the number of US stores across 24 states to rise to 131 by the end of the first quarter, Lai said, adding that the firm is preparing to open more than 40 new Sharetea outlets in the country, including stores in one state where it is not yet present.
Prices per cup at Sharetea stores are from US$5 to US$7, higher than coffee at Starbucks, but many US consumers favor the Taiwanese brand, Lian Fa said, adding that while about 50 percent of its US outlets are run by ethnic Chinese franchises holders, only 30 percent of its US customers are ethnic Chinese.
The company is also seeking to expand in the Middle East, with a planned outlet in Kuwait, after it opened its first of four outlets in Dubai, UAE, in 2012.
Lian Fa has signed an agreement with a partner in Kuwait, where its outlet would be the only international hand-shaken beverage brand store, it said.
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