Hong Kong protests and the pandemic couldn’t keep restaurant operator Pirata Group down – now it plans a big expansion
- Hong Kong-based restaurant operator Pirata Group’s new CEO outlines plans to more than treble its number of outlets in five years through regional expansion
- The bold plan reflects Steen Puggaard’s approach to business – it is ‘about identifying opportunities and being bold about going after them’, he says
The new chief executive of Pirata Group, which operates restaurants in Hong Kong and China, has grand plans for the business.
Steen Puggaard, the former CEO of Burger King Scandinavia, wants to expand the number of restaurants in the group’s portfolio from the 26 it has now to 100 in Hong Kong and the surrounding region within the next five years.
“We already have two of our brands, Pici and The Pizza Project, established in Shanghai with a partner and they’re already operating successfully,” he says.
“China is the market to focus on because we already have a presence. One of the first things I would like to do is to cultivate relationships with partners for us [there].”
The plan after that is to look further afield: “That could be markets like Vietnam, [the] Philippines and Indonesia, where there is a [big] population and a strong emerging middle class, combined with manageable costs of doing business.”
However, even if there is demand, “if the cost of doing this is too high there is no point for us to go in”, he adds.
