Taste Holdings, owner of Starbucks and Domino’s Pizza in SA, says its losses more than doubled in the year to February as revenues fell and operating costs grew by a quarter. The company recorded a loss of R241m, with revenue down 5% at R1bn due to weaker sales in the luxury goods business. Operating costs grew 24% to R622m as the group took on more corporate stores and included impairments, it said. Vunani Securities analyst Anthony Clark said the results were "horrific" and the six months to August 2018 were likely to be poor too, since trading over winter months tended to be weak and consumers remained under pressure.
Clark said Taste was in a precarious cash position and would probably have to go back to the market to raise more funds relatively soon. Despite raising R398m in a rights offer in January, Taste had just R96m cash left on its books at the end of February, partly because the company had to pay down some of its debts. After trying and failing to sell its luxury ...
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