Philippine fast food giant Jollibee spends US$350 million to buy Coffee Bean
- Jollibee has 1,150 outlets in the Philippines, and a bigger share of the Philippine market than its two biggest competitors combined
- Singapore’s wealthy Sassoon family are shareholders of the Coffee Bean chain, having brought the brand to Asia
Jollibee Foods, a major Asian fast food operator, will spend US$350 million to purchase Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL).
“The acquisition of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf will be Jollibee’s largest and most multinational so far with business presence in 27 countries,” Jollibee chairman Tony Tan Caktiong said in a statement, adding that the acquisition will add 14 per cent to its global system-wide sales and 26 per cent to its total store network.
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Los Angeles-based CBTL has 1,189 outlets spread across the US, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and is rapidly growing in Asia. Nearly three-fourths of its outlets are franchised.
Singapore’s wealthy Sassoon family are shareholders of CBTL, having brought the brand to Asia, and are widely credited for fuelling the trend of Western-style coffee in the region.
The family’s move into coffee came about after Victor Sassoon, a former concert tour promoter, met pop singer Paula Abdul in Los Angeles while visiting his brother Sunny.
When Sassoon mentioned he was thinking about bringing Coffee Bean to Singapore, Abdul told him “this is the greatest product in the world. You’ve got to get this company”, according to a story in The New York Times in 2000.
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The Jollibee food and beverage empire was born in 1975 – and at the time served only ice cream. It was the brainchild of Caktiong – generally referred to by his staff as Sir Tony in a sign of respect – the third child of seven in an impoverished family who moved to the Philippines from Fujian province in China. His father opened a small Buddhist restaurant in the southern Philippine city of Davao when Tan was a child.
The Jollibee name was introduced in 1978, first as Jolibe; it was changed to the current spelling so that it could be more easily associated with the words “jolly” and “bee” – and so that, thanks to the non-standard spelling, it could be easily trademarked.
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