Commentary: Jollibee shouldn’t rush its global IPO

The fast-food powerhouse from the Philippines has effectively become two businesses, says Juliana Liu for Bloomberg Opinion.

Jollibee employees attend to customer orders at a store in Manila. (File photo: AFP/Jay Directo)

HONG KONG: Jollibee Foods has spent two decades building a global restaurant empire. But while it makes sense for the Philippines’ fast-food powerhouse to separate the burgeoning international business from its mature, domestic operations, it shouldn’t rush to take the new company public.

The Manila-listed food and beverage group known for its signature fried chicken and sweet spaghetti confirmed earlier this month that it plans to spin off the overseas unit and seek an additional listing in Hong Kong , abandoning an earlier proposal to float the division in the United States.

While the company had previously targeted late next year for the IPO, the latest announcement didn’t specify a timeline. That flexibility is sensible. The international unit isn’t quite ready to be independent.

The logic behind the split is compelling. Jollibee has effectively become two businesses: a seasoned, profitable operation at home plus a rapidly growing overseas collection of restaurant and coffee brands – including Smashburger, dim sum chain Tim Ho Wan and Chinese fast-food outlet Yonghe King.

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A jeepney drives past a Jollibee at Divisoria in Manila, Philippines, August 24, 2026. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

Splitting them would give investors a clearer choice between the dependable cash flow of the Philippine enterprise and the greater growth potential of the international portfolio.

“MCDONALDISATION IN REVERSE”

The group has come a long way since 1975, when founder Tony Tan Caktiong, a trained engineer, started selling ice cream in Manila.

Three years later, burgers were added, followed by spaghetti and its signature Chickenjoy fried chicken. The menu additions helped Jollibee withstand the onslaught of American giants like McDonald's and KFC, owned by Yum! Brands.

Expansion abroad initially followed the Filipino diaspora, before the company began buying foreign brands in the early 2000s to build a business with global reach.

Sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse writes that Jollibee – along with Japanese-owned beef-bowl chain Yoshinoya and 7-Eleven, a unit of Seven & i Holdings – has become a prime example of the phenomenon of “McDonaldisation in reverse,” in which a business model originally developed in the West is adapted overseas and reimported by the motherland.

Jollibee now has more than twice as many outlets overseas as domestically, with South Korea’s Compose Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Vietnam’s Highlands Coffee among its biggest foreign brands. International sales including franchises jumped 27 per cent last year, almost three times the pace of the Philippine business.

RELIANCE ON HOME MARKET

Yet aggressive expansion doesn’t tell the whole story. The group still relies overwhelmingly on its home market for profit. It generated 112.5 per cent of the group’s net income last year after deducting expenses, interest and taxes.

The international businesses, despite healthy growth in operating income, collectively lost money.

The outlook for the offshore unit remains patchy, even if there are bright spots. The drinks business has emerged as one of the strongest performers, led by the South Korean and Vietnam coffee outlets. The beloved chicken brand’s North American expansion is also going well.

But the picture is less rosy elsewhere. Smashburger, the US burger chain Jollibee took full control of in 2018, has been struggling and is still being restructured. China, battered by a general downturn in retail spending, has also been a weak spot.

PUBLIC LISTING CAN WAIT

None of this is an argument for keeping Jollibee’s domestic and international businesses together.

Since January, when the New York listing was announced, the food chain has been building the governance, financing and organisational structure needed for each to operate independently. It has also named Chief Financial Officer Richard Shin to lead the global business full-time once the separation is complete.

But the listing can wait. Jollibee should give the international business at least another year to improve before asking public-market investors to evaluate it. The Smashburger franchise, for one, will need more time for a menu revamp and US$4.99 value offerings to gain traction.

Giving the international operation its own management and balance sheet should make it easier to judge which brands deserve more investment and which need fixing, or even exiting. Investors would also get a cleaner set of standalone financials and a better sense of how much profit can be generated overseas.

The extra time is a small price to pay to prove that the global business can stand on its own.

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据彭博社专栏作家朱莉安娜·刘 (Juliana Liu) 报道，这家来自菲律宾的快餐巨头实际上已经分裂成两家公司。

在马尼拉的一家Jollibee门店，员工们正在为顾客点餐。（资料照片：法新社/Jay Directo）

香港：快乐蜂餐饮集团（Jollibee Foods）花了二十年时间打造了一个全球餐饮帝国。虽然这家菲律宾快餐巨头将蓬勃发展的国际业务与其成熟的国内业务分开是明智之举，但它不应该急于让新公司上市。

这家在马尼拉上市的食品饮料集团以其招牌炸鸡和甜意大利面而闻名，本月早些时候证实，它计划分拆海外部门，并在香港寻求再次上市，放弃了之前在美国上市的提议。

虽然该公司此前曾计划在明年年底进行IPO，但最新公告并未明确具体时间表。这种灵活性是明智的。国际业务部门尚未完全做好独立运营的准备。

分拆背后的逻辑很有说服力。快乐蜂实际上已经分裂成两家公司：一家是国内成熟且盈利的运营企业，另一家是快速增长的海外餐饮和咖啡品牌集团，旗下包括Smashburger汉堡、点心连锁店添好运和中式快餐连锁店永和王。

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2026年8月24日，一辆吉普尼驶过菲律宾马尼拉迪维索里亚区的一家Jollibee快餐店。路透社/Eloisa Lopez

将它们拆分，可以让投资者在菲律宾企业可靠的现金流和国际投资组合更大的增长潜力之间做出更清晰的选择。

“反向麦当劳化”

该集团自 1975 年以来取得了长足的发展，当时创始人 Tony Tan Caktiong 是一位受过专业训练的工程师，他在马尼拉开始销售冰淇淋。

三年后，汉堡包加入菜单，随后又推出了意大利面和招牌炸鸡。这些新品的加入帮助Jollibee抵御了百胜餐饮集团旗下麦当劳和肯德基等美国餐饮巨头的冲击。

公司最初是随着菲律宾侨民的涌入而开始向海外扩张，之后在 2000 年代初，公司开始收购外国品牌，以建立具有全球影响力的业务。

社会学家 Jan Nederveen Pieterse 写道，快乐蜂（Jollibee）——连同日本拥有的牛肉饭连锁店吉野家（Yoshinoya）和 Seven & i Holdings 旗下的 7-Eleven——已经成为“反向麦当劳化”现象的典型例子，在这种现象中，最初在西方发展起来的商业模式被海外改造，然后被祖国重新引进。

Jollibee 目前的海外门店数量是国内门店数量的两倍多，其中韩国的 Compose Coffee、Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf 和越南的 Highlands Coffee 都是其最大的海外品牌。去年，包括加盟店在内的国际销售额增长了 27%，几乎是菲律宾国内业务增速的三倍。

对国内市场的依赖

然而，激进的扩张并不能说明全部问题。该集团的利润仍然主要依赖于其本土市场。去年，扣除费用、利息和税款后，其本土市场贡献了集团净利润的112.5%。

尽管国际业务的营业收入实现了健康增长，但整体上却出现了亏损。

尽管也有一些亮点，但海外业务的前景依然不明朗。饮料业务表现最为强劲，其中韩国和越南的咖啡门店表现尤为突出。深受消费者喜爱的炸鸡品牌在北美的扩张也进展顺利。

但其他地区的情况则不那么乐观。美国汉堡连锁店Smashburger于2018年被快乐蜂（Jollibee）完全收购，但该公司一直举步维艰，目前仍在进行重组。受零售支出普遍下滑的影响，中国市场也表现疲软。

公开上市可以稍后进行

以上种种都不能作为将快乐蜂的国内业务和国际业务合并的理由。

自今年1月宣布在纽约上市以来，这家食品连锁企业一直在构建必要的治理、融资和组织架构，以确保旗下各业务能够独立运营。该公司还任命首席财务官理查德·申（Richard Shin）在分拆完成后全职领导全球业务。

但上市可以暂缓。快乐蜂应该至少再给国际业务一年的时间来改善，然后再邀请公开市场投资者进行评估。例如，Smashburger连锁店需要更多时间来改进菜单，并推出4.99美元的超值产品，才能获得市场认可。

赋予国际业务独立的管理和资产负债表，应该有助于判断哪些品牌值得更多投资，哪些品牌需要整顿甚至退出。投资者也能获得更清晰的独立财务数据，更好地了解海外市场的潜在盈利能力。

为了证明这家全球性企业能够独立运营，付出额外的时间是值得的。

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