Amrest to run more Starbucks CEE coffee houses

With the acquisition, Amrest, which is now running 67 Starbucks stores across Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, through AmRest Coffee, a joint-venture company which has rights and licenses to develop and manage Starbucks restaurants in those countries, will add 14 Romanian and 5 Bulgarian locations to its portfolio.

“Acquisition of Starbucks chain in Romania and Bulgaria is a perfect fit to Amrest’s strategy, providing the entryway into the Romanian market – the second largest country in Central Europe (…). In 2014 four new Starbucks stores were opened in that market and another 7 are to come this year (with some of the locations already opened). AmRest plans to triple the scale of the business within in the coming years. At the same time, acquired coffee shops in Bulgaria will strengthen AmRest’s presence and scale in that country,” the company informed.

According to an Allegra Strategies report published in November 2014, the Romanian branded coffee shop market, estimated at 60 units as of October 2014, with market growth of 7.1 pct in the preceding 12 months, remains highly under-developed compared to other European countries. As of Q3 2014 Starbucks had 38 stores in Poland, 9 in Romania, 9 in Hungary, 4 in Bulgaria and 17 in the Czech Republic.