The Expansion of South Beauty

Zhang Lan, President of South Beauty, tells reporters that her company is accelerating its expansion plan in inland cities of China, and will open 30 restaurants in 2011, which makes the total number to around 90. Besides, the restaurant chain is looking for target companies of its acquisition plan in Japan.

With the slack economy, value of Japanese companies drops to an accepted level now. Moreover, Chinese cuisine is well-received in that country, said Zhang Lan. Comparatively speaking, we will take more risks entering European and American markets and no plan has been made for these two areas.

The investments from CDH Fund and China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC) into South Beauty were around 300 million RMB in 2008, which accounted for nearly 10% of all its shares. That is to say, the estimated value of South Beauty amounted to 3 billion RMB two years ago. There are about 60 restaurants of South Beauty in 15 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin and the number of its staff is 7,000 or so.