Listed Pancake House is investing about P850 million to fund plans to expand its domestic and Southeast Asian operations through both organic growth and acquisition of businesses.

Pancake House chairman Martin Lorenzo said at the sidelines of the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting that they are allotting $10 million to $15 million for the acquisition of two foreign franchises, one in Thailand and another in Indonesia.

Once these firms are acquired, Lorenzo said they intend to apply their know-how in franchising and put up commissaries to support their expansion that their core strategy is to acquire and build a base before trying to bring these franchises to the Philippines.

He said these acquisitions are seen to boost contribution of their overseas businesses to 40 percent of total from current contribution of less than five percent of revenues.

The target firms are casual dining restaurants serving hot-pot meals and other local foods, said Lorenzo adding that the Thai restaurant currently has 30 branches while the Indonesia brand has already 80 branches.

Meanwhile, the firm is also spending P150 million to P170 million for the acquisition of a local grilled chicken roadside restaurant which current has five branches.

Lorenzo said they intend to grow the local franchise to 60 branches in 2 years and pointed out that “we will enter that segment because we have the technology for chicken and the ability to compete at the P150 range. We will get into that in a month or two.”

He said Pancake house is targeting full year revenues of P1.8 billion to P2.1 billion in 2010 with the flagship Pancake House contributing to 50 percent of revenues.

The revitalized Teriyako Boy contributes 35 percent of total revenues while the remaining 15 percent is accounted for by Dencio’s and Le Coeur which is now supplying bread to supermarkets, hotels and restaurants in addition to its mall based outlets.