Calamander to bring in another F&B franchise by 1Q next year
View(s):The Calamander Group Inc, a Singapore based investment holding company which recently announced expansion plans for its Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf franchise in Sri Lanka is poised to introduce another ‘brand name’ franchise, Roman Scott, its Founder and Chairman says.
“We had discussions with the management of this new chain and by first quarter next year we plan to launch this,” he told the Business Times. He said that the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf franchise is now in Bangladesh as well. “We will start the coffee houses (in Bangladesh) soon.”
With interests in real estate, hotels, F&B, and education in the Commonwealth countries, the company has already set its sights on expanding its Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf franchise to at least three more branches (Negambo, Liberty Plaza and Rajagiriya) and also acquiring two hotels – one in Colombo and the other in Kandy. “These will be city centre hotels and they will be ‘nice, middle class’ brands,” he said, adding that they will be three star hotels. These two hotels will be managed by international brands, he said.
He added that already a couple of places to set up the city hotel in Colombo have been shortlisted.
Calamander’s enterprise business does buy-outs and buy-ins in a diversified range of industries linked to emerging Asian consumption and urbanization, and has a niche in the Sri Lankan market.
The company is also eyeing to set up a medium sized shopping facility in Colombo while looking to acquire an international school or a hotel school. “We’re quite interested in the education sector,” Mr. Scott said, adding that the shopping facility will be a mini mall.
Calamander currently holds interests in real estate, hotels, consumer and agri-business sectors in South and South East Asia.