Westlife Foodworld Ltd, the operator of McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India, has announced Saurabh Bhudolia as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), on Tuesday. The new CFO will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of financial management and strategy at the company. Saurabh will report to the company’s executive director Akshay Jatia, and will work closely with the leadership team to devise effective financial strategies for Westlife Foodworld. Before joining Westlife Foodworld, Saurabh was associated with Lux Industries and Future Group India as the company CFO. He has also worked with companies like Tata Steel, Mondelez International, and Sula Vineyards over a period of 15 years of his professional career.
Saurabh is a Chartered Accountant (CA) with experience in the manufacturing industries (Steel, FMCG, Beverage, and Retail) in India, New Zealand, and Singapore, and his area of expertise include accounting, budgeting & costing, treasury, taxation, project finance, financial reporting, business partnering, M&A, IR, funding, and auditing. “I am looking forward to leveraging my experience to provide financial guidance, ensure compliance and maximize profitability,” said Saurabh Bhudolia.
Earlier, the master franchisee of McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India, in its ‘Vision 2027’ announcement, had said that its working towards integrating various channels and touchpoints to a One McDonalds platform in order to provide consumers a seamless experience. The company plans to penetrate 100 per cent Experience of the Future (EOTF) stores by 2027, to build drive thru destination stores across all city suburbs and national highways. 30-35 per cent of the new stores will be ‘drive thrus’. The company is targeting 35-40 per cent business contribution from delivery over the medium to long term. In the last 5 years, the company was able to grow this business by nearly 10x along with achieving market leadership on 3PO platforms amongst QSRs,” the company said in a statement.
Westlife Foodworld is planning to open 250-300 stores in the next five years wherein 50-55 per cent of the new stores will be in the South and 45-50 per cent in West. “The work on the next ~200 stores has already commenced,” it said. Further, the company said that it is targeting 18-20 per cent EBITDA margin by 2027 and that it has optimized investments to have better returns on incremental capital.
Meanwhile, talking about the expectations of the QSR industry from the upcoming budget, Amit Jatia, Vice Chairman, Westlife Foodworld Ltd, said, “The QSR industry anticipates some relief in the ITC (Input tax credit) to help boost the sector’s growth. The current GST rate on restaurants is 5 per cent, with no input tax credit. This is a comparative disadvantage for the restaurant and food industry, as other sectors receive input credit back, leaving the restaurant and QSR chains as the only industry in India liable for GST input.”