Sphera Franchise Group, which franchises the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands in Romania and KFC restaurants in the Republic of Moldova and Italy, will shut seven Pizza Hut restaurants in Romania.
The restaurants closing have losses or below par performance.
“The management of the group, together with that of American Restaurant System SA, decided to close seven Pizza Hut restaurants, units that recorded operational performance below expectations and a significant negative impact on the financial results,” a statement on Friday said.
The decision is based on the evolution of the economic and consumption context, marked, starting with July 2025, by the liberalization and increase of prices on the energy market, the adoption of new fiscal measures, the increase of the VAT rate, as well as a slowdown in private consumption, by adopting a more prudent behavior in the new economic conditions,” the group announced in a press release sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).
Although the financial results in the first six months of 2025 had a favorable trajectory, the new economic context generated additional pressures on operating costs and margins.
The Group estimates that the existing demand will be covered through operational units in the network, without significant impact on customer access to Pizza Hut products and services.
“Management estimates that the closure of these non-performing units will have a positive impact on operational profitability, by eliminating recurring losses and optimizing the cost structure,” the group specifies.
Pizza Hut recorded an operating loss in restaurants of 1 million lei, in the first nine months of 2025, compared to an operating loss of 326,000 lei the previous year,
On September 30, 2025, Sphera Franchise Group operated 176 restaurants: 110 KFC restaurants in Romania, 3 in the Republic of Moldova and 17 in Italy, as well as 28 Pizza Hut restaurants in Romania, 16 Taco Bell restaurants in Romania, 1 Cioccolatitaliani restaurant in Italy and a Pizza Hut Delivery subfranchise.
In the first nine months of 2025, group-wide sales increased by 0.7%, reaching RON 1.151 billion. The 46.7% decrease in net profit in the first three quarters of 2025, up to RON 38 million, was driven by the impact of several factors: high level of operating expenses, especially those related to salaries and other operating expenses, stagnant sales on Sphera’s main business market – Romania, margin reduction and a 26.5% decrease in EBITDA, which reached 94.8 million lei.
The group had 4,944 employees, of which 4,442 in Romania, 404 in Italy and 98 in the Republic of Moldova as of September 30, 2025
