Today, The Business Times reported that local seafood chain No Signboard Holdings is closing all its Hawker outlets due to “continuing losses”.
This comes just over a year after No Signboard Holdings announced the launch of ‘Asian fast food’ chain Hawker under its subsidiary Hawker QSR Pte Ltd.
Then, they revealed plans to debut the first Hawker outlet by end-2018, and “have at least three outlets by early 2019 in Singapore’s central, East and West regions”.
Said No Signboard’s executive chairman and chief executive Sam Lim during the announcement last year: “For the first time after over 30 years of being in the seafood restaurant business, our group is branching out to fast-moving and higher turnaround fast food business.”
No Signboard Holdings also revealed that setup costs were around S$500,000 per outlet.
While they had kept true to their plans and opened outlets at Jewel Changi Airport (East), Kent Ridge (West), and Esplanade (Central), the update today means that these relatively new outlets will shuttered in time to come.
With the closure of the three outlets, the group is expecting “an impairment loss of approximately S$500,000”, which were incurred for renovations.
Just last week, QSR Media also reported that No Signboard Holdings “slipped into the red in its fiscal third quarter” after reporting a net loss of S$1.4 million compared to the year before.
It cited “higher operating expenses incurred for its hotpot and quick service restaurants” as a reason, and said that it was planning to “utilise its brand to look for growth outside [Singapore]” as it continues to diversify its business.
