This morning Australian pizza franchisor Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd (ASX: DMP) announced it has completed the acquisition of Germany's Hallo Pizza business that owns 170 stores across Europe's largest economy.
After Domino's rip-roaring success in Australia the pizza delivery store market got saturated, so Domino's management looked overseas to Japan and then Europe to satisfy an insatiable growth appetite.
The Japanese operations have proven challenging at best, with flat same-store sales growth not a result Domino's investors are used to.
In Europe, the group is aiming to grow store count across France and Germany while really lifting the bottom line by expanding margins to get them more in line with its Australian operations. The direction of the share price over 2018 will depend heavily on the progress of its overseas operations.
At its recent AGM the group reaffirmed forecasts for FY 2018's total net profit growth to be around 20% compared to underlying results in FY 2018.
