I was stunned to read how little Taste Holdings sold its 13 Starbucks stores for in South Africa.  They were paid only R7 million and they say that the launch store in Rosebank alone cost approximately R14 million to build, let alone what it cost to fit out all the other Starbucks branches around South Africa. 

I think that Starbucks is rather expensive by South African standards and it may well not have been positioned very well.  There is obviously also something to be said about having much smaller branches so that one pays a smaller rental.  Apparently, the shareholders of Taste had put in over R1 billion to fund the expansion of Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks and now the company has decided to get out of a losing business – so there are big losses all round for them.  Domino’s Pizza has had to buy back some of the franchises to the extent that now the company owns 58 out of the 81 stores according to an article I read.