Mr. Pizza to enter Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore

By Park Si-soo

Korea’s leading pizza restaurant Mr. Pizza signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a joint venture with Malaysian conglomerate Ye Chiu in a move to tap into the Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean markets, the company said Thursday.

The signing came one month after the Seoul-based company formed a partnership with Philippine’s WCGC to start a business in the Southeast Asian country.

Jung Woo-hyun, chairman of MPK Group that owns Mr. Pizza, signed the MOU with his counterpart from Ye Chiu at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday. Under the deal, the two companies will work together to open 50 Mr. Pizza restaurants in Indonesia, 30 in Malaysia and 20 in Singapore by 2017.

“Ye Chiu is our best partner in the region, considering its business ability, sales and marketing strategies,” Jung was quoted as saying in a press release. “We will work hard to make Mr. Pizza the No.1 pizza brand in Southeast Asia.”

Mr. Pizza has 433 outlets in Korea, three in the United States and 47 in China. The company is working to open more than 1,000 outlets in China alone by 2017.

An MPK spokesman said the company is in talks with potential partners in Hong Kong and other Asian countries to speed up its overseas expansion.