Famous Brands, the owner of Wimpy, Steers and Debonairs Pizza restaurant brands, is confident that its "best-in-their-class" brands will hold out in the tightening consumer spending environment, its senior official said on Monday.

"We have resilient brands that deliver high quality, and although a lot of luxury foods will come under pressure, people have to eat," Kevin Hedderwick, Famous Brands COO, told I-Net Bridge in a phone interview.

Trading conditions in the group's line of businesses are expected to worsen due to expectations of further 50-basis-point interest rate hikes next month and again in August, which would bring the hikes since June 2006 to 550-basis-points.

Hedderwick said the group increased selling prices by about 4.5 percent across its restaurants, where the typical spend per head ranged from 24 rand to 38 rand.

The group earlier reported a 33 percent rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 141 cents for the year ended February 2008.

A final dividend of 33 cents was declared, compared with 30 cents the same time a year ago and resulting in a per share distribution for the year of 66 cents compared with last year's 48 cents - an increase of 38 percent.

Revenue rose 36 percent to R1.2-billion and operating profit was up 52 percent to R209.5-million.

Famous Brands said the year under review was unique in that it presented two distinct halves.

"During the first half, good trading conditions were experienced. Traditionally the second half shows stronger growth, however with economic factors such as the increases in interest rates, fuel prices, raw material input costs and exceptionally high food inflation, trading conditions slowed down," it noted.

A total of 106 new restaurants were opened and 116 existing restaurants were revamped during the period, the group said.

Hedderwick said the number of new restaurants was fewer than the previous year because of a general slowdown in the economy and the impact of new developments being put on hold by developers due to uncertainty surrounding the national power shortage.

I-Net Bridge