17 October 2026
Famous Brands, the Steers and Wimpy owner co-founded by the Halamandaris family, expects interim earnings to drop as much as 33% after a Botswana writedown. Famous Brands Ltd., the South African fast-food group built by the Halamandaris family, expects its first-half earnings to fall by as much as a third after taking a 40.9 million rand ($2.5 million) writedown on its business in Botswana.
Earnings per share for the six months through August are expected to come in at between 157 South African cents and 205 cents, a drop of 13% to 33% from a year earlier, the owner of Steers, Wimpy, Debonairs Pizza and Mugg & Bean said in a trading statement on Oct. 15. Headline earnings per share, a measure used in South Africa that strips out one-time items such as impairments, are expected at 205 cents to 252 cents, compared with 236 cents a year earlier. That range runs from a 13% decline to a 7% gain. Without the writedown, earnings per share would have been 199 cents to 247 cents, the Johannesburg-based company said.
The Botswana problem
The charge relates to Retail Group Proprietary Ltd., the Botswana company through which Famous Brands runs restaurants in the country. Famous Brands owns 51% of the business and has decided to sell 21% of it, cutting its stake to 30%. The group did not name the buyer or disclose a price. It said the sale is expected to be completed in its 2027 financial year, which ends in February, subject to conditions including regulatory approval.
Retail Group has underperformed, mainly because of economic conditions in Botswana, Famous Brands said. The country’s economy depends heavily on diamonds, and a prolonged slump in demand for natural stones, worsened by competition from cheaper lab-grown diamonds, has squeezed consumer spending.
Botswana is home to 51 company-owned Famous Brands restaurants, its largest network outside South Africa.
The company said it still sees long-term potential in Botswana and will keep an economic interest through its remaining 30% stake and the master license fees it collects. The reduced holding is part of a move to a lighter, franchise-led model outside its home market. Famous Brands described its revenue performance as resilient but said higher fuel prices tied to the conflict in the Middle East and higher interest rates made trading conditions difficult. It plans to publish full interim results on or about Oct. 21.
The shares rose 1.6% to 50.50 rand in Johannesburg on Friday, giving the company a market value of about 5.06 billion rand ($303 million). The stock has fallen about 18% since early July.
The family behind the brands
The Halamandaris family’s link to the business goes back more than half a century. The company was incorporated as Steers Holdings in 1969, and the first Steers burger outlet opened in Jeppe, Johannesburg, in 1970. The Halamandaris family and the related Halamandres family ran and expanded the business over the following decades and listed it on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in November 1994 at 1.65 rand a share, valuing it at 41 million rand at the time.
Panagiotis Halamandaris, a co-founder, was chairman of the listed company until 2007 and then non-executive chairman. He retired from the board in 2017 along with his brothers, Theofanis and Periklis. The family is still represented on the board by non-executive directors Nicolaos Halamandaris and John Halamandres.
The family’s largest disclosed holding sits in the Panis Trust, of which Nicolaos Halamandaris is a non-controlling trustee and a beneficiary. The trust held 5,728,955 Famous Brands shares, or 5.72% of the company, according to the group’s latest annual report. It sold 34,067 shares between July 2 and July 6 at prices of 61.50 rand to about 61.88 rand each, raising about 2.1 million rand ($126,000), according to stock exchange filings.
The trust’s remaining 5.69 million shares are worth about 287.6 million rand ($17.3 million) at Friday’s price, down from about 352 million rand when it sold in July.
Nicolaos Halamandaris also holds shares directly. He sold 200,000 shares in August 2024 and another 200,000 in September 2024.
Famous Brands has more than 2,800 restaurants in South Africa, elsewhere in Africa and in the U.K.. Its brands include Steers, Wimpy, Debonairs Pizza, Mugg & Bean, Fishaways and Milky Lane. Darren Hele has been chief executive since 2017.
Source: https://shorturl.at/qf4ke
