Restaurant Brands New Zealand has sold the fixed assets and stock of its Starbucks coffee business to Tahua Capital for around $4.4m.

Originally announced in September, the acquisition will see the new owners sign a licence agreement with SCI and start a substantial store refurbishment and opening programme.

Tahua plans to secure the leases for 22 existing locations and retain all 300 existing employees on the same terms and conditions.

Restaurant Brands International (RBI) reported total revenues of $1.3bn and operating costs and expenses of $898m for Q3 ending 30 September.

“We remain confident that our focus on guest satisfaction and franchisee profitability will drive growth at all three of our brands.”

RRBI’s net income was $249.8m, representing a 5.5% growth on an organic basis compared with Q3 2017.

RBI’s CEO Daniel Schwartz said: “During Q3, together with our franchisees, we continued to improve Tim Hortons’ comparable sales by executing against our Winning Together plan.

“We also unveiled our new, modern Burger King of Tomorrow restaurant image and our plans to release the image across the US.

“At Popeyes, we continued to accelerate net restaurant growth and signed additional restaurant development agreements, including in the Philippines.

“We remain confident that our focus on guest satisfaction and franchisee profitability will drive growth at all three of our brands for many years to come.”