OREANDA-NEWS. Rosinter Restaurants Holding, OJSC (Rosinter, Holding), the leading casual dining restaurant chain in Russia and the CIS (Moscow Exchange MICEX-RTS ticker: ROST) reports that in accordance to its medium-term strategy to concentrate on its core brands, it will be divesting in 2013 its Siberian Crown small regional chain (13 restaurants by end 2012). The divestiture has two components.

The first one is the sale of six restaurants in Omsk to the local restaurant operator, the company "Film Music”. The sale has been completed on April 29, 2013 and all the assets and lease rights have been transferred to the buyer.

The second one is the closing or the rebranding of some of the remaining sites to one of our core brands IL Patio and Planet Sushi during 2013. As of today, three restaurants were closed in Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Barnaul, and four are still in operation in the following cities: Tyumen (2), Barnaul (1) and Novokuznetsk (1).

Kevin Todd, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"After this divestiture, we will be able to better concentrate on the program of revitalization of our key brands IL Patio and Planet Sushi, on the development of our TGI Friday’s and Costa Coffee chains, and also on the expansion of our transportation hubs business by opening restaurants under our proprietary and franchised brands, including McDonald’s. According to our strategy, we are optimizing our portfolio and focusing our business on sizeable growth opportunities and a series of programs and initiatives that will lead to the improvement of our financial performance.”