It’s easy to spot San Francisco Coffee, especially in malls. The popular coffee chain has many outlets nationwide, especially in the Klang Valley area. Did you know San Francisco Coffee was the first gourmet coffee franchise in Malaysia? Even before Starbucks and Coffee Bean came to Malaysia?
Thanks to Datuk Abdul Rahim Zin, he was the man who ventured into the coffee business with a mission to serve the best coffee and two decades on, SF Coffee is still kicking.
SF Coffee was founded by an American from San Francisco called Robert Boxwell. He came to Malaysia on a business trip for Petronas and noticed the coffee culture was non-existent in Malaysia. He then decided to start a business with friends back in 1997.
Abdul Rahim Zin was a former banker who worked for over 20 years before he ventured into the coffee business – San Francisco Coffee
Having been in banking for several years, he was confident that he could grow the coffee business – despite the business was started during the global financial crisis of 2008.
He said it was a part of his retirement plant to going into a lifestyle business. Abdul Rahim Zin is chairman of Lyndarahim Ventures Sdn Bhd – the owner and operator of the local coffee chain San Francisco Coffee.
At the time he took over, it was at the toughest time of the global financial crisis. Just before he completed the purchase of the business, he was unable to get funding for acquisition and working capital. He couldn’t get creditors to extend their credit so he had to use the money to pay off creditors.
Boxwell expanded the franchise to 10 stores in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines and in Japan. He also bought over Seattle’s Best Coffee.
However, by the time Abdul Rahim Zin came into the coffee scene, the company had either shut down or sold the outlets. So, the remaining were in Malaysia and Singapore. It turned out to be more difficult than he had pictured.
He invested RM800,000 to take over the business with a total of RM5 million investment in the business to help it stay afloat
Under his leadership, SF Coffee finally registered a positive cash flow. In 2010, he started approaching investors such as Ekuinas, short for Ekuiti Nasional Bhd – which according to him wanted to set up a food and beverages group of businesses.
It was a perfect time to approach Ekuinas – a government-linked private equity financing firm that invests in high-growth businesses. SFC needed fresh capital and managed to convince Ekuinas to invest in them.
The government-linked private equity financing firm invested in SFC in September 2011, pumped in RM17.5 million into the coffee franchise in return for a 90% stake in Lyndarahim Ventures. Abdul Rahim Zin, on the other hand, owns the remaining 10% stake in the company. SFC currently has 35 outlets located in the Klang Valley.
Abdul Rahim Zin shared there were many times he wanted to give up – especially every time the SF Coffee general manager reported to him that they needed more cash. However, he persevered. He knew that there was going to be a solution at the end of the day.
“My advice to people who are really serious about business is that you need strong cash flow to withstand teething issues in the business.”
Source here
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