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bne May 2021 Companies & Markets I 13
On the back of the share speculation, Teeling’s 162 Group was forced by the London Stock Exchange to issue a statement saying the potential takeover was no longer going ahead.
The group said it had been approached about assisting with the financing of a "mining project by an intermediary but have since declined to progress matters and there are no discussions regarding a reverse takeover taking place".
Arkle Resources subsequently fell by 14.91% or 0.16p to 0.94p.
Teeling had held initial discussions with an intermediary about a reverse takeover of Arkle by Mongolia’s Undur Tsakhir mine, which is being explored by the Sod Gazar surveying company. The mine produces the metal molybdenum, which is used for steel alloys.
Starbucks to open
first Uzbekistan outlet as country’s “virgin” niche lures new players
Alisher Kalandarov in Tashkent
The international retail franchise operator Alshaya Group earlier this year announced plans to set up a Starbucks coffee chain in Uzbekistan. And now, according to information provided by AFC Uzbekistan Fund, its plans have started to come to fruition. The company has determined
a premises for its first coffeehouse and has announced
a commissioning date.
Uzbekistan is expected to see the grand opening of Starbucks’ flagship store in central Tashkent in 2022. Located on Taras Shevchenko, one of several “high streets” in the city, the Starbucks is to open in a recently renovated commercial building and become yet another global brand to enter Uzbekistan's highly underserved consumer market.
Another food retail giant, KFC, opened its first outlet in the Uzbek capital in 2018. It presently has seven stores across the capital and has plans to open at least 25 outlets in the regions.
Considering Uzbekistan’s large and young population, a market offering a good "virgin" niche for foreign food business investors presents itself.
AIM-listed Arkle, formerly Connemara Mining, has gold projects in Wicklow and Donegal and zinc projects in Limerick and the Irish midlands. Arkle is one of a myriad of mineral and energy plays in Teeling’s 162 Group, including Petrel Resources, an exploration company developing opportunities in Africa and Iraq.
Teeling said the same Twitter investors have been speculating on other LSE AIM-listed stocks such as Kibo Energy,
a Tanzanian company, and Vast Resources, a miner with assets in Romania and Zimbabwe.
“We don’t have access to particular Twitter groups and they are the ones – small, private investors, that work between themselves much like GameStop,” explained Teeling. “We don’t know who they are and there were probably hundreds of trades. They bought 60 million shares and sold 20 million shares, so some group has been left holding 40 million shares.”
Largest Russian coffee shop chain Shokoladnitsa opened its first outlet in Tashkent in 2018. The first restaurant of one of the world's largest fast-food franchises, Wendy's, opened its doors in the city a year before the pandemic. Before that, the country saw premium ice cream brand Baskin Robbins make an arrival. In the autumn of 2019, Russia’s rapper-owned Black Star Burger opened its first outlet in Tashkent.
Apart from world-famous brands, the country also boasts its own domestic consumer food market brands that have been realised from scratch. One of these is Yaponomama, which started out as a Japanese food delivery service. Over the past five years, the brand has managed to open nine restaurants across the city.
Hearty, rich and delicious Uzbek cuisine has, meanwhile, found its way to overseas markets. In 2018, Oshpaz.uz invested some $50,000 to set up production of canned pilaf, the king of Uzbek cuisine. Director of the company Xikmat Abdullaev said he had his own packaging production unit for canning as well as a teahouse, and he decided to combine both areas to create a new product. To date, canned pilaf is available via the virtual shelves of Amazon.com and other retailers across the world.
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