Oops. Went live too early 
As an addition to this message I wrote in the coffee room yesterday, I thought I’d comment with a few words on NoHo’s Annual General Meeting held on Wednesday, as no one else has taken on the task and on the train—surprise, surprise, to Tampere again—I have time to write.
The meeting venue was the familiar Eventum event restaurant at Nokia Arena in Tampere, as it has been for at least the past three years. What was new was the event moving from 10 AM to 5 PM in the afternoon. A good move in my opinion, though potentially slightly more expensive in terms of costs (referring to the generous drink service, and I suspect evening shift differentials apply to the kitchen and serving staff). However, the timing definitely suits working people better, and it was gratifying to see many young adults present; after all, they are NoHo’s core target group anyway when it comes to using restaurant services.
Both Chairman of the Board Timo Laine and CEO Jarno Suominen justified the dividend cut more extensively than usual; the idea is to bring the net debt-to-EBITDA (käyttökate) ratio to the desired and less risky 2x level from the current 3x, and of course, growth investments. There were indeed plenty of acquisitions last year, including the restaurant business of Wanha Satama, Jungle Juice Bar, and the acquisition of the 11-unit Halifax Burgers chain in Denmark; additionally, the core business in Finland was strengthened with selected deals, if I remember correctly, at least in Jyväskylä. So there’s plenty of work to do in realizing these synergy benefits. However, a dividend of 50% of the result was promised for the future as well. Whether the cycle of debt collection notices (trattakierre) at the end of last year played a part, I don’t know, but the CEO assured that the processes are now in order.
NoHo indeed has 294 restaurants in three countries, and the revenue is distributed such that Finland accounts for 264.8 million and others 93.2 million. BBS (Better Burger Society), which includes 34 Friends & Brgrs restaurants in Finland and