BurgerFuel has pulled out of Iraq as a result of the increasing threat of the Islamic State jihadist group in that country.
The Auckland-based company previously had a franchise-run store in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, near the areas held by the Islamic State, which has taken control of swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria this year.
However, the company's Iraqi franchise partners were in the process of relocating the Sulaymaniyah store to Baghdad when the situation with the Islamic State worsened and the firm decided to cease all activity in that country until things improve.
BurgerFuel was talking about expansion in Iraq and Libya -- where the political situation has also deteriorated during 2014 -- earlier this year. But an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment has put the breaks on those plans.
"We only had one low volume store [in Iraq], so this is not material to our position," chief executive Josef Roberts told shareholders at the firm's annual meeting last month. "It's unfortunate that Iraq has slipped back into this situation as it was a country with enormous potential, but as we can longer enter that country for safety reasons, its best we cease activity there, which we have now done." He said the situation in Libya was similar to Iraq.
"We haven't proceeded to enter that country and with recent bombings there -- again, it's off the radar for future activity and like Iraq this will have little effect on our earnings."
The company's main Middle Eastern markets, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, are stable.
