Loob scaled Tealive to 800 stores on Creador's stake before any IPO

Loob Holding runs Tealive, Southeast Asia's biggest bubble-tea brand by store count, plus sparkling water, kombucha and Bask Bear Coffee.

That bubble tea could keep scaling — 100 Tealive and 100 Bask Bear outlets a year in Malaysia — on private equity rather than a public listing.

Bryan Loo founded Loob in 2010 and launched Tealive in 2017, riding Malaysia's bubble-tea boom.

Creador bought 30% of Loob in June 2021 for an undisclosed sum; Malaysia's reopening lifted consumer spending, and competitors like CHAGEE and KOI expanded fast in the same market. Loob set out to double its Philippine store count annually, from 25 toward 300 by 2024.

IPO deferred: 'we may consider an IPO if the timing and pricing are attractive' once the 1,000-store Malaysia target is reached in 2024.

Taking Creador's 30% let Loob keep building at 200 outlets a year while pandemic uncertainty shut the IPO window.

The 1,000-store target sets a concrete scale milestone before any listing, improving the pricing it could command.

Store count is the moat in bubble tea: being Southeast Asia's biggest by outlets came before, not after, going public.

An IPO is a funding option, not a milestone: private growth capital can buy the store count that makes the listing worth doing later.

As of 6 October 2022, Loob was operating 800 Tealive stores in Malaysia and 25 in the Philippines, adequately funded by its own account, with the IPO question formally deferred to 2024 and Creador holding 30%.