Rosinter cuts first-quarter loss

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rosinter Restaurants (ROST.MM), which operates the Russian franchise of TGI Friday's, said lower costs and price rises had helped it narrow its first-quarter loss.

Rosinter, struggling to win customers to its casual dining formats despite a broadly strong consumer sentiment, recently appointed a new chief executive, Kevin Todd.

The company posted a net loss of 35.7 million roubles ($1.1 million), down from 146 million in the 2011 period when it recorded high depreciation charges after revising operational forecasts for several outlets.

Revenue rose 3.9 percent to 2.6 billion roubles, helped by new openings, while earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization jumped to 166 million from 9.6 million.

"Dynamics of the number of transactions in comparable stores improved to minus 5.1 percent compared to minus 8.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, but remained under pressure," Todd said.

Rosinter has a joint venture with Whitbread (WTB.L) to develop the British group's Costa Coffee brand in Russia and has recently agreed to develop a McDonald's (MCD.N) chain as part of a franchising deal with the U.S. fastfood group.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Dan Lalor)