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Nation's Top 10 Restaurant Franchisees
Franchise Owners Have Been Appetizing Treats for Private Equity Groups
Big franchise owners are getting bigger, says Technomic Information Services, a consulting and research firm serving the food industry. Franchisees have been appetizing treats for private equity and hedge fund investors, and many of them are getting bigger through acquisitions. Within the last year, several multi-unit franchisees were taken over by such firms, including the largest franchisee, NPC International, Inc., by Merrill-Lynch Global Private Equity Group.
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Top 10 Restaurant Franchisees |
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| Rank | Franchisee | 2006 Sales Estimates ($000) | % Change | Main Concept | ||||
| 1 | NPC International, Inc. | $651,168 | 2.4% | Pizza Hut | ||||
| 2 | Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. | 379,824 | 10.3 | Burger King | ||||
| 3 | Apple American Group LLC | 336,732 | 12.4 | Applebee's | ||||
| 4 | Briad Group (The) | 310,944 | -1.9 | T.G.I. Friday's | ||||
| 5 | Harman Management Corp. | 303,825 | -6.8 | KFC | ||||
| 6 | Boddie-Noell Enterprises | 297,980 | 5.2 | Hardee's | ||||
| 7 | Mason-Harrison-Jarrard | 288,610 | 10.2 | Sonic | ||||
| 8 | Heartland Food Corp. | 287,184 | 19.7 | Burger King | ||||
| 9 | ADF Companies | 278,404 | 52.2 | Pizza Hut | ||||
| 10 | Quality Dining, Inc. | 272,476 | 7.6 | Burger King | ||||
Source: Technomic
A new industry report from food service consultants Technomic provides an analysis of the 200 largest restaurant franchise organizations. The report says that the biggest dollar growth in revenue of the nation's top 200 franchisees was ACF Companies, owners of a chain of Pizza Hut restaurants. It saw some $95.5 million in growth in 2006. ACF purchased some 165 Pizza Hut restaurants over several transactions and that helped boost it to a dramatic increase in its top line.
If the highest growth is calculated as a percentage increase, then the fastest growing franchisee in the list of largest 200 franchise owners is R & L Foods. R & L grew an outstanding 91.7% in sales.
