New York (TIP)- Subway said it will be sold to Roark Capital, a private equity firm with expertise in restaurant management that could help the sandwich chain expand and improve its stores.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Atlanta-based Roark was offering around USD 9.6 billion for Subway, which is privately owned.
Subway CEO John Chidsey, who joined the company in 2019, said the deal reflects Subway’s long-term growth potential and the value of the brand. Subway plans to continue to modernise restaurants and expand internationally under Roark’s ownership. Subway said its leadership team will remain in place.
Roark is a private equity firm with USD37 billion in assets under management. It specialises in franchised businesses and backs two holding companies that own multiple restaurant chains: Inspire Brands, the parent of Arby’s, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s and Buffalo Wild Wings; and Focus Brands, which owns Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon and Jamba.
Subway, which has dual headquarters in Miami and Connecticut, was founded in 1965 and is still owned by its founding families. It’s now one of the world’s largest restaurant chains, with 37,000 outlets in more than 100 countries.
But in the U.S., it has been losing market share in recent years to fast-growing rivals like Panera and Firehouse Subs, which feature more varied menus and newer stores. Subway currently controls about 23% of the USD 43 billion U.S. sandwich and deli market, according to Technomic, a consulting company. That’s down from 34% in 2017.
Subway has been trying to catch up; in 2021 it refreshed its menu and last year it announced a line of chef-developed sandwiches after finding that customers were tiring of Subway’s traditional model of letting customers build their own sandwiches.
But in February, Subway announced it was exploring a sale. Subway has some momentum going into the acquisition. In July, the company said its global same-store sales __ or sales at locations open at least a year __ were up 9.8% from the prior year. The company has remodeled 10,000 of its U.S. restaurants and recently spent $80 million to provide its 20,000 U.S. restaurants with deli meat slicers, a first for the brand.
Antfin to sell 3.6% stake in Paytm, reducing its stake further
Paytm shareholder Antfin is likely to sell a 3.6% stake in the Indian payments firm through a block deal on Friday as it further reduces its stake in the company, CNBC-TV18 reported. The floor price for the sale is set at 880 rupees per share, the report added, which is a 2.7% discount on Paytm’s last closing price of 904.45 rupees. Citi has been appointed as the broker for the deal, which the broadcaster said is valued at a total of $234 million. Paytm and Ant Group did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Earlier this month, Paytm said Chief Executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma would buy a 10.3% stake held by Antfin in the firm he founded – in a deal that made him its single largest shareholder.
Antfin is the Netherlands-based arm of Chinese fintech giant Ant Financial. The company, whose stake in Paytm fell to 13.49% after the earlier deal, could further reduce its stake to under 10%.