A few years ago a large restaurant owner with 18 restaurants approached me to sell his whole restaurant chain. The problem was there were no brands inside his chain. There were 18 one-off restaurants. Trying to find an investor for such a business is impossible.
So in 2008 I sat with this restaurateur and reviewed his portfolio of restaurant brands he’s created. He had one brand that stood way above all the others. This restaurant had prime costs of less than 50%. Profitability was in excess of 25%. If you know the restaurant business, then one can only dream of those margins.
So he focused his efforts on rearranging his balance sheet sort of speaking. He started to sell off the one-brands or created partnerships with employees to have them take over the restaurant while he received profit and a residual from that restaurants.
Today this restaurant operator has 6 stores of this brand all of them with sales of more than $2.5 million per store and netting no less than $500,000 per store. Now he has something to sell!
The daily demands of the restaurant business has a way of putting owners in the trees of the forest so they can’t see the obvious.
I have 22 years as a corporate executive and was a Chief Financial Office of Universal Music Group focusing in part on mergers and acquisitions as well as being head of corporate planning. Developing the long-term business strategy to increase your wealth is something I do well. So if you find yourself in the same situation as this restaurant owner, then give me a call and let’s talk because just like that restaurant owner, I can certainly help you exit you restaurants chain.
We at SellingRestaurants feel obligated to educate the public, our customers and our clients with information that can help them make more intelligent buying and selling decisions.
Mel Jones is one of the premier restaurant brokers in the nation having published hundreds of articles on buying and selling a restaurant and bar business, selling thousands of restaurants in CA., WA and AZ and building one of the most copied business models in the brokerage industry. Mel started SellingRestaurants in 2004 with the one simple concept, give the buyers the information they need to make intelligent buying decisions without being pestered by a broker or hiding information, prepare the business for market by researching key details that make or break deals and educate the buyer on the buying process to create an intelligent buyer. Prior to SellingRestaurants, Mel was a Chief Financial Officer for Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world. There he participated in more than $11.5 billion of merger and acquisition transactions. He also work for top companies such as Nestle Foods, USA. He hold a Bachelors in Business Administration Finance as well as attened Law School at Gonzaga University. Give Mel a call at 480.274.7000 or e-mail him at [email protected] if you have any questions.