Delight Restaurant Group has bought 65 Wendy’s restaurants from Primary Aim, making it one of the burger chain’s largest franchisees.
The restaurants are located in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
Andrew and Richard Krumholz founded the Norfolk, Virginia-based Delight Restaurant Group in 2016. The acquisition of the Primary Aim restaurants now gives the company 226 restaurants with $500 million in sales.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Delight operates both Wendy’s and Taco Bell restaurants. The company said in a release on Tuesday that it plans to continue expanding through a combination of acquisitions and new unit development.
Delight has made a series of acquisitions in the Wendy’s system, notably a 30-unit acquisition from the franchisor in 2017 and then a pair of deals in 2021, including the purchase of 54 restaurants from the bankrupt NPC international.
This is its first acquisition in three years.
Franchise mergers and acquisitions have picked up of late after a slowdown brought on by higher interest rates and valuation concerns. Legacy franchise companies historically have encouraged brands to amass large numbers of stores, but in recent years have shifted toward mid-sized operators.
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