Burger King

Financing

Just like that, Burger King becomes a major operator of its own restaurants

The Bottom Line: Even before the fast-food burger chain bought its largest franchisee, it was buying up swaths of restaurants around the country. That's a major shift for the brand.

Financing

With the Carrols deal, Burger King signals that bigger is not better

The Bottom Line: In acquiring its largest franchisee, the fast-food chain more than tripled its investment in its revitalization and fundamentally altered its ownership structure.

Parent Restaurant Brands International plans to spend $500 million to remodel Carrols Restaurant Group's more than 1,000 locations before reselling them to smaller franchisees.

The Bottom Line: While plenty of franchises like Subway still want large-scale franchisees, there is a movement to keep their sizes down.

The big Burger King franchisee has overcome a pandemic, inflation, questions about its future and the death of multiple executives to become the industry’s best turnaround story of 2023.

The executive chairman of the chain’s parent company Restaurant Brands International said operators had too much risk, particularly on the balance sheet.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food chain introduced the product in August and, according to its largest franchisee, the product has sold well. But it’s also simple to operate.

The 1,000-unit operator said sales and traffic were better than expected and margins increased by 530 basis points. And its stock took off.

Premier Kings, a 172-unit Alabama and Georgia operator whose owner died in 2022, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing substantial operating losses.

The burger chain is intent on “cleaning” its asset base, closing weaker stores and remodeling others in a key part of its comeback plan.

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