Five Guys 2 for 5

Thu,12/21/2017

Industry: Restaurant

Segment: Fast Casual

Project Background

2 for 5, was a 12-restaurant Five Guys franchisee in South Carolina with a development territory with additional room for several more locations. The seller a Five Guys franchisee for more than 10 years, was preparing to liquidate its franchise holdings and move in an alternate business direction. The Buyer, Quintet Acquisitions, LLC was looking to begin a growth strategy of restaurants in the Five Guys brand and other restaurant concepts.

Project Summary

National Franchise Sales was engaged by the seller to find the right buyer to not only purchase the assets, but take on the growth of the territory along with commitments to several upcoming Franchisor required Refresher requirements. Over the life of the listing, over 700 clients agreed to an additional layer of confidentiality to analyze and review the listing, ultimately resulting in multiple offers being received. Challenges to this sale process included:

· Slab failure at one of the locations, causing a multi week closure.

· Refresher requirements that were being updated during the time of negotiations and during the transaction.

· One massive storm, shortly prior to the listing and one during the transaction that were unprecedented in nature. These caused closures and sales losses that created extra work at analyzing cash flow for acquisition and financing. Ultimately the buyer and seller were able to work together through these changes achieving mutually beneficial results.

· Leases expiring during the transaction, creating the need to plan for options or lease negotiations that suited both Buyer and Seller.

· Buyer who was working with a private equity group, which included multiple investors and a Seller who operated as a typical family operation, made for fundamental differences of opinion on the best path and process to follow.

Conclusion

National Franchise Sales was able to assist in the completion of this transaction while dealing with some typical and some unusual bumps along the way. Upon transfer, the Buyers achieved their goals of acquiring this fantastic opportunity and the Seller received a very good selling price even with acts of mother nature thrown in the mix.

Engagement Highlights

· Financing was secured to cover the acquisition and Refresher requirements.

· Twelve individual landlords/lease assignments with various requirements and needs were satisfied.

· Franchisor was kept in the loop throughout the transaction and was supportive throughout.

· NFS was on site for multiple days at Closing, to assist in final steps and transfer.