Burger King set to go public
Owner will receive $1.4B to transfer fast-food chain
Burger King Worldwide Holdings Inc., the fast-food chain taken private in 2010 by New York investment firm 3G Capital Inc., will go public again after merging with a company owned by William Ackman.
3G will get $1.4 billion (U.S) in cash to transfer Burger King to Justice Holdings Ltd., a special-purpose acquisition company co-founded by Ackman, according to a statement released Wednesday. Justice and its founders will hold 29 per cent of the fast-food chain, giving Burger King an equity value of about $4.8 billion.
3G, backed by Brazilian billionaires such as Jorge Paulo Lemann, paid $3.3 billion for Burger King just 18 months ago. Since that takeover, the biggest restaurant deal in at least a decade, Burger King sales have stagnated, prompting the chain to experiment with new items and delivery service.
“It seems a little quick,” said Peter Saleh, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group in New York. 3G hasn’t “changed all that much in a year and a half,” and a lot of the restaurants are in need of remodelling, he said.
Burger King, which announced a new menu on April 2, has struggled to keep pace with Mcdonald’s Corp. The company has also tried to remodel stores to a so-called 20/20 prototype, which includes corrugated metal, brick, wood and concrete. There are more than 12,500 Burger King restaurants worldwide, of which about 90 per cent are franchised.
Fourth-quarter revenue fell 0.7 per cent to $580.6 million from a year earlier, Burger King said last month in a statement. Global comparable-store sales rose 1.2 per cent in the same period, led by growth in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The Whopper seller’s new food includes salads, smoothies and chicken snack wraps — all of which Mcdonald’s already has on its menu. Burger King also retired its King mascot last year to appeal to a broader group of consumers, including women and kids.
“I don’t know if they necessarily had a clear strategy in terms of the customer they were targeting,” Saleh said. “Switching your strategy takes some time.”
After the deal closes, Justice will immediately stop trading on the London Stock Exchange and Burger King Worldwide Inc. will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
3G will remain the largest shareholder in Burger King, with a 71 per cent stake. The firm’s Brazilian investors include Lemann, who owned a stake in the Brazilian-belgian beer company Inbev.
Justice Holdings, started by Nicolas Berggruen, Martin Franklin and Ackman, raised 900 million pounds ($1.4 billion) in a February 2011 initial public offering in London. Berggruen is the owner of Karstadt, Germany’s biggest department-store chain, and also co-leads the New York-based Liberty Acquisition Holdings Corp. with Franklin. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP oversees about $9 billion.
Berggruen targets companies loaded with debt or those with family owners looking to retire. He restructures those businesses’ debt and invests in expansion, typically owning them for a decade or more.