LeBron James’ Blaze Pizza is hot investment that keeps growing

American basketball star LeBron James, who invested in Blaze Pizza five years ago, is getting some deep-pocketed company.

The fast-casual pizza chain just sold a “significant noncontrolling” stake to Brentwood Associates, a private equity firm with $2.4 billion under management. The deal was expected to give Blaze Pizza an enterprise value of more than $100 million, said a person familiar with the negotiations.

The deal signals that the basketball star made a smart bet when he backed Blaze, a business that faces a crowded field of fast-casual pizza rivals.

The company is the fastest restaurant chain in history to reach 200 locations, according to industry research firm Technomic Inc. At the same time, some of its competitors have been shuttering restaurants and retrenching.

“The Blaze team has done an amazing job growing to 200 restaurants in under five years,” Rahul Aggarwal, a partner at Los Angeles-based Brentwood, said in a statement.

“They have built a scalable concept with moats around their critically acclaimed chef, high-quality clean ingredients and aggressive brand-building strategies.”

Blaze and the private equity firm didn’t disclose terms of the deal in the announcement Thursday.

Blaze, based in Pasadena, Calif., was founded in 2011 by Rick and Elise Wetzel.

After rapid growth, the company posted sales of more than $184 million in 2016, according to Technomic. Rick Wetzel also co-founded the Wetzel’s Pretzels chain, which was sold to CenterOak Partners last year.

James, the 32-year-old Cleveland Cavaliers forward known as “King James,” took a stake in 2012 and owns about 10 per cent of the company — along with an interest in a franchise group that holds rights to Blaze restaurants in Chicago and South Florida.