Private equity's pizza past
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Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
Private equity sure does love itself some pizza. But it doesn't always turn dough into dough.
Driving the news: LongRange Capital on Tuesday agreed to buy the non-China operations of Pizza Hut from Yum Brands for $1.5 billion (plus up to $75 million in earnouts), with Yum China buying the rest for $1.2 billion.
- LongRange isn't yet disclosing how it plans to revive the iconic chain, whose sales have slumped despite a shift from eat-in to takeout and delivery.
While we wait to see how the deal works out, here's a brief and noncomprehensive look at PE's pizza past:
🍕 California Pizza Kitchen: Golden Gate Capital took the company private in 2011 for $470 million, and may have recouped some cash via a 2013 dividend recap before the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020.
- CPK returned to private equity hands late last year, when Consortium Brand Partners and Eldridge Industries bought it for just south of $300 million.
🍕 Sbarro: MidOcean Partners bought the food court staple in 2007 for around $450 million, but it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy less than four years later.
- Sbarro filed for bankruptcy yet again in 2014 and now is controlled by CEO David Karam.
🍕 Round Table Pizza: This one went bankrupt before and after private equity got involved, although not during.
- The California-based chain went Chapter 11 in 2011 and two years later secured growth equity from Summit Partners.
- It was acquired in 2017 by Global Franchise Group, a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners that then was sold to Lion Capital. FAT Brands bought Round Table for $445 million in 2021, but filed for Chapter 11 earlier this year.
🍕 Blaze Pizza: Brentwood Associates acquired a "significant noncontrol" stake in 2020, but growth has recently gone in reverse.
- The chain closed more than 10% of its stores in 2024 and 2025, keeping with broader industry struggles.
🍕 MOD Pizza: The Seattle-based chain raised $160 million from Clayton Dubilier & Rice and other firms in 2019, and seemed to be on track for an IPO with around 500 stores.
- But it too hit the skids and explored a bankruptcy filing before selling out to Elite Restaurants in 2024.
🍕 Domino's: This is an oldie but a goodie.
- Bain Capital bought the chain from founder Tom Monaghan in 1998 for around $1 billion, at a time when its pizza crust was regularly compared to cardboard.
- It installed a new CEO named Dave Brandon, who was credited with everything from international expansion to menu revitalization to a successful marketing campaign starring Brandon himself. Domino's went public in 2004 and today has a $10.6 billion market cap.
- Bain would later tried to repeat the Brandon magic by putting him in charge of Toys 'R Us, but that one didn't work out so well.
🍕 Pizza Hut: Not the parent company, but its various franchisee groups.
- The largest was NPC International, a PE hot potato that moved from Merrill Lynch Global PE (2006) to Olympus Partners (2011) to Eldridge Industries (2018). Olympus booked around a $500 million gain on that last one.
- It went bankrupt in 2020, and was eventually acquired by PE-backed Flynn Restaurant Group, which now calls itself the largest franchisee of U.S. restaurants.
🍕 Papa Johns: No deal here yet, but it's reportedly weighing a $1.5 billion buyout bid from Irth Capital and the chain's largest franchisee. This comes after Apollo pulled the plug on a $2.1 billion offer.
