New York investment firm takes a big slice out of Cicis pizza chain
Pizza chain Cicis announced Tuesday its acquisition by investment firm Arlon Group in partnership with Cicis’ management team.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cicis’ senior management, including CEO Darin Harris, will continue to lead the company.
According to Ben Fishman, managing partner with New York-based Arlon, the acquisition will help Cicis continue building new restaurants and revitalizing its existing units.
The Coppell pizza chain announced in November it was dropping the word “pizza” from its name and the apostrophe from Cicis. It also unveiled a contemporary look it plans to roll out to all of its restaurants over the next few years.
Harris credits the rebrand and redesign for fueling Cicis financial success, including 13 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth and average unit volume of just over $1 million per year, as well as its expansion plans, which include 70 franchised locations planned to be built through the end of 2017.
Last month, Harris also told the Dallas Business Journal that after 2017, the company plans to tack on another 20 to 30 restaurants per year between corporate and franchised units.
“We have been listening (to our franchisees) as we’ve developed our new initiatives and it’s clear that franchisees share our excitement about the new brand positioning and design, but also the implementation of more effective operational systems,” Harris told the DBJ. “In addition, we’ve all experienced our guests’ overwhelmingly positive response to our new food innovation.”
Today, Cicis has nearly 450 restaurants in 33 states. Only 41 of those locations are company owned, with the remainder franchised by a group of 155 to 165 franchisees.
Its strongest growth areas are Dallas-Fort Worth, Central Texas, Denver, Kansas City and Orlando. But the company plans to see more development in North Carolina, Oklahoma and the Washington D.C./Maryland area, Harris said.
Arlon, which has roughly $1 billion in assets under management, invests in middle market businesses in the food and agriculture industries. Its North American portfolio includes other restaurant investments like quick-service restaurant franchisee K-Mac Holdings Corp.
Source: bizjournals
