🠈  Roark Capital Group  🠊

Roark Capital Group

A growing number of companies are seeking the shelter of large (often politically connected) private equity firms. Private equity firms avoid the public scrutiny of publicly traded firms.I dislike this trend as furthers the separation between businesses and the communities they serve.

With headquarters in Atlanta, Roark Capital Group was founded in 2001 by Neal Aronson who was previous a co-founder of U.S. Franchise Systems which bought Microtel and founded Best Inns. The group is named after a fictional character in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead."

The company has a complex structure in which subsidiaries have subsidiaries. For example Driven Brands owns multiple automotive brands, Inspire Brands owns restaurants, Self Esteem Brands owns fitness related products and Focus Brands seems to have no particular focus.

To make this page I will list all of the company's that seem to have a current or historical connection to the right. I will place transactions to the companies below.

I will make individual pages for brands that have franchises in the Mountain West.

Corporate History

This section shows select transactions that I come across in other research.

• 2001: Company Founded.
• Roark acquired Carvel (carvel.com), a chain of ice cream stores, from Investcorp.
• 2004: Roark created FOCUS Brands as a holding company for Carvel and select restaurant purchases.
• 2004: Roark/FOCUS acquired Cinnabon and Seattle Best Coffee International from AFC Enterprises (the owners of Popeye's).
, Cinnabon and Seattle’s Best Coffee International.
• 2008: Roark acquired Primrose Schools. This is a chain of preschool franchises.
• 2010: Roark acquired Wingstop from Gemini Capital.
  • 2015: Wingtop exited Roark with IPO on the NASDAQ with the symbol WING.
• 2011: Roark acquired Arby's which had 3,600 restaurants.
• 2011: Roark acquired Il Fornaio and Corner Bakery Cafe from Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co
• 2013: Roark acquired CKE Restaurant Group (Carl's Jr. & Hardee's) from Apollo for somewhere between $1.65 and $1.75 billion.
• 2014: Roark acquired a minority stake in Anytime Fitness.
  • 2014: Anytime Fitness formed the holding company Self Esteem Brands to hold acquisitions and subsidiaries.
• 2015: Roark acquired Driven Brands from Harvest Partners.
• 2016: Roark acquired Jimmy John's which is a chain of sandwich shops.
  2019: Roark added JJ to Inspire Brands.
• 2017: Roark acquired a minority stake in Culver's Frozen Custard and ButterBurgers.
• 2017: Roark acquired Buffalo Wild Wings which owned Rusty Taco for $2.9 billion. Roark created Inspire Brands to hold this and other restaurants.⁴
• 2018: Roark/Inspire acquired Sonic for $2.3 billion.
• 2018: FOCUS Brands considered an IPO.³
• 2019: Roark acquired Fitness Connection which owns 41 clubs in Texas, NC and Nv.⁶

profile page

References:

1. Wikipedia - Roark Capital Group (Drawn 5/23/2018)
2. Roark - FOCUS Brands (Drawn 10/28/2019)
3. Skift Take - Focus Considers IPO (Drawn 10/28/2019)
4. Business Insider - Roark Takes On Buffalo Wild Wings (Drawn 10/28/2019)
5. Pitchbook - Roark acquires Sonic (Drawn 10/28/2019)
6. PRNewsWire - Roark Acquires Fitness connection (Drawn 10/30/2019)

Directory Listings:

• Internet Rivers - Private Equity Firms: Roark Capital Group

Prev ~ ~ Index ~ ~ Next