Roark rumored to be seeking Inspire Brands IPO

Dive Brief:

Roark Capital is considering taking Inspire Brands public later this year or in 2025 depending on market conditions, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.
“We remain focused on growing our business and creating long-term value for all stakeholders. We have no comment on potential future changes to our capital structure,” a spokesperson for Inspire said in an email to Restaurant Dive.
Inspire could be worth $20 billion in a listing, making it one of the biggest restaurant IPOs in over 20 years.

Dive Insight:

Inspire Brands, which includes Dunkin’, Arby’s, Jimmy John’s, Sonic Drive-In and Buffalo Wild Wings, has over 32,000 restaurants in its portfolio and over $31 billion in global system sales, according to its website. It is the second-largest restaurant company in the country, according to 2022 financial results. Late last year, Inspire changed its corporate structure to a focus on three discrete areas of business: brands, commercial and company restaurants, and growth. This move sought to leverage a shared services platform across its brands. This week, Inspire bought Vromo, a delivery tech platform, to make delivery more profitable for its concepts.

While no final decision, or public statement, has been made on the matter, the possibility that Roark is considering an IPO for one of its biggest companies indicates a shift in market conditions. After a flurry of restaurant IPOs in 2021, no major restaurants went public in 2022 as interest rates rose. Cava and Gen Restaurant Group went public last year and Panera Brands is on deck to go public this year. Fat Brands is also considering an IPO for its Twin Peaks brand, which has the company’s highest average unit volumes. Pinstripes went public through a special purpose acquisition corporation in early January.

Roark has been actively growing its restaurant brand portfolio with a proposed $9.6 billion buyout of Subway in 2023, a few years after Inspire Brands bought Dunkin’ for $11 billion — one of the largest restaurant deals ever. In 2020, Roark invested $200 million in The Cheesecake Factory.

This isn’t the first time Roark has considered making one of its companies public either. In 2018, Bloomberg reported that it was pondering an IPO for Focus Brands, which includes Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon and Moe’s Southwest Grill. At the time, Roark was seeking a $1 billion valuation, but the proposed offering never came to fruition.