Aquilini Group-owned PH Restaurants LP is bidding on restaurants owned by the Priszm Income Fund while that company (TSX:QSR.UN) has court protection from creditors under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act.
Priszm, which is the franchisee for more than 400 KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants, was granted court protection from creditors on March 31.
“Since their news release, everybody thinks Pizza Hut is going out of business in B.C. Nothing could be further from the truth,” PH Restaurants president Mike Cyr told Business in Vancouver April 4.
Cyr oversees 44 Pizza Hut restaurants in B.C.
He envisions PH Restaurants buying Pizza Hut franchises in other provinces (See “Upper crust: Mike Cyr spent decades marketing beer and pizza before joining the Aquilini Group as president of its PH Restaurants division” – issue 1114; March 1-7, 2011).
Priszm had previously announced what it called a “potential sale” of 231 locations in Ontario and B.C. to Soul Restaurants Canada Inc.
Cyr said PH Restaurants wanted to buy those restaurants but was outbid.
He added PH Restaurants is now interested in buying some of Priszm’s remaining 170 or so restaurants.
Priszm said in its statement that it had received “a number of expressions of interest for its remaining restaurants” and that it is reviewing the offers.