Breaking News
FAT Brands Acquisition of Johnny Rockets Has Been Years in the Making
CEO and President of FAT Brands, Andy Wiederhorn, said that the company’s acquisition of Johnny Rockets is a long-term investment.
“COVID-19 is a short-term crisis,” he told Fox Business Network's “Varney & Co” on Thursday. “We're buying the Johnny Rockets brand for the long term. It's a great brand,” he then remarked. “We think it has a lot of legs. We can distribute it to our franchise network and really help take it to an entirely new level.”
Years in the Making
FAT Brands to Buy Johnny Rocketshttps://t.co/2Gff0mGEi4 pic.twitter.com/ZeRtykLqXi
— CFO (@cfo) August 15, 2020
The acquisition, which has been years in the making, has brought up the number of worldwide FAT Brands restaurants to 700. Wiederhorn also said Johnny Rockets fits in the FAT Brands portfolio “very well.”
“We’ve been working on this deal for a long time, several years, and it finally came to market for real at the beginning of the year and then was put on hold with the pandemic,” he then mentioned. “And we just feel like it fits in our portfolio very well… Now we really have a complete portfolio of burger brands that we can offer to any operator or any real estate fit to see what works best. It really completes us,” Wiederhorn also stated.
Fox Business reported that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, “Wiederhorn said FAT Brands franchisees were prepared to weather the storm.”
“We coached all of our franchisees … on how to take advantage of the delivery systems. We were already on all of the delivery apps everywhere,” he said. Wiederhorn then added, “And we have outdoor dining rooms … So we were prepared for it, fortunately. We're also very lucky we're not in fine dining where, you know, those poor guys have got a long road ahead.”
Up Next: