Dive Brief:
- BurgerFi has sold Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza and Wings assets for $44 million and BurgerFi assets for $10 million to TREW Capital Management Private Credit 2 LLC, which assumed some of the brands’ liabilities, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission form 8-K filed by the embattled burger brand on Monday. Both sales, which received court approval Nov. 8, closed last month.
- Carl Bachmann, the former Smashburger president who joined BurgerFi as CEO in mid-2023, left the burger brand on Nov. 15 and joined Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza and Wing’s owner, per the SEC filing. It is not clear what role he will have.
- This buyout will grow TREW Capital’s restaurant portfolio. The company, which is owned by former BBQ Holdings CEO Jeff Crivello, previously bought Rubio’s out of bankruptcy for $40 million.
Dive Insight:
The completion of the sales closes out BurgerFi’s long search for strategic alternatives, which began in May, several months before the company filed for Chapter 11. In September, TREW provided BurgerFi with $3.5 million to continue operating through a sale process without closing its remaining stores. In the runup to its Chapter 11 filing, BurgerFi undertook a review of its business and closed about 19 stores.
In an interview with Restaurant Business, TREW founder Jeff Crivello said the capital management firm has already sold Anthony’s to Burger King and Round Table Pizza franchisee Kuljeet Singh.
Throughout the first half of 2024, the chain’s long streak of losses continued, leading the company to hire a chief restructuring officer in August. The filing makes no mention of post-sale strategy for either brand. In late 2023, the brand signed a deal with a movie theater in Rochester, New York, in what was meant to be the opening of a new, non-traditional development strategy.
BurgerFi is just one of a number of chains to shed stores and filed for Chapter 11 this year, including Red Lobster and TGI Fridays. While Red Lobster emerged from its sales process and undertook a menu makeover before adding a happy hour to its menu, other companies have been more discreet about their post-bankruptcy strategies.
