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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: TAST | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | 1960; 65 years ago (1960)[1] |
| Founder | Herbert N. Slotnik[1] |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Number of locations | 1,000O&O; 30franchised[2] |
Area served | United States,Puerto Rico,Ecuador[2] |
Key people | Deborah Derby (CEO) |
| Products | Burger King,Popeyes (franchisees) |
| Revenue | US$1.52 billion (Fiscal year 2019)[3] |
| US$20 million (FY 2009)[3] | |
| US$211.01 million (FY 2019)[3] | |
| Total assets | US$440 million (2009)[3] |
Number of employees | More than 10,000[1] |
| Parent |
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| Website | www |
Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. is an American franchisee company and is the largestBurger Kingfranchisee in the world; Carrols owns and operates over 1,000 Burger Kings, and 55Popeyes restaurants. The company has operated Burger Kings since 1976 in locations across 23 U.S. states.[4]
The company has its roots in theCarrols hamburger restaurant chain which operated in parts of the U.S. beginning circa 1960. The domestic locations were converted to Burger King restaurants beginning in 1975, though the brand survived in other parts of the world until as late as 2012in Finland.
For a time following the 1975 conversion to Burger King, the company also owned the restaurant chainsPollo Tropical andTaco Cabana.[citation needed]
An offshoot of theTastee-Freez company, the original Carrols hamburger chain was named after the Tastee-Freez co-owner Leo S. Maranz's daughter, Carol.[5][6]
Herb Slotnick bought the franchise rights for the New York area and started opening restaurants in theSyracuse, New York, area in the early 1960s. They expanded over the years throughoutNew York State. During the 1960s, a yellow slug character served as Carrols' first mascot, replaced in 1974 by a young blonde boy wearing a tweed suit and a Fedora hat.
At the chain's peak in the late 1960s, the company had 120 Carrols restaurants throughout New York state.[6] Most Carrols restaurant locations were converted to Burger King franchises in 1975, with less profitable stores shuttered. After the conversion, theCarrols brand was only found overseas inFinland,Sweden,Estonia,Latvia andRussia – except for two stores: one on Roosevelt Avenue inCarteret, New Jersey, which closed in the late 1970s; and a single franchisee-owned store inBatavia, New York. Both of these latter two stores operated under the Carrols name into the 1980s, before closing.
The Finnish group Carrols opened up several locations inSt Petersburg, Russia in the mid-to-late 1990s. In 1998 it opened its first operation inMoscow located at the then-new Ohotni Riad Mall. Because of the1998 Russian financial crisis, the operations did not generate enough sales for Carrols, and by 2000 all Carrols outlets in Russia had been closed.
The Finnish restaurant companyHesburger started to buy out the last existing Carrols locations inHelsinki, Finland in the mid-2000s, with locations converted by 2012.
On December 9, 2005, Carrols Holdings and Mimi's Café was filed for offerings.[7]
In February 2011 the company announced it was divesting itself of its two Central American-themed chains,Taco Cabana andPollo Tropical, in a spin-off aimed at helping the company focus on its core Burger King operations.[8] The sale of the two chains, collectively called theFiesta Restaurant Group, was completed in May 2012.[9]
In June 2012, Carrols acquired 278 Burger King locations from Burger King for approximately$150 million. In exchange, the Burger King parent, Burger King Corporation took a 28.9% stake in the company. The transaction involved a line of credit that would be used by Carrols to renovate more than 450 of its stores.[9]
In 2014, Carrols acquired 64 Burger King locations fromHeartland Food Corporation, including 27 locations inNashville, Tennessee, 11 inSpringfield, Illinois and 22 inIndiana.[10]
On February 20, 2019, Carrols announced a merger with Cambridge Franchise Holdings LLC in a deal worth 238 million dollars, which would add 55Popeyes and 166 Burger King locations in thesouthern United States to Carrols' portfolio.[9] The transaction would be "structured as a tax-free merger". Carrols will give Cambridge around 7.36 million common shares. Also included in the deal, Cambridge will get 9% of Carrols preferred stock.[11] The acquisition was completed on May 1, 2019.[12]
On February 22, 2022, Carrols named a new CEO, former McDonald's executivePaulo Pena, effective April 1, 2022.[13] Then-current CEO Dan Accordino would retire.
On January 16, 2024, Burger King and Popeyes ownerRestaurant Brands International (RBI) announced that it would buy Carrols in an all-cash transaction worth approximatelyUS$1.0 billion. RBI said it intended to rapidly remodel 600 Carrols-owned Burger King locations to current company standards, and refranchise them back to smaller local operators.[14][15]
On May 16, 2024, it was announced that RBI had completed the purchase of Carrols Restaurant Group.[16]
Beginning in the early 1970s,Carrols owned and operated theCinemaNational movie theater chain, until their sale to Mid-States Theaters and USA Cinemas in the early and mid-1980s. The theaters were concentrated in central New York State, but there were locations as far away as Wisconsin, Idaho and California. The chain consisted mostly of large single-screen locations that had been purchased from companies like Kallet, Hallmark and Dipson Theaters, along with new locations that were built by Slotnick. CinemaNational also built some triple-screen multiplex locations in sites like Penn-Can Mall inCicero, New York, and Fayetteville Mall in Fayetteville, New York, as well as Evansville, Indiana.[citation needed]
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