Burger King franchiser wants to acquire Quick

No TDR Capital or Oaktree Capital

Rumours spread quickly this morning that Quick had a new owner and that only two parties were still interested: British investment fund TDR Capital and American OakTree Capital. Qualium announced in June that it wanted to sell Quick for 800 million euro, using 75 % of that funds to clear parts of its own debt. In 2007, it paid 730 million euro to acquire Quick itself.

This afternoon however, Quick launched a press release stating that Burger King’s French franchiser would be their new owner. That would have far-reaching results for the Quick brand, as all French restaurants would be turned into Burger King restaurants, making it the second largest French fast food chain. The Quick name would be kept in Belgium and Luxembourg.

It is a remarkable turn of events as the French family Bertrand only generates a turnover of 600 million euro with its company, while the Belgian chain generates more than 1 billion euro in turnover. Quick is Europe’s third largest fast food chain, with 495 restaurants and 19,000 employees.

There is still much that has to fall into place before the deal is can be finalised: first of all, the negotiations have to be finalized and then there will be talks with the union representatives, the ones responsible for the loans and the competition authorities, according to the press release.