Company type | Private |
---|---|
Nasdaq: FRG | |
Genre | |
Founded | 2019 |
Founder | Brian R. Kahn |
Headquarters | Delaware, Ohio |
Key people | Brian R. Kahn (CEO) Eric Seeton (CFO) |
Revenue | $4.937 billion (2023) [1] |
$-68.573 million (2023) | |
Subsidiaries | Buddy's Home Furnishings American Freight The Vitamin Shoppe Pet Supplies Plus |
Website | www |
Franchise Group, Inc. is an American privately-held holding company that acquires and manages mainly franchise companies. It owns brands in various retail industries including American Freight, Buddy's Home Furnishings, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Pet Supplies Plus.
On August 21, 2023, it was announced that a consortium of investors had acquired Franchise Group for $2.6 billion. [2]
Founded in 2019 through the merger of Liberty Tax and Buddy's Home Furnishings, [3] it originally operated under the name Liberty Tax. However, when it was renamed Franchise Group, the company retained Liberty Tax and Buddy's Home Furnishings as its subsidiaries. [4]
One year after purchasing The Vitamin Shoppe and Sears Outlet, [5] the company purchased American Freight for $450 million in cash in 2020. [6] [7] - then Sears Outlet merged into American Freight. [8]
On November 5, 2020, Franchise Group announced that it would acquire Fort Smith, Arkansas-based regional furniture retailer FFO Home, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on the same day. [9] The acquisition was completed on December 29. [10]
In the year it sold Liberty Tax to NextPoint Financial for $249 million, [11] Franchise Group made numerous acquisitions in 2021. Around that time, it purchased Pet Supplies Plus in a deal valued at $700 million, [12] Sylvan Learning for $81 million, [13] and Badcock Home Furniture for $580 million. [14] [15]
In August, a group of investors bought Franchise Group for US$2.6 billion. In November 2023, Kahn was identified by Bloomberg as one of two co-conspirators in a securities fraud case, following the guilty plea of John Hughes, co-founder of Prophecy Asset Management [16]
In December 2023, Conn's acquired Badcock Home Furniture &more from the Franchise Group. [17] Conn's ended up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2024, and liquidated all of its namesake and Badcock stores by October 2024. [18] [19]
In February 2024, Unleashed Brands, owner of The Little Gym and Urban Air Trampoline Park, acquired Sylvan Learning from Franchise Group for an undisclosed amount. [20]
On November 2, 2024, Franchise Group announced that they were preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after months of losses and turmoil caused by its owner, B. Riley Financial. HPS Investment Partners, a private equity firm, amongst other lenders, will take over the company once the restructuring is completed. [21] On November 3, 2024, Franchise Group and all of its affiliated subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware. The company plans to keep its Pet Supplies Plus, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Buddy's Home Furnishings stores open during the procedure, while it plans to liquidate American Freight. American Freight suffered major losses due to high rising costs and macroeconomic challenges. Liquidation sales are set to begin on November 5, with stores to close by the end of the year. [22]
Eddie Bauer LLC is an American outdoor recreation brand and chain store headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Eddie Bauer sells its merchandise via retail stores, outlet stores, online, and via telephone. The company also licenses the Eddie Bauer brand name and logo for various products sold through other companies including eyewear, furniture, bicycles, and, up until the 2010 model year, upper level versions of Ford Motor Company's Bronco, Explorer, Expedition and Excursion SUVs.
Pier 1 Imports, Inc., is an online retailer and former Fort Worth, Texas-based retail chain specializing in imported home furnishings and decor, particularly furniture, table-top items, decorative accessories, and seasonal decor. It was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker PIR. In January 2020, Pier 1 had over 1,000 physical stores throughout the United States and Canada. Pier 1 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on February 17, 2020, and on May 19, 2020, announced it was asking the bankruptcy court to close all stores, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. is the second largest tax-preparation service in the United States; responsible for preparing over 2 million federal, state, and local income-tax returns each year.
Lands' End, Inc., headquartered in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, is a retailer of clothing, baggage, and furniture.
The Aaron's Company, Inc. is an American lease-to-own retailer. The company focuses on leases and retail sales of furniture, electronics, appliances, and computers. The company sells through the company-operated and franchised stores, e-commerce platform (Aarons.com)
RH is an upscale American home-furnishings company headquartered in Corte Madera, California. The company sells its merchandise through its retail stores, catalog, and online. As of August 2018, the company operated a total of 70 galleries, 18 full-line design galleries, and 3 baby-and-child galleries. The company also has 36 outlet stores in the United States and Canada.
Arbor Place is a shopping mall in Douglasville, Georgia, United States. Opened in 1999, the malls anchors feature the traditional retailers JCPenney, Belk Outlet, Regal Cinemas, Old Navy, Planet Fitness, Macy's, and Dillard's.
W.S. Badcock LLC was an American chain of over 370 company and dealer owned furniture stores in eight states across the southeastern United States. Robert B. Burnette was president of Badcock Home Furniture and previously served as chief operating officer for this company.
Pet Supplies Plus is a privately held pet supply retailing corporation with a major presence in the US. It was founded in 1988 in Redford, Michigan in the United States. As of 2005, it was the third largest specialty pet food retailer in the US. The company began adding franchise locations in the Midwest, expanding into the northeastern and southern states during the late 1990s. As of May 2023, Pet Supplies Plus store locations consisted of over 720 stores in 36 states. Pet Supplies Plus has in-house pet food brands such as Redford Naturals.
Thom McAn is an American brand of shoes and was formerly a retail chain. Its shoes have been sold in Kmart and Sears stores. It consists of leather-dress, casual, and athletic shoes. Until the 1990s, Thom McAn had hundreds of retail stores in the US, and was one of the oldest and best-known shoe retailers in the country. As of late 2008, the brand was controlled by Sears Brands, LLC.
DirectBuy is an American membership buying service headquartered in Merrillville, Indiana. Members pay a fee, which entitles them to buy products at a discount, directly from the manufacturer and its authorized suppliers. Product categories include home furnishings, home improvement, entertainment, outdoor, flooring, and accessories.
Breuners Home Furnishings was a chain of furniture stores in Southwestern United States for 148 years before declaring bankruptcy in 2004.
The Vitamin Shoppe is an American, New Jersey–based retailer of nutritional supplements. It also operated three stores in Canada under the name VitaPath from January 2013 until March 2016. The company provides approximately 7,000 different SKUs of supplements through its retail stores and over 17,000 different SKUs of supplements through its retail websites.
Conn's, Inc. was an American furniture, mattress, electronics and appliance store chain headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, United States. The chain had stores in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Within Texas, Conn's has stores in Greater Houston, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Greater San Antonio, Greater El Paso, Greater Corpus Christi, Southeast Texas, and South Texas.
Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20th-largest retailing company in the United States in 2015. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018, and sold its assets to ESL Investments in 2019. The new owner moved Sears assets to its newly formed subsidiary Transformco.
Village Mall is a shopping mall in Danville, Illinois in the United States. Opened in 1975, the mall's anchor stores are County Market, Pet Supplies Plus, Dunham's Sports, Ross Dress for Less, Citi Trends, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Burlington, Shoe Sensation, Slumberland Furniture, and AMC Theatres. There are 2 vacant anchor store that were once Carson's and Sears. It is managed by T Danville, a division of Tabani Group.
Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores Inc. was an American retail company that sold home appliances, lawn & garden equipment, apparel, mattresses, sporting goods, & tools. The company had four subsidiary store formats: Sears Hometown, Sears Outlet, Sears Hardware and Appliance, and Sears Home Appliance Showrooms. Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores was based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores was founded in April 2012. The company was a spun off from Sears Holdings in 2012. By May 2019, Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores & its independent dealers & franchisees operated a total of 639 stores across 49 states as well as in Puerto Rico & Bermuda. On June 3, 2019, it was announced that Transform Holdco would acquire Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores. As per the deal, Sears Hometown needed to divest its Sears Outlet division to gain approval. The company ceased to exist on October 23, 2019, when Franchise Group acquired the Sears Outlet division and Transform Holdco acquired the rest of the company.
Transform SR Brands LLC is an American privately held company formed on February 11, 2019, to acquire some of the assets of Sears Holdings Corporation. The new company is owned by ESL Investments. Following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Sears Holdings on October 15, 2018, Transformco purchased the surviving assets owned by Sears Holdings for $5.2 billion.
American Freight Appliances & Furniture, or American Freight, is an American retail furniture chain founded in Lima, Ohio in 1994. The company was acquired in 2020 by Franchise Group and combined with former Sears Surplus and Sears Outlet stores under the American Freight name.