Freddy's Frozen Custard Changes PE Hands: What Serial Buyouts Tell Us About QSR Franchise Valuations in 2026

When Rhône Group closed its $700 million acquisition of Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers in September 2025, the deal barely made a ripple outside restaurant finance circles. No new concept, no celebrity chef, no viral menu item. Just one PE firm handing a burger-and-custard chain to another PE firm at a tidy premium. Thompson Street Capital Partners walked away after four years, having grown Freddy's from roughly 400 locations to more than 550 and crossed the $1 billion systemwide sales threshold in the process.

That quiet efficiency is exactly the point. Secondary buyouts, where a private equity firm sells a portfolio company to another PE firm rather than via IPO or strategic sale, have become the standard exit mechanism in QSR. And the mechanics of how these deals get structured, valued, and sold tell operators, franchisees, and industry observers something important about what the capital markets think these brands are actually worth.

Freddy's: A Textbook PE Trajectory

The Freddy's story starts in Wichita, Kansas in 2002. Co-founders Freddy Simon, his sons Bill and Randy Simon, and business partner Scott Redler opened their first location near 21st Street and Tyler Road. The concept was straightforward: fresh-smashed steakburgers, shoestring fries, and made-to-order frozen custard, all built on a nostalgic 1950s aesthetic. Franchising began in 2004, and the brand spent the next 17 years expanding steadily without institutional capital.

That changed in March 2021, when Thompson Street Capital Partners, a St. Louis-based private equity firm, acquired Freddy's from the founding family. The chain had around 400 locations at the time. The deal was founder-to-PE, a first-generation institutional buyout rather than a secondary. Thompson Street brought in professional management, hiring Chris Dull as CEO in May 2021, and set about executing a growth playbook that added 150-plus locations over four years.

By mid-2025, the brand had more than 550 U.S. and Canadian units, $1 billion in system sales, and was projecting 70 new franchise openings for the year. That combination of scale, brand momentum, and still-clear white space on the map made Freddy's a compelling asset for the next buyer. In August 2025, Reuters reported the deal; Rhône Group, a global PE firm, had agreed to acquire Freddy's for approximately $700 million including debt. The transaction closed in September.

At $700 million against $1 billion in system sales, the deal implies a price-to-system-sales ratio of about 0.7x. For a QSR franchisor model generating royalties on that revenue base, that multiple reflects confidence in ongoing unit growth and royalty stream expansion. Rhône's strategy centers on international expansion, with Canada already under its belt, and deals reportedly close to being signed in the Philippines and Mexico.

Why PE Sells to PE

Secondary buyouts draw skepticism from some quarters. The critique is logical on its face: if the business is so good, why is the first PE owner selling instead of holding for a higher-value IPO or strategic acquisition? The answer is rarely about business quality. It is almost always about fund lifecycle mechanics.

PE funds operate on fixed timespans, typically seven to ten years. Thompson Street bought Freddy's in March 2021, meaning the asset was approaching the four-year mark in a fund cycle. By 2025, Thompson Street needed to return capital to its limited partners. The IPO window was uncertain. Strategic buyers, the major QSR conglomerates like Restaurant Brands International or Yum Brands, already had crowded portfolios and were not obvious acquirers of a sub-600 unit burger chain. That left another PE firm as the natural buyer.

Secondary buyouts also benefit sellers because PE buyers move fast. They understand franchise models, they come pre-loaded with the due diligence framework, and they can underwrite the asset on a forward EBITDA basis without needing a lengthy education on royalty mechanics or FDD compliance. The Freddy's deal reportedly went through a year-long sale process, which is standard for a brand at this scale.

For the incoming buyer, secondaries offer an asset that has already been through one round of professional management. The chaotic founder-era decisions have largely been made or unmade. The infrastructure is there. What Rhône is buying is a brand in its expansion phase, not its transformation phase.

The PE Love Affair with QSR

Private equity's attraction to quick-service restaurant franchisors is structural. The franchise model is essentially an asset-light royalty business. The franchisor collects a percentage of system sales, typically 4 to 6 percent, without owning the restaurants, employing the hourly workforce, or carrying the capital cost of the physical plant. For Freddy's at $1 billion in system sales and a royalty rate in that range, the royalty stream alone approaches $40 to $60 million per year before any fees, technology charges, or company-owned restaurant income.

That recurring, contractually obligated cash flow looks like a bond to a PE underwriter. Layer in unit growth, which amplifies the royalty stream without proportional capital expenditure, and you have a compelling leveraged buyout candidate. Growing franchise concepts for PE buyers typically trade at 10 to 15 times EBITDA, according to restaurant M&A advisors. High-momentum brands with clear international runway can push above that range. Highly franchised chains, as a group, command EV/EBITDA multiples that more than double the median for lightly franchised concepts.

The math on Freddy's is consistent with that framework. The brand has brand equity, a loyal regional following that has proven portable nationally, and category differentiation. Frozen custard is not a commodity. The steakburger positioning, fresh beef smashed to order, carves out space against both legacy fast food and premium fast casual without requiring the unit economics of a full build-out at Shake Shack prices.

A Crowded Transaction Landscape

The Freddy's deal is one piece of a larger pattern. The past 18 months have produced several high-profile PE moves in the restaurant sector.

Blackstone closed its acquisition of Jersey Mike's in January 2025, valuing the sandwich chain at approximately $8 billion. Founder and CEO Peter Cancro retained a 10 percent stake but handed majority control to one of the largest private equity firms on the planet. Jersey Mike's had roughly 2,500 locations, a loyal customer base built on sliced-fresh ingredients and a cultish following, and years of same-store sales growth. Blackstone's thesis is simple: take a proven high-unit-economics concept and pour institutional capital into accelerating its domestic footprint and building an international presence.

Roark Capital acquired a 75 percent controlling stake in Dave's Hot Chicken in June 2025, valuing the eight-year-old chain at approximately $1 billion. Dave's launched in a Los Angeles parking lot in 2017 with $900 in seed money and had grown to more than 300 locations by the time of the deal. The brand's 2024 system sales of $617 million had surged 57 percent year over year, and Roark projected topline figures above $1.2 billion for 2025. A 10x-plus revenue multiple is extraordinary by any benchmark, but the growth trajectory justified it for buyers willing to bet on continued expansion toward a stated target of 4,000 worldwide units over the next decade.

Denny's, the 72-year-old diner chain that had been publicly traded since 1997, agreed in November 2025 to be taken private by TriArtisan Capital Advisors, Treville Capital Group, and franchisee Yadav Enterprises in an all-cash deal valued at $620 million. The acquisition represented a 52 percent premium to Denny's pre-announcement stock price, a signal that the public markets had been severely discounting the brand's underlying cash flow. Denny's completed the transaction and went private as of early 2026.

And Roark Capital is weighing an IPO for Inspire Brands, the holding company that encompasses Dunkin', Arby's, Sonic Drive-In, Jimmy John's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Baskin-Robbins. Reports from March 2026 indicate Roark has begun early-stage conversations with potential advisers on a listing that could raise approximately $2 billion, with analysts estimating a company valuation in the range of $20 billion given the $32.6 billion in combined system sales across 33,000 locations.

The Franchise Operator's Reality

Secondary buyouts are largely invisible to the consumer. For franchise operators, the story is more complicated.

New PE owners invariably bring new growth targets, remodel mandates, and technology initiatives. Operators who bought into a system under one ownership group may find the rules of engagement changing. Royalty structures may be renegotiated on renewals. Development commitments may be tightened. Capital expenditure requirements for new brand standards often arrive within the first 18 to 24 months of a new ownership cycle.

In Freddy's case, the Rhône acquisition has been structured around continuity. CEO Chris Dull, CFO Bill Valentes, and COO Brian Wise all remain in their roles. The stated strategy for franchisees is growth, not extraction. Rhône's public comments have focused on international expansion as the primary value creation lever, which means the burden of new unit development falls on international markets rather than existing U.S. operators in the near term.

That is the best-case scenario for incumbent franchisees: new capital, same management, growth that builds system scale without forcing painful domestic remodels on an accelerated timeline. Whether that holds over Rhône's full ownership cycle is an open question. PE firms serve their LPs, not their franchisees.

Rhône's Track Record and the Fogo de Chão Signal

Rhône is not an inexperienced restaurant buyer. The firm took Brazilian churrascaria chain Fogo de Chão private in 2018 for approximately $560 million. Over the next five years, under Rhône's ownership, Fogo delivered three consecutive years of 15 percent annual growth. In August 2023, Rhône sold Fogo to Bain Capital Private Equity for $1.1 billion, generating roughly three times its original investment.

That track record matters. It tells prospective Freddy's franchisees and industry observers that Rhône has executed this playbook before in the restaurant sector, not just in theory. The Fogo exit also demonstrates patience. Five years, not a rushed flip. The firm let the growth story develop before harvesting.

Freddy's at $700 million entering that same firm's portfolio now needs to deliver a similar trajectory to produce a compelling exit. A two-times return, which would be considered ordinary in PE terms, implies an exit value above $1.4 billion. To get there within a five-to-seven year window, Freddy's needs to push well past 700 or 800 units domestically, execute credibly on international development, and maintain or expand its system average unit volume.

At $1 billion in system sales across 550-plus units, average annual unit volumes run approximately $1.8 million per location. Maintaining that figure while growing the unit count rapidly requires franchisee selection discipline and ongoing marketing investment. That is where the next PE ownership cycle gets tested.

The Fat Brands Warning

Not every PE restaurant bet goes according to plan. Fat Brands, the Los Angeles-based holding company assembled through an aggressive acquisition spree between 2020 and 2023, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 26, 2026.

Fat Brands built a portfolio of 18 chains, including Fatburger, Johnny Rockets, Round Table Pizza, Twin Peaks, and Fazoli's, funded largely through whole-business securitization that pledged nearly all of the company's assets and future cash flows as collateral. The strategy concentrated debt rather than managing it. When creditors accelerated approximately $1.26 billion in securitized obligations in November 2025, the company acknowledged it could not repay the amount with available liquidity.

The business itself was described by observers as fundamentally cash-generative. The capital structure was not. Fat Brands illustrates the specific pathology of leveraged roll-up strategies in the restaurant sector: acquisition-fueled growth can generate genuine brand scale, but the debt layer required to finance that growth can become fragile when cash flows stumble and refinancing conditions tighten.

The Freddy's transaction is a different structure. At $700 million for a single-concept franchisor, the leverage ratios are more manageable, and the asset is a cohesive operating business rather than an assembled portfolio of disparate brands. But the Fat Brands collapse is a useful benchmark for why precision in leverage calibration matters in restaurant PE.

What 2026 Means for the M&A Cycle

The transaction environment entering 2026 favors deals. Citizens Financial Group's 2026 M&A Outlook, drawn from a survey of 400 U.S. companies and PE firms, found that 58 percent of respondents rated the M&A market as somewhat or extremely strong, the highest reading in six years. Among PE firms specifically, 69 percent saw a strong deal market. The proportion of companies that identified as potential sellers in 2026 jumped to 79 percent, up significantly from prior years.

For restaurant franchisors, the combination of lower refinancing costs, cleaner balance sheets among strategic acquirers, and continued PE appetite creates a target-rich environment. After years in which rising interest rates compressed leveraged buyout feasibility, the easing rate environment has reopened the bid-ask calculus.

Brands trading at distressed or undervalued multiples, like Denny's was before its $620 million take-private, are obvious targets. But so are performing concepts with clear geographic white space, like Freddy's, or high-growth brands with a proof-of-concept on unit economics, like Dave's Hot Chicken.

The pattern suggests that any QSR franchisor with clean books, defensible brand differentiation, and a legible growth thesis is a potential target in the current cycle. The question for operators watching these deals close is not whether their brand will eventually trade. It is understanding what ownership change means for their economics when it does.

The Freddy's Baseline

Freddy's enters the Rhône era with a stronger hand than many secondary buyout targets. The brand has genuine consumer loyalty built over two decades, a clear and differentiated menu architecture, and a franchisee community that has scaled with it from its Wichita origins into 34 states. The $1 billion system sales milestone, crossed under Thompson Street's ownership, is not a vanity figure. It represents a royalty stream that makes the franchisor's economics genuinely compelling.

The international growth thesis is credible but unproven. Canada is in early innings. The Philippines and Mexico deals, reportedly close to signing as of late 2025, represent a new test for a brand that has operated exclusively in the U.S. and Canada. International franchise development requires different skills than domestic expansion, different franchisee relationships, different supply chain logistics, and different brand localization decisions. Rhône's Fogo de Chão experience included international markets, which gives the firm some pattern recognition here.

For franchisees already in the Freddy's system, the calculus is familiar: new capital usually means new demands, but new capital also means new support. The next three to four years will determine whether Rhône executes a Fogo-style value creation arc or whether the brand plateaus under the weight of its own growth targets.

For the broader QSR industry, the Freddy's secondary buyout is simply the most recent data point confirming that private equity now functions as the permanent capital rotation mechanism for mid-scale franchise concepts. The founders exit. The first PE owner builds. The second PE owner scales. The third PE owner, or the IPO market, harvests. It is a structured cycle, not an accident. Understanding it is table stakes for anyone operating inside the system.