Fried chicken is having its moment in the sun, and Bojangles is looking to capitalize on it. Only a few weeks after Dave’s Hot Chicken was sold to Roark Capital, which also owns Subway, for nearly $1 billion, Bojangles wants to up the ante. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bojangles' owners are considering a sale. If they can get their estimated $1.5 billion asking price, they will have tripled what they paid to buy the chain in 2019.
The first Bojangles opened in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1978. Original owners Jack Fulk and Richard Thomas had a simple mission: to bring spicy, Cajun-style fried chicken and homemade biscuits to the masses. Although spicy fried chicken and biscuits were staples in many southern households at the time, Kentucky Fried Chicken was one of only a few successful chicken franchises.
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The original Bojangles operated on a shoestring budget out of a walk-up kiosk on West Boulevard in Charlotte. It wasn't long before Bojangles' reputation for having top-tier fried chicken translated into a loyal following. That pattern would repeat itself almost everywhere Bojangles opened and it wasn't long before the chain was inspiring almost cult-like devotion among its fans.
Bojangles’ simple formula of providing crispy, spicy chicken and delicious biscuits proved very successful throughout the South. The chain underwent aggressive expansion in the 1990s and opened its 300th location in 2003. Bojangles gained national recognition in 2008 when the Wall Street Journal named it one of the world's best restaurant chains.
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Bojangles opened its 600th location in 2014. Not long after, the owners took Bojangles public, and the chain raised an estimated $372 million at its IPO in 2015. Bojangles went private again in 2019 when The Jordan Company and Durational Capital Management bought the chain for $593 million. Since then, the popularity of fried chicken has skyrocketed.
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The emergence of foodie culture and innovations like Korean style chicken wings and Nashville hot chicken has helped fried chicken become one of the hottest sectors in the fast-food industry. Rising players like Raising Cane’s have also hit the market and made a strong impact, but Bojangles' place as a major player in the sector had already been secured.
Then, Roark Capital acquired Los Angeles-based Dave's Hot Chicken for almost $1 billion. The size of that deal was simply too big for The Jordan Company and Durational Capital to ignore. Bojangles is a much larger, more well-established chain than Dave's Hot Chicken. If Dave's was worth $900 million, it stands to reason that a chain with Bojangles' history and over 700 locations worldwide would be worth considerably more.
According to the Journal's sources, the asking price for Bojangles will be in the $1.5 billion range. If a deal closes in that range, it would translate to roughly $1 billion in profit for The Jordan Company and Durational Capital in just six years of ownership. Now, that's what you call hot chicken.
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