Why has the Domino’s Pizza supremo gone Barking Mad?
Franchise Brands (AIM:FRAN), a recently listed group of multi-brand franchisors, this week announced the ‘seemingly’ bizarre acquisition of a UK provider of dog sitting services. Franchise Brands is led by Stephen Hemsley, the current Chairman and former Chief Executive of Domino’s Pizza UK who has led the FTSE250 group to a current market capitalisation of £1.7bn over the past 18 years, so should know what he’s doing. The market also liked the deal pushing the shares up over 10% on the news, although the reality was relatively few shares changed hands. Our latest Blog reflects on this most unusual of acquisitions.
Franchise Brands now has a combined network of over 400 franchisees in 12 countries, but predominantly in the UK. Prior to the latest deal the existing brands were ChipsAway, Ovenclean and MyHome, all of which deliver services to individual customers through the Group’s franchisees. The current Group was put together in September 2008 by Stephen Hemsley (Executive Chairman) and Nigel Wray (Non-Executive Director), who have a combined stake of 57% in the business. At IPO in August 2016 Franchise Brands raised net proceeds of £2.5m at 33p with the current market capitalisation (at 58p) approx. £27m. As we reflected in…