Acquisition · Restaurants (bakery cafés)
Create Restaurants buys Arizona bakery café chain Wildflower for $28.2 million
- Buyer
- Create Restaurants Holdings (Tokyo)
- Target
- Wildflower Bread Company (restaurant business), Scottsdale, Arizona
- Value
- $28.2M (about ¥4.16B)
- Status
- Completed September 3, 2024.
- Date
- 2024-08-06
Create Restaurants Holdings bought the 16-restaurant Wildflower bakery café chain, centered on Phoenix, from its founder for $28.2 million. Wildflower, founded in 1996, sells sandwiches, salads, soups, pasta, bread and cakes, and had nearly $44 million in sales in 2023.
Why it matters
Its second US restaurant buy after Il Fornaio (2019). The group buys well-run local chains in the US instead of exporting Japanese brands.
About Wildflower
Wildflower is based in Scottsdale and was founded by Louis Basile Jr., who had earlier helped grow Au Bon Pain. Besides its cafés it has a sizable wholesale bread business. It made an operating profit of about $2.8 million in 2023, and each restaurant averaged about $2.4 million in sales.
Create's buying formula
Shun Maki, who heads Create's North American M&A, said the group looks for chains of 10 to 20 company-run restaurants that lead their category in one city. It pays all cash, without co-investors or loans, and holds brands for the long term instead of selling them on. Create planned to buy two or three more local US brands in the next couple of years.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
