I just read that Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf was sold to a Philippine company - Jolibee. The same company recently bought Smashburger. I am posting the info here as they are both shopped by the same mega MSC that we almost all are familiar with. It will be interesting to see if they both continue to be shopped. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf offers a small fee and reimbursement but I still do them if I’m going to be nearby. I think their drinks are better than Starbucks. Here’s some of the article:
Jollibee Foods Corp., the Philippines’ biggest restaurant company, will spend $350 million to buy the money-losing Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
Jollibee will invest $100 million for an 80% stake in a Singapore venture set up with Vietnamese partners to acquire Coffee Bean, it said in a stock exchange disclosure. The rest of the amount will be in the form of advances.
Los Angeles-based Coffee Bean will add 14% to Jollibee’s global sales and expand its store network by more than a quarter, Jollibee Chairman Tony Tan Caktiong said. The coffee chain was founded in 1963 and opened its first coffee shop in L.A.'s Brentwood neighborhood in 1968. It has grown to 1,189 stores, most of which are in Asia, and last year it reported a net loss of $21 million on revenue of $313 million.
According to an April auditors report prepared by Ernst & Young, the coffee company had a senior credit facility that would mature this month, “which raises substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2019 03:35AM by kenasch.