CiCi’s Pizza, an Irving-based buffet-style pizza chain, has emerged from bankruptcy less than two months after it filed for Chapter 11.
When CiCi’s Holdings, the parent company for the restaurant, submitted the papers for bankruptcy in January, it announced it would sell ownership to D&G Investors in an expedited process, though headquarters will remain in North Texas, a release said Monday.
D&G Investors is a newly-formed affiliate of SSCP Management and Gala Capital Partners, owners of many Applebee’s and Dallas-based Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes, respectively. Financial details of the deal weren’t disclosed.
D&G acquired $81.6 billion in debt from CiCi’s previous lenders, the Chapter 11 records showed, though the company still owed more than $81.6 million in a revolving facility and term loan facility at the time of its Chapter 11 filing, records showed. The company listed as much as $50 million of assets and $100 million in liabilities in its filing to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The Monday release said currently, CiCi’s has just under 300 locations in more than 30 states. D&G will “scale concepts and refine unit-level economics through operational and supply chain efficiencies.” Leading up to its bankruptcy, CiCi’s couldn’t make up for 2020 losses — in-store dining had made up 85 percent of sales prior to the pandemic, the records said.
In 2016, private equity firm Arlon Group, an affiliate of Continental Grain Co. acquired CiCi’s for an undisclosed amount. It had moved toward a heavier franchise model through the years and by 2020, CiCi’s had dropped to 60 percent of its peak in 2009 — operating 395 locations across 25 states, 96 percent of which were franchises by the beginning of 2020, records showed.
CiCi’s did not announce if it was restructuring internal leadership in the release.
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