Restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s is in talks to go public, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The restaurant might be worth as much as $1 billion, and the listing could happen later this year.
Chief Executive Officer Damola Adamolekun, speaking in a Bloomberg radio interview earlier this year, said an IPO might be a viable alternative to raise new funds. He said dining was beginning to come back, and the chain had been seeing an uptick in activity in New York City.
By the end of 2021, P.F. Chang’s plans to have 20 to-go restaurants, an increase from the eight it currently has.
P.F. Chang’s, founded in 1993, includes in its backers TriArtisan Capital Advisers and Paulson & Co., which bought the company from another private equity firm in 2019.
Terms of that transaction were not made public, but Bloomberg writes that the deal was worth around $700 million.
P.F. Chang’s is among the restaurants looking at making its off-premise online ordering operations more permanent, having employees bring meals directly to one’s car so customers don’t have to go inside. That was a prominent way of ordering food during the lockdown period of 2020 as the pandemic was at its height.
One report in February showed that people might be more inclined to use these services — it found that 77 percent of customers would leave or consider leaving a restaurant at the sight of long lines.
P.F. Chang’s, the company said, is investing in new locations focused solely on delivery and pickups. In late June, the company also announced two more P.F. Chang’s To-Go locations. The format was launched in 2020, with smaller stores that don’t allow for on-premise dining.
The two new locations were in Irving, Texas and Orlando, Florida.
P.F. Chang’s has said it plans to have 50 such locations by the end of 2022. Twenty are already in the works.
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