Telepizza changes hands following a court ruling. In application of the new bankruptcy law, the commercial court number 5 of Madrid has approved a debt restructuring plan of 350 million that gives the green light to the creditor funds – Oak Hill, Blantyre, HIG, Fortress and Treo – to take a 75% of the capital in exchange for a payment of 200 million euros of liabilities.
Sources close to the case assure this newspaper that Banco Santander and the ICO control the remaining 25% of the ownership of Telepizza, which operates through the company Food Delivery Brands. In accordance with the court decision, the current owners lose control of the business: the KKR fund and other investment firms such as Altamar, Safra, Artá ??and Torreal, which had entered over the past few years.
These same sources assure that the restructuring plan approved by the judge also foresees the restructuring of 100 million euros of the liability, the maturity of which has now been set between the years 2026 and 2028. As established by the bankruptcy regulations, the resolution is not appealable to higher authorities, so it must be executed in the next few weeks.
The agreement has been supervised by the independent expert Lexaudit and has been approved by consensus among the creditors.
The new plan aims to ensure the viability of Food Delivery Brands, a company that has been struggling financially for more than 15 years and facing fierce competition from home delivery platforms.
In addition to the Telepizza chain, Food Delivery Brands also controls other brands such as Pizza Hut, Jeno’s Pizza and Apache Pizza. Altogether, the company operates through more than 1,800 establishments in a total of seven countries. Until a few weeks ago, the company was run by Jacobo Caller, who resigned this September due to the debt restructuring process.
The Telepizza ruling comes just weeks after the case of the Catalan multinational Celsa, in which the Barcelona court also transferred the property to the creditor funds due to the inability of the Rubiralta family to repay the loans.
