Background:
The Ascension Team represents Guernsey holdings, a long-term repeat client and the 5th largest Sonic franchisee in the system that owns and operates 84 Sonic locations throughout Texas, Illinois, and Louisiana. The company acquired 56 Sonic locations in Louisiana in Q4 2021 as an addition to their rapidly growing platform. The acquisition included the real estate located in Luling, Louisiana and the company engaged Ascension to execute a sale leaseback on the real estate asset to effectively monetize the real estate value and free up cash to redeploy into the operating business.
Client Objective:
The client engaged Ascension due to the team’s long-term experience within the Sonic system and knowledge of the QSR industry. This, coupled with Ascension’s historical track record of executing QSR sale leasebacks at aggressive pricing, made the client confident in Ascension’s ability to deliver the results they desired. The client was looking to do a Sale Leaseback to keep their company goals on track, looking for further support in terms of long-term growth
Solution:
Ascension ran a condensed & competitive market process in order to close within a short time frame as desired by the client, and closed the sale leaseback after only 14 days in escrow at a total purchase price of $2.4M. The buyer is a repeat client and investor that has previously acquired as well as disposed of holdings with the help of the Ascension team.