--- title: "Inspire Brands was created in one world. It's going public in another" url: https://burnaze.com/article/340493ac-1653-45c1-8ec2-99409d65e985 source: "Restaurant Business" original_url: https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/inspire-brands-was-created-one-world-its-going-public-another category: "Restaurants" industry: "Restaurants" published: 2026-05-13T12:32:00.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T14:43:57.295Z image: https://cdn.informaconnect.com/platform/files/public/2026-05/background/Dunkin%27%20company%20next%20gen.jpg?VersionId=V1yMdUA2w07vCLivoSTm5L8rXxAVKt8J --- # Inspire Brands was created in one world. It's going public in another **TL;DR:** Inspire Brands, created eight years ago when Roark Capital-owned Arby's bought Buffalo Wild Wings, is set to go public this year after confidentially filing documents. The company has grown into one of the largest restaurant chain operators in the world, with a massive $11.3 billion purchase of Dunkin' Brands in 2020. *originally published in Restaurant Business on 2026-05-13. [Read the original](https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/inspire-brands-was-created-one-world-its-going-public-another).* ## Key facts - Inspire Brands may go public this year - Dunkin' averaged 6% US system sales growth - Arby's and Sonic saw sales declines ## Story Eight years ago, when the Roark Capital-owned Arby’s bought Buffalo Wild Wings and in the process created the Atlanta-based Inspire Brands, the restaurant world was all about consolidation. Restaurant Brands International (RBI) was paying top dollar for fast-food chains. JAB Holdings was doing the same with anything that was even scented like coffee. Darden Restaurants was buying. Yum Brands was thinking about buying stuff. Smaller-scale chains were buying other chains and creating multi-brand companies. All of it made sense. Other industries like grocers and hotels were consolidating over decades because technology was making winners out of the bigger players and losers out of everything else. ## Inspire brand growth Inspire, co-founded by the former hotelier Paul Brown, would grow into one of the largest restaurant chain operators in the world, punctuated by its massive, $11.3 billion purchase of Dunkin’ Brands in 2020. The inevitable Inspire IPO appears set to happen this year after the company confidentially filed those documents. But the world is different today than it was back then. Investors seem far more skeptical of such combinations. Or maybe it’s corporate boards that have grown skeptical, as companies seeking better valuations shed underperforming concepts to look better on paper. Jack in the Box, after all, sold Del Taco just three years after buying it. Yum Brands has put Pizza Hut on the market. Sure, Darden keeps buying, but it also just shut down Bahama Breeze. RBI hasn’t acquired anything in five years and seems uninterested in making another deal. We have no idea what JAB is doing but it sure isn’t buying and combining restaurant chains right now. The big brand collector MTY Food Group is allegedly looking for buyers but has yet to announce a deal six months later. Fat Brands is bankrupt. You get the idea. ## Challenges of multi brand The problem with operating a multi-brand concept on the public markets is sometimes one brand does well and the other does less well. This can hold back a company’s valuation, as investors focus more on those performing assets, or punish the company for the underperforming assets. In many cases, both concepts at a company struggle, prompting that company to sell one of them to concentrate on the bigger brand. That is what Jack in the Box did, opting to concentrate on fixing its flagship chain while it sold off Del Taco. This tendency to walk back combinations a couple of years after making them has undone a lot of multibrand concepts over the years, like McDonald’s-Chipotle or Wendy’s-Tim Hortons. A publicly traded Inspire has several, big chains with a lot of realized potential. Investors will surely want to put money into Dunkin’. They may buy into a chance to invest in Jimmy John’s and they may buy into the prospect of international growth for many of these brands. But the company could face pressure over time to get all its brands pointed in the same direction, lest investors start discounting the non-Dunkin’ concepts. Over the past four years, Dunkin’ has averaged system sales growth of just under 6% in the U.S., while Jimmy John’s has grown 4.5% on average and Buffalo Wild Wings just under 2%. But Arby’s has averaged a 1.2% decline and Sonic a 2.7% decline. ## Industry consolidation trends One thing that has long kept the restaurant industry from consolidating the way other industries do is the historic variety among the companies that comprise the business. These companies’ performance can vary considerably. And newer brands are constantly emerging to take market share. The result can make operating a multi-brand concept a little like playing Whack-A-Mole: The moment you get rid of one problem, another emerges. And executives have only so many tokens, at least as far as investors are concerned. ## Entities - QSR (sector) - Dunkin' Brands (company) - Restaurant Business (publication) - Yum Brands (company) - sales growth (topic) - Fat Brands (company) - Arby's (company) - Inspire Brands (company) - Del Taco (company) - Jack in the Box (company) - Buffalo Wild Wings (company) - Jimmy John's (company) --- Originally reported by Restaurant Business (https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/inspire-brands-was-created-one-world-its-going-public-another). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/340493ac-1653-45c1-8ec2-99409d65e985).