A New York-based investment firm, Centre Partners, has agreed to buy the Nashville-based Captain D’s quick-serve seafood chain from Sun Capital Partners, which bought it in 2010.
Terms of the deal, reported by Sun Capital, were not disclosed. But in the announcement, Sun Capital said it had turned around Captain D’s, under its guidance, after “several years of declining comparable store sales,” adding that the restaurants have now had “27 consecutive periods of system-wide comparable sales growth.”
There was no immediate word on when the deal would be completed, or what plans Centre Partners has for Captain D’s.
Through a woman who answered the phone at its New York headquarters, Centre Partners declined to discuss or even confirm the purchase of Captain D’s. The woman, who would not give her name, insisted that the firm was “absolutely not interested in talking” about the deal.
There also was no immediate response to emailed requests for comment to Centre Partners Managing Partner Bruce Pollack and other top company officials. The investment group was founded in 1986 by Lester Pollack, now the firm’s chairman emeritus, according to its website, which notes several prior restaurant investments.
Captain D’s, formerly part of the Shoney’s restaurant group, was founded in 1969 in Nashville by Ray Danner, who had previously acquired the West Virginia-based Shoney’s from its founder, Alex Schoenbaum. Captain D’s owns, operates and franchises 527 restaurants in 25 states and on military bases worldwide, Sun Capital said.
