Restaurant chain The Wendy’s company has divested 30 Austin and 19 Sacramento area restaurants, in separate transactions.
The Austin restaurants have been sold to HAZA Foods, of Austin, Texas.
The Sacramento area restaurants have been sold to Desmond Foods, a Wendy's franchisee since 1973. Desmond also operates 17 Wendy's restaurants in the Fresno market along with seven in the San Francisco area.
These restaurants' sale process is part of Wendy's announced plans in July to geographically concentrate its restaurant ownership through the sale of about 425 company-operated restaurants in 13 US markets, primarily in the West.
As a result of system optimization, the restaurant chain expects to generate a higher operating margin and stronger free cash flow, along with further enhancing the quality of its earnings with a more predictable revenue stream from a higher percentage of royalty and rental income.
With the completion of the current transactions, the company has now either sold or announced sales agreements for a total of 282 restaurants in 2013 as part of its system optimization initiative.
Presently, Wendy's system includes more than 6,500 franchise and company-operated restaurants in the US and 28 countries and US territories worldwide.
