Franchisor Folio is a list of (a) franchisors that are publicly-held, and (b) publicly-held companies that own franchisors.
Most of the thousands of franchisors that exist are privately-held. The ownership interests in these companies are held by founders, individual investors, private equity companies and, sometimes, by privately-held parent companies. Only a relatively few franchisors are publicly-held, or owned by publicly-held companies. Some of these publicly-held companies have all of their stock owned by the public, while others are only partially (e.g., 40%) publicly-held.
Franchisor Folio consists of about one hundred US (and, in a few cases, foreign) based franchisors in which the public may invest. The list does not contain all of the publicly-held franchisors, or publicly-held companies that own franchisors. Rather, companies are listed on Franchisor Folio simply to display the range of franchisors that are public or owned by publicly-held companies. The display of franchisors that are publicly-held, and of others that are owned by publicly-held companies (including by some large multi-national corporations), is designed to show the visitors to Franchisor Pipeline the scope and strength of the franchise model of doing business. No investment recommendations whatsoever are made.
Especially as additional franchisors go public, are acquired by publicly-held companies, and are identified as being public (including on international stock exchanges) — and as some of the listed companies go private — the Franchisor Folio list will change.
Note that most of the Franchisor Folio listed companies are not ” pure ” franchisors, as they typically have business activities other than as a ” franchisor. ” These other business activities may include company-owned units, supply functions, or even ownership in other unrelated businesses. Also, in the case of the publicly-held companies that own franchisors (and especially in the case of the multi-nationals), the contribution of the franchisor to the publicly-held companies’ performance may be highly diluted.
Most franchisors refer to their offerings as “franchises.” A few franchisors prefer to use other terms such as “licensor” and “license,” even though their offerings satisfy typical definitions of “franchise.” And a very few companies say that they offer “franchises” when their offerings do not technically satisfy these definitions.
- In an effort to deal with these distinctions, and with only a few exceptions, Franchisor Folio consists only of publicly-held companies that have a publicly-available US-style Franchise Disclosure Document or “FDD” for the indicated brands.
- In a few cases, Franchisor Folio listed companies are also included even though there is no publicly-available disclosure document for the indicated brands. This is typically because these franchisors grant “franchises” only internationally (whether from the US, or across other foreign borders), and in countries or for transactions where disclosure documents are either not required or not publicly-available.
For convenience, and further information, a link to Google Finance or Yahoo! Finance is provided for each company listed in Franchisor Folio.