My understanding is that Red Lobster, prior to the sale, was owned by one company. I can see the company selling the business wholesale to the hedge fund because they are losing ground.
I’m willing to allow that the hedge fund company may have seen that there wasn’t any retooling that they could do, due to market changes and changing consumer tastes and all that. However, they saw an opportunity to sell the land out from the restaurants and then lease it back in a way that ensured they would go out of business anyway.
They were previously pwned by Darden.
Darden owns numerous restaurant chains of note ranging the economic spectrum. They have been notably successful.
Red Lobster’s cxoncept was to bring seafood to the middle of the country.
I don’t remember why Red Lobster did not fit in Darden’s portfolio but it was up for sale for a while.
My understanding is that the new owners bought it, gave it a brief go and realized the titanic struggle it would be without the wherewithal of Darden.
Hence, selling off the real estate. I don’t know if they have positive or negative equity in the real estate. But many of the large chains have a ton of positive real estate equity. McD’s corp pwned stores and Walmart are two OTOH.