That is partly right. He made it profitable. He did so by cutting the franchises that were losing money. That is the easiest way to return to profitability, get rid of all the stores that are unprofitable.
Unfortunately, he was never able to grow the company. Growing is why companies sometimes have unprofitable outlets -- they are unprofitable until they earn market share. That is the hard task. Monoghan did it at Dominoes, starting with nothing and creating the 2nd largest pizza chain in the world.
Cain was a competent manager, who cut costs and cut unprofitable franchises, and then spent the rest of his time caretaking the business. It never increased in revenue, it didn't expand it's number of franchises, it didn't grow in market share.
Godfather's was once the number 3 pizza company. It fell on hard times, and when Cain was put in charge, it was number 5. Pillsbury put him in charge to turn it around, to make it back into the number 3 company. Instead, they ended up selling him the company. And when he stopped day-to-day control in 1996, Godfathers was the 8th-largest pizza company. He stayed on the board until the early 2000s -- when he left for good, Godfather's was the 11th largest pizza company.
Exactly.
And at the height of his prowess all he did was stop the bleeding and return a 1.5% profit margin.
America needs growth!
Texas is growing!
You are right of course, Cain was a complete failure.
How could I be so blind.