I just had to take the time to thank you for your expertise in our recent sale-leasebacks. Even though I’m a Panera Bread franchisee and I’ve operated restaurants for years, the idea of using sale-leasebacks to raise capital to fund store expansion was relatively new to me and not something I took lightly. When I reached out to the head of real estate at Panera for help, I was relieved that he already had a team he recommended for these deals – yours! And he was right. The time you invested into making sure all of our needs were met and that each lease and financial agreement served our long-term operational goals in each location was impressive.
I didn’t realize that you would also personally spend so much time interviewing and vetting each potential buyer to make sure they were individuals that we could work with over the long haul. Each of the original four transactions you arranged for our existing stores put us in touch with a buyer that we are thrilled to be working with in these long-term lease agreements.
When we needed help to complete another sale-leaseback on a new store we were planning to open, you provided fantastic leadership and guidance to help us complete a sale that timed perfectly with our store opening. Not to mention, we were exceedingly pleased with the cap rates achieved in all five of our transactions.
We look forward to working together with you on future transactions as we continue to grow our store count with Panera.
All the best,
Randal Oudt
Texas Restaurant Group, Panera Bread franchisee