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Tower Asset Management has increased its stake in Restaurant Brands ahead of the potential sale of the fast-food company.
Tower's latest buy was small - thought to be about 65,500 shares - but took its total holding to 5.04 per cent of the company, over the threshold at which it has to publicly reveal the shareholding.
The Business Herald understands Restaurant Brands has engaged an investment bank - believed to be Macquarie Bank - to advise it about a potential sale.
Shares in Restaurant Brands, which owns the Pizza Hut, Starbucks and KFC franchises in New Zealand, closed unchanged at $1.14 yesterday.
On December 1 last year, Restaurant Brands chief executive Vicki Salmon said "people have been exploring the prospect of taking over the company."
Its share price rose 12c to $1.14, reversing the big hit the price took when the company said it was quitting the Pizza Hut chain in Victoria, Australia, for a $9 million loss.
Salmon told the Business Herald yesterday that fast food was a relatively specialist form of retailing, which meant potential buyers were likely to take time to make a decision.
She would not say whether private equity firms were interested in the company.
But at least two private equity companies are being mentioned in connection with Restaurant Brands - CVC Asia Pacific and Pacific Equity Partners.
CVC, a joint venture between CVC Capital Partners in London and New York's Citigroup, made an offer of $1.65 a share in June last year.
But CVC withdrew, partly, it is understood, because of concerns that the KFC franchising contract with Yum Brands had only 10 months to run.
Restaurant Brands has since advanced the 10-year renewal from May to October last year with options for a 10-year extension, removing that question mark for potential buyers.
