Burger King

Burger King is a large international chain of fast food restaurants, predominantly selling burgers, french fries, soft drinks, desserts, and various sandwiches. Hungry Jack's is a franchisee of Burger King that owns, operates and franchises over 300 restaurants in Australia. more...

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Corporate profile

History

Burger King's first restaurant, originally called Insta Burger King, was opened on December 4, 1954 in Miami, Florida, USA by James McLamore and David Edgerton, who were both alumni of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore had visited the hamburger stand belonging to Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California; being able to sense potential in their innovative assembly line-based production system, he decided to create a version of his own.

Coincidentally, the first restaurant's milkshake machine was sold to them by Ray Kroc, who later bought the McDonald's restaurant chain from its founders and oversaw its worldwide expansion.

In 1967, Burger King was bought by Pillsbury, which was bought by Grand Metropolitan PLC of Britain in 1988.

In 1989, the Burger King brand acquired many locations of its major UK rival Wimpy when its parent company bought the brand from its previous owner United Biscuits and re-branded them as "Burger King", giving it an even greater presence in that country. While other "Wimpy" locations are still trading today (now independent from BK) they no longer have the presence they once did (the market is now dominated by Burger King and the larger McDonald's).

In 1997, Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form a company called Diageo.

On Friday, December 13, 2002, Burger King was purchased from Diageo for $1.5 (US) billion by a private equity group headed by Stanley Foster and the investment firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG). The company planned to go public within the next two years, though this was delayed until 2006. The new owners, through several new CEOs, revitalized the company; they realized about $367 million of the dividends.

On February 1, 2006, CEO Greg Brenneman announced TPG's plans to turn Burger King into a publicly traded company by issuing an Initial Public Offering. On February 16, the company announced it had filed its registration for the IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On May 18, 2006, Burger King began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKC.

Trademark disputes

As it expanded in the United States, Burger King found that smaller operations had previously been using the name. One such restaurant in Mattoon, Illinois negotiated a settlement that forbids the chain from opening locations within 20 miles (32 km). See Burger King (Mattoon, Illinois).

Read more at Wikipedia.org