Almost two months have handed since phrase got here that Federal Commerce Fee is investigating whether or not the sale of the Subway sandwich chain needs to be allowed to go forward.

But, up to now, there was no indication of which means the FTC is leaning. And a few FTC probes can take as much as a yr.

Opponents of the Subway sale to Roark Capital, the personal fairness agency that owns a bunch of different restaurant operators and franchises (together with Subway rival Jimmy John’s), contend that including Subway to Roark’s roster will consolidate an excessive amount of of the sandwich market underneath one proprietor.

“We don’t want one other personal fairness deal that might result in increased meals costs for shoppers,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., mentioned in throwing her help behind the FTC investigation.

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What’s the Common Revenue of a Subway Restaurant Franchise Proprietor?

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Roark pays as much as $9.55 billion for the sandwich chain, in keeping with phrases of the deal introduced late final summer time. Subway’s household house owners had been hoping to fetch $10 billion once they put the corporate up on the market in February 2023.

The investigation is within the early phases, Politico reported late final yr, including: “Merger critiques by antitrust regulators can typically take a yr or extra. The FTC can both sue to dam the merger, attain an settlement with the businesses that alleviates its issues, or take no motion in any respect.”

Within the meantime, Subway is transferring ahead with new promotions and different modifications meant to extend retailer gross sales.

Among the many modifications is a requirement that each one franchises settle for digital coupons. Among the many new merchandise is a group of three snacks that Subway is looking, “Sidekicks.” The three new footlong snacks are a Subway chocolate chip cookie formed into a protracted strip and sufficiently big for 4 folks, in addition to footlong churros and pretzels.

Roark’s bid to amass Subway adopted a rebound that noticed Subway’s gross sales climb in 2022 and early 2023.

Credit score for the turnaround goes partly to new advertising and marketing campaigns, together with a latest, zany, “wait a minute, they did what?” marketing campaign.

Subway’s summer time promotion asking superfans to point out their tremendous fandom went so nicely that 10,000 folks had moved to vary their names legally to “Subway” in change for sandwiches for all times.

The “Subway” title promotion is in step with the most recent installment in what Subway calls its “multiyear transformation journey.” The corporate, which stays one of many world’s largest chain restaurant operations regardless of closing hundreds of retailers in recent times, is underneath strain to enhance the underside line each for itself and its particular person franchise house owners.

“This replace is Subway’s most complicated, investing greater than $80 million to carry deli meat slicers to greater than 20,000 U.S. eating places and putting in a slicer each 5 minutes over the course of 9 months to prepare for this summer time’s debut,” Subway mentioned in a information launch. “To showcase its new freshly sliced meats, Subway’s culinary workforce spent over a yr crafting the recipes for its Deli Hero subs.”