https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/beloved-aussie-chicke…
General Atlantic reportedly outbid offers from JPMorgan-advised Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Melbourne buyout firm BGH Capital, advised by Barrenjoey Capital Partners, in the final stages of the auction, as reported by The Financial Review.
Crazy
awesome to sell
But Now another company where all profits fly to America
Meh, they are going to run it to the ground. It's not been the same since they started franchising. It is only going to get worse.
Totally agree, very ordinary chicken with absolutely terrible customer service. Very smart to sell at top dollar, I don’t see what the buyer is seeing as value?
They've already devolved into something maybe a step or two better than the quality of Domino's.
This is going down as one of the worst franchise buyouts of all time.
Yep. They used to make the dips in store, now it's all pre-packaged from a factory. And don't get me started on shrink-flation.
La Mono any day!
Franchising always kills the quality of the product. I am old enough to have experienced Oportos before they expanded which is why I cannot stomach the crap they serve now.
great now it will be Americanised and made totally shit
Its already shit .It can't get worse. Bland AF with no taste whatsoever.
The garlic sauce is good, the chicken is usually dry and stringy.
Such a shame, it was great back before they franchised.
Pro tip Aldi sells the exact same garlic sauce in the dip section. You’re welcome
@xgenosis: You sure it’s the same manufacturer and not just a generic toum with a completely different taste profile? Just want to make sure your comment is not just an uninformed non-lebo before I drive to my local aldi, no offence intended cheers
@Terra Australis: The Aldi version is not exactly the same as EJ but it's pretty decent as far as supermarket toum goes.
@Terra Australis: Yeah when i try independent grocery stores or big supermarkets chains it taste completely different
It like those pho soups tasting completely different, like less yummy
Yes it was in a suburb starting with g right?
Pretty sure was granville
Chalk on the corner of South St and William St, their Garlic sauce was the best, as it had a bit more garlic taste and the thickness was just about right. But now it’s an Afghan restaurant.
It can't get worse
It can always get worse
I thought i was the only one. Nando's overpriced chicken is a lot better! El jannah? meh. tried once and that's it.
So when did u try it?… It has got worse since the end of last decade.
Its already shit
Should rename it to El Jahannam then.
True. It’s definitely bloody bland! They’ve been bad for a good few yrs now. Don’t blame them for getting out and selling. Hawa in South St, Granville (same street of where the original El Jannah store is and still there), is better in taste. That’s why I won’t go to El Jannah. Haven’t been to the Granville one since ‘21. Only went there to try it out again, after a few yrs.
That was exactly my partner and I's reaction lmao
For future reference, the pronoun you're looking for is "my". There's no such word as "I's". The possessive pronoun is "my".
The easy test for these things is to take the other person out of the sentence to see what makes sense. It's often the objective case (me, my) rather than the subjective case (I).
E.g. "That was my reaction." - correct, makes sense.
"That was I reaction." - incorrect, you'd never say that out loud.
Similarly, you'd say, "Give it to Sally and me" not "Give it to Sally and I" because you'd never say "Give it to I". Take the other person out of the sentence and it becomes clear you are the object (need me or my) rather than the subject (needing I).
@gooston: You must’ve, because u replied to it. Just like the ones on Facebook say such for yrs with GiFs. 😂…😏
It was amazing before… now its really dry af! Life is too short to eat shit chicken.
Frangos is where it's at now. And your local leb joint.
And El Jannah is Lebanese. 🇱🇧 😆
I meant the non-chain local. :D But yeah you're not wrong
$1b for a chicken shop, smh. It is tasty, but neither unique nor difficult to copy. Add in private equity cost control enshittifying the quality and I am sure we will see this bought back for $150m in a decade with the owners promising to “return to its roots”.
so why dont you copy it and then sell it for 1b? or wait you cant…
theirs a reason they got 1b for it and something you will never get even if you copied it
I’m not a hater here, on the contrary I am very pleased an Aussie success story is making some cash and I think they have timed their exit so well.
If there is value to be grabbed, I think the existing competitors, like Frangos and other chicken joints will benefit from seeing el Jannah lose their fight - any market where the big dog loses their focus because investors, who don’t know the market as well, and it becomes an investment with % returns instead of a business feeding the owners family is gonna suffer.
I don’t think there will be any gap in the quality Leb chicken market. Actually, the opposite, i think a new boss will drop the ball.
I am super comfortable that these guys don’t have the capital to grow it into another KFC, and don’t have the business nous either. It’s so clearly not a KFC, where you could possibly expand into global markets with a machine level system of “make it this way” process rewards cost control.
I mean, that is their spreadsheet - bring el jannah system leb chicken to the world in the way the KFC spreadsheet says bring it to the world.
Good luck to them. I like El Jannah chicken. But I also already buy KFC, and Korean fried chicken from local suppliers, and my local shop also sells a good BBQ chicken (with Tum garlic sauce if I ask) and Woolies and Coles and Costco sell cheap roast chooks,
I don’t think they have the space in the market they think they do. If I had to guess, the purchasers are probably narrowly thinking about the USA market, who don’t have the same availability of good/cheap local roast chicken that is normal everywhere else in the world, and think they will capture not just the Leb chicken with some tum garlic, but a new market of whole roast chicken.
Anyway, that is the long story why me and Deloitte/EY/KPMG etc. don’t get along, because they will produce a spreadsheet saying whatever the customer wants it to say, and I would like it to be true.
I will work for 30% of Deloitte/EY/KPMG to tell you the bad news with your business plan, but nobody wants to hear that (call me!). Nobody gets paid for stating the obvious , when there is made to say you can get rich if it all works out.
their sertainly is a reason
It's actually amazing the general public is so in tune with what is going to happen here.
They got a good deal, the PE firm is just using somebody elses money so they don't really care.
I've only eaten their twice before and it's literally the same charcoal chicken you can get anywhere.
This place is burning to the ground after the PE takes over.
Swimming in money and nowhere to put it.
So if you’re a real surgeon, you’re speaking from experience - right? 😆..😏
but neither unique nor difficult to copy
Something doesn't have to be unique. I'm guessing you probably use gmail, facebook, whatsapp, when there are a lot of alternatives.
mashallah
the owners are not muslim bro, they are leb christian.
Can still say Mashallah for anything bro. But the new company looks like a low-moral entity. Worthy of a boycott.
What makes General Atlantic a low-moral entity?
@Mikeer: A) the concept of private equity firms is to drive down costs to increase profits. They’ll have little to no regard about quality, or jobs etc
B) they’ve known to invest heavily and funnel funds into a particular state that’s been committing genocide.
@Soldier: Any source for claim B?
And please clarify what you mean by “invest and funnel funds”. If you mean that they are simply investing into local firms, then, given your claim A is that when private equity firms invest into businesses, they simply extract value and hurt local economies, then wouldn’t that mean that they are actively harming the countries that are committing a genocide?
@Mikeer: https://pe-insights.com/general-atlantic-doles-out-1bn-to-ma….
then wouldn’t that mean that they are actively harming the countries that are committing a genocide
Expecting a significant drop in quality in what you buy in-store here due to migrating to a "mass produce" platform like mcdonals etc. quantity over quantity. Increased revenue for the firm, increased investments in terrorising people.
Lebanese christians also say mashallah
So do some be people in certain parts of other countries, such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, The Phillipines, and a quite a lot more.
Because it’s Arabic. There’s no different language in Islam. They’ve been saying it for thousands of yrs. Not just hundreds.
BDS
MashaAllah = Congratulations or Wow in Arabic, no?
Which group do you feel I disrespected? Arabs? Lebanese? Muslim? Christians? I respect all and support multiculturalism. I didn't intend to disrespect anyone. You're welcome to report it if you feel I have.
Mashallah means "As God willed/done".
Some one is successfull only by the grace of God, so you say "God willed it for them", helping to keep in mind an individual's own insignificance in what has been granted to them. for example, some one can work 300x as hard as EJ owners, but never open a single franchise, or someone hasn't decided what colour eyes they were born with.
All blessings directly from God
Great effort to get $1 billion for a chicken shop. We should be proud of this great Australian feat. I wonder how Guzman is going in comparison
Has a market cap of about 3.5 billion
GyG isn’t as good as it was 15 yrs ago. Good onyer Steven Marks. Especially whom I met back in late ‘06 and ‘07 and the original and flagship store in King St, Newtown. Boss of an ex-Colombian friend and his ex-wife also from Colombia 🇨🇴. He told me that it had been around since they started as of 2005. And they still rave on about GyG. I remember back on FB in 2013, that they were saying it’s the best-ever food and Mexican food that they’ve ever had from stupid trolling 15 & 16 yr olds. I stopped eating it around 2012, because they replaced the steak with mince beef. And brought in pulled pork at the time. I again had it back in 2019, thru a suggestion of a cuz of mine — when we both went once to Mulgoa Rd in Penrith at the time. It wasn’t as good in taste when I had it back then of 2006-09.
Whoever consulted for ElJannah did a great job. To sell a piece of shit for $1b is incredible.
"yo cuzzy you know what taco bell did with mexican food? wallah if you expand to the states with our brand you can do the same with arab food"
😂😆🤣
Lick those boots harder.
lol you talking to me? i work for no one, self employed, cope harder
? i work for no one,
What, no customers?
May I ask, If you're self employed and no customers, how do you generate an income?
Investing? Passive income?
@Muppet Detector: Probably has crypto currency working well for him. Get out quick, as it’s dropping.
😆😆😆🤣😆
Is there shopback on it?
General Atlantic, the f*wits that put $250m into Greensill.
venture capitalists: fancy name for 'rape and pillagers'
Not quite VC
Bring back their OG name "Corporate Raiders"
Vulture Colonialists
Your choice. Aunties Choice!
overrated chicken business, but not to worry, my source tells me the green black logo shops will be turned into something else soon hey..
It has been going downhill the last 12 months or so, whoever owned it and sold did it at the right time.
Agreed, prices kept increasing and getting less every time.
Their loyalty was shit too, you spend a few months getting the required number of 'stamps' and only 7-days to redeem. WTF
Back to the greasy bird, at least their prices are a bit more reasonable
What do you mean by greasy bird? KFC?
I really liked el Jannah chicken skewers wraps but the taste went down hill in the last year or so.
‘12mths’?… I’d say before Covid hit in ‘20.
Ha, never heard of it until now? Some kind of secret? Last chicken shop I knew of was the Leonard's chicken franchises. Couldn't get out of the gates in Aus but off like a frog in a sock in Singapore.
EDIT: oh. Just googled. That explains it. They reckon they're legendary. Batman is legendary. They're just selling burned chicken.
I only found out about this place earlier in the year. Wanted to like it, but found the chicken too dry, the charcoal taste overpowering. Even the garlic sauce tastes a bit too much like it's pumped out of machine.
It's local, I've had it maybe five or six times at increasing intervals and then just forgot about it. I prefer KFC- sure it still tastes like an assembly line, but it's a lot cheaper.
It’s been dry and too bland for a few yrs now.
Did the buyers even try the dry and salty chicken?
It was so good about 10-15 years ago when it was a small Sydney institution. Sigh.
There was a few stores around then. But not of the amount of what they have been now, since 2019.
there are people within the community already starting a boycott.
Hawa Chicken etc will be loving this
Hawa's is much better but you need to be a chicken tourist and go to Granville.
Top it off with El Sweeties
It's kinda sad to see as someone who used to live in Granville and frequented EJ when they first opened (before it closes down after a fire). But yeah much prefer Hawa's now.
I’ve been going to Hawa now for over 5 yrs there in South St. Thanks to Granville of my original neighbourhood and birth place.
I like it, and wish we had one closer.
I had some chicken from Baulkham Hils taste off though on 2 occasions..
Baulkho?… Would never go there, even if someone paid me. My 2nd-ever neighbourhood for over 15yrs. Famous but have been known for the wrong reasons.
A deal of a many lifetimes for the owners, selling for $1b.
absolutely shit deal to the VC company.
They should've tried it at the random franchise locations instead of the original location.
i feed my dog better than El Jannah feeds people
They probably had. Don’t always believe the media, to think that they only went there.
Never heard of them…
Neither do I.
They sell cooked "chicken".
Very sophisticated and very unusual.
Exotic. Unique …
Or … wait … what the Colonel sells?
Inflation in a nutshell.
Was it cash only?
Have had a a couple of times and they are alright. The fried chicken tenders are awesome.
The 'legendary garlic dip' is definitely not 'legendary'.
It used to be.
Early days it was more a homemade toum, now it's prepacked and processed. It's decent still but it's not what it was.
And prices the way they are.. Yeah everything is eventually going the way (or already gone) of enshitification.
We'll still get it once in a while, but it used to be more frequent for us.
Agree with you on this. The first time I tried the garlic dip, it was so good but now, it’s like a Commerical prepackaged product.
Hell if I had a humble charcoal chicken shop in Granville , I'd be taking this offer and cashing out. Now they can retire and enjoy the good life while someone else runs it into the ground with other peoples money. aint capitalism great
Smart move to sell it for $1B