Many franchisee groups start small and build their operations restaurant by restaurant over a number of years. Strategic Restaurants Acquisition Corp. (SRAC), a fairly new player in the quick-service franchisee world, started at the top.

SRAC purchased 226 restaurants from troubled Burger King franchisee The Sydran Group in 2005, making it the second-largest franchisee of the brand in one fell swoop. The goal, said SRAC CEO Jerry Comstock in a press release at the time, was to “marry the significant size and talent base in this franchise group with [SRAC’s] financial resources.”

And those financial resources are substantial. Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm recently in the news for acquiring the struggling Chrysler auto manufacturer, controls SRAC. Myrna Schultz, vice president of marketing and development for SRAC, says the company is completely debt-free, and with that kind of capital backing what could slow it down?

The answer came in August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina damaged and destroyed a number of the company’s restaurants on the Gulf Coast, including as many as 54 Burger King restaurants in the New Orleans metropolitan area. SRAC is still dealing with issues of rebuilding, repair, and hiring in the region.

Even so, that won’t stop SRAC, Schultz says.

“It didn’t deviate from our goals,” she says. “It just added to it.”

While Schultz says SRAC has no established growth strategy, the company, which has also invested in quick-casual brand Bear Rock Café, hopes to continue its growth in existing markets, which include Kansas City and areas of Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, and Michigan.

“Along with Burger King, we will continue to seek out development opportunities,” Schultz says.

Quality Dining, Inc. (QDI) is bucking the trend of IPOs in the quick-service world. Instead, this Burger King franchisee took a step in the other direction, going from a public to a private company in 2005.

QDI CEO Daniel Fitzpatrick and a group of shareholders made the decision in June 2004 and announced their intentions to the board of directors in a letter outlining the downside of the company’s public nature.

“The company’s stock suffers from minimal public float and trading volume, a lack of research by analysts and the negative perception associated with being a restaurant franchisee,” Fitzpatrick wrote in the letter.

The going-private transaction was completed in 2005, and since its exit from the market QDI has issued little information about its goings on. Technomic estimates show a 4.7-percent decrease in the company’s Burger King units from 2005 to 2006.