“A small store and a big dream - that is how Guillermo Perales began his journey into the world of franchise ownership…”
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Features & Recognitions
Mark Hamstra | Jan 19, 2016
Guillermo Perales has found his place in the sun.
The founder, owner and CEO of Sun Holdings Inc., one of the nation’s largest franchise operators, has grown his Dallas-based restaurant empire in the last 18 years from a single Golden Corral location to more than 500 Burger King, Popeyes, Arby’s, CiCi’s, Golden Corral and Krispy Kreme units. Sun Holdings also counts among its holdings 10 airport restaurants and 89 T-Mobile stores.
Since using a loan from the Small Business Administration to launch the company in 1997, Perales has tallied a growth rate of 50 percent per year, he noted in a recent blog post. In 2015 he continued his aggressive expansion pace, including his acquisition of 84 Burger King locations in Texas, bringing his total to 280 units of that brand alone.
Even as some restaurant operators have sought to shed locations — either parent companies divesting corporately owned units or smaller operators retiring from their businesses — Perales has stepped up to the plate, eager to add density in his core markets of Texas and Florida.
He has accumulated dominant market shares in several cities in those states, a strategy that provides marketing and operational efficiencies, and affords flexibility for expansion and relocation, he explained in a 2012 interview with Entrepreneur magazine.
“When you have the whole market, you can do what you think is the right thing,” he said at the time.
The Mexican-born Perales, who reportedly is the largest Hispanic franchise operator in the country, has been recognized with numerous awards for his leadership and entrepreneurial skills. He also is active in various industry activities, including his serving as president of the International Hispanic Franchisee Association.
Article from: Nation's Restaurant News.
Sun Holdings, Inc. has been ranked the 8th largest franchise group in the Franchise Times' "Restaurant 200" issue. The rankings list, which was published this month, ranked the country's top 200 restaurant franchisees by annual revenue and number of units. Franchise Times noted in their attached article that most of the top contenders on their list have been acquiring existing units at an increasing rate to keep up with growth, a strategy which holds true for Sun Holdings.
"For me to keep my growth, I really have to look for other brands," Guillermo Perales, CEO and President of Sun Holdings said in an interview with Franchise Times. "You look for buying opportunities. It's another area of business. You cannot grow if you can't buy, so I have to buy."
Alongside acquisitions, Sun Holdings plans to continue to expand it's already large portfolio in coming months with multiple new T-Mobile, Popeyes, and Krispy Kreme openings.
Dinah Wisenberg Brin | September 12, 2012
Guillermo Perales, one of the largest restaurant franchisees in the U. S., isn't content to buy one or two locations in a given market. He prefers to own all of them.
His Dallas-based company, Sun Holdings LLC, is doubling in size this year to nearly 400 stores, including 96 Burger Kings that he recently acquired in the Orlando-Daytona market and more than 50 Arby's in Dallas, representing 99 percent and 100 percent of those markets, respectively.
The biggest Latino franchisee in the country and fourth-largest U.S. Burger King franchisee, Perales, 50, who was born in Mexico, also owns 85 percent of the chain's Dallas market and is in the process of remodeling locations in Florida and Texas.
And there's more: Perales owns all of the Popeyes in Dallas – he's that chain's second-largest franchisee -- and 90 percent of the CiCi's restaurants in Houston. His holdings also include 33 Golden Corral restaurants, the company he chose when he opened his first franchise with a Small Business Administration loan in 1997.
Why the interest in snapping up so many locations in the same cities?
"When you have the whole market you can do what you think is the right thing," Perales says. Owning the market allows you to close, move and build stores, and to set uniform pricing and promotions without ruffling the feathers of customers who notice different deals at different locations, or have disagreements with other franchisees, he explains.
"It's only one price, one promotion, one message," Perales says.