March 11 (Reuters) – Qatari-backed investment fund Irth Capital this month offered to pay $47 a share to buy Papa John’s International, in a second attempt after it tried to buy the pizza chain alongside Apollo Global Management last year, said two sources familiar with the matter.
The offer would value the company at $1.5 billion.
Irth already owns roughly 10% of the company, with half of its stake in derivatives, one of the sources said. There is no certainty Papa John’s will accept Irth’s offer under review, and another bidder could emerge, said the two sources, who could not speak publicly about the private talks.
Papa John’s stock price surged nearly 20% after the Wall Street Journal first reported news of the bid and closed trading at $38.86.
Papa John’s and Irth declined to comment.
Private equity giant Apollo Global withdrew its offer to take the pizza chain private for $64 a share, Reuters reported in November.
Following this development, activist investor Irenic Capital Management built a stake in Papa John’s, adding to the mounting speculation about the pizza chain’s future.
Apollo and Irth Capital Management submitted a joint offer for the company at just above $60 per share earlier last year, before Apollo submitted a solo bid in early October, Reuters previously reported.
Irth is no longer working with Apollo and its proposal includes backing from Brookfield Asset Management, one of the sources said.
Irth, established in 2024 and backed by a member of the Qatari royal family, is led by co-founders Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulla Al-Thani and Matthew Bradshaw.
A deal for Papa John’s would be among its first major transactions.
Papa John’s started in Jeffersonville, Indiana, in 1984 and went public in 1993. It has been attempting a turnaround strategy after years of battling weak demand under multiple CEOs.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York and Sanskriti Shekhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Jamie Freed)
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