KBP Foods Management Wraps Up Buyout

Fast-food franchisee KBP Foods announced this morning that it had completed a management buyout from its equity providers, paving the way for the next round of growth from the Overland Park-based company. With restaurants in Kansas City and Omaha and eight other states, the company is a franchisee for 227 KFC, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s restaurants.

 Chairman and CEO Michael Kulp, in a news release announcing the buyout, said KBP had quadrupled its holdings over the past four years, and the pace was not slowing down.

 “We’re fully capitalized, locked and loaded. Our five-year pro forma takes our business to around $600 million in revenue, which is double where we’ll end this year,” Kulp said in the release. “We’ll open 50 to 60 new units a year over the next five years, which is just what we’ve done the past four years.”

To set up the buyout, the company added three new institutional investors and secured investments from seven more senior managers, bringing to 15 the number of employees with equity holdings. Overall, KBP employs nearly 5,000 people, and, has been named one of the 10 fastest-growing restaurant chains and one of the top 150 fastest-growing businesses in the United States.