Gregorio Jiménez's consortium will control 51% of Restaurant Brands Europe, valued above €2.3 billion, after Burger King's parent blocked an earlier sale to Abu Dhabi's Mubadala.
Two months ago, Restaurant Brands International vetoed a deal to sell its master franchisee in Spain to a sovereign wealth fund. On Nov. 6 it got the buyer it apparently wanted: the man who founded the franchisee.
Private equity firm Cinven agreed to sell its stake in Restaurant Brands Europe, the master franchisee of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons in Spain, Burger King in Portugal and Popeyes in Italy, to a consortium led by founder and executive chairman Gregorio Jiménez. RBE runs a network of more than 1,400 company-owned and franchised restaurants.
The deal values the company at more than €2.3 billion and is financed in part by a €1.4 billion loan from Santander CIB, J.P. Morgan and BBVA, according to Europa Press. Jiménez, the Costa family of meat processor Costa Food Group and Royal Park, the family office of Iberdrola chairman Ignacio Sánchez Galán, will form a core group controlling 51%, Expansión reported. The Costa family is putting in €100 million and Royal Park €80 million. RBI keeps more than 10% through Burger King Europe, the paper said, and its earlier veto of the Mubadala deal is what reopened the door. Expansión called it the largest deal in the history of Spain's restaurant sector.
The numbers explain the price. RBE's sales grew from €282 million in 2017 to €1,541 million in 2025, and EBITDA rose from €52 million to €245 million. Cinven bought control in 2021 at a valuation of €1.1 billion to €1.2 billion, per Expansión. Cinven said the business more than doubled EBITDA on its watch and rolled out proprietary AI tools for pricing, workforce planning and site selection.
Call RBE a franchisee if you like, but it behaves like a chain. Of its 1,442 restaurants at the end of 2025, 1,148 were company-operated and 294 franchised. Franchisees at this scale are now buyers in their own right, a pattern we wrote about in The Franchisees Are Becoming the Buyers.
The lesson for anyone selling a large franchise business: the brand owner's consent is the real auction. RBI's approval rights decided which bidder got through, not just the size of the check.
The deal still needs regulatory approval. Once it closes, Jiménez will be running a platform carrying €1.4 billion in new debt, and the growth that justified the price now has to keep coming.
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