The largest bakery cafe in the US, Panera Bread has decided to head back to the public market again following a 5 year stint as a private company under JAB Holding. For 26 years, Panera was a public company. In 2017, a $7.5 billion JAB deal was struck.
Panera Bread has not disclosed their targeted price range or number of shares while returning to the market but it will be receiving an assistance for the same through restaurateur Danny Meyer’s special-purpose acquisition company, USHG Acquisition Corp. [HUGS].
Recently Panera Brand formed Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels–Meyer will be leading Panera as an independent director of the board following the IPO. Meyer will be investing directly in the company too.
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The announcements are no surprise as the August formation of Panera Brands is a planned move to streamline resources and technologies between the similar concepts. The brand has been planning and constructing digital infrastructure too since 2014 under its 2.0 initiative. The expansion includes using innovative technology for the business like mobile ordering and payments, kiosk ordering, table ordering and more.
The 2.0 initiative has already been beneficial especially during the COVID-19 pandemic phase as the customers were in lockdown and shifted their buying behaviour from offline to online. The brand got time to plan its further movements and has since rolled out GPS-enabled curbside pickup plus a new restaurant design with double drive-thru lanes. They have also designed a catering program targeted towards hybrid workers.