The Big Are Getting Bigger

Major acquisitions. Consolidations. Conglomerates. What’s going on in franchising? The answer says a lot about where the industry is heading—and what growth means going forward.

- By Nate Hopper

Eric Monroe had decided: He would not expand his business. He was fed up.

Monroe owned a Martinizing Dry Cleaning franchise in Fort Worth, Texas, which was supposed to free him from the frustrations of being an employee. He previously worked in corporate regional sales, but in 2017 he decided to make the switch to franchise ownership. He knew he’d need lots of support, which Martinizing promised. After a short honeymoon, though, that support stopped. “The only person I consistently heard from was the lady who collected my weekly franchise royalty,” Monroe says. But this past April, that all changed— because Martinizing and several of its sister companies were bought by a competitor.

The buyer was Lapels Dry Cleaning. When the deal closed on April 5, it went from having about 100 locations to more than 500. It suddenly possessed an array of brands that spanned from traditional retail storefronts and plants to pickup and delivery to locker-based services: Martinizing, 1-800-DryClean, Pressed4time, Dry Cleaning Station, and Bizziebox. They now all existed under one franchisor entity, called Clean Franchise Brands.