Sizzling Returns
Thompson hospitality was in crisis mode. Founded a few months earlier in 1992 when CEO Warren M. Thompson negotiated a leveraged buyout of 31 Big Boy restaurants from Marriott Corp., the fledgling company was neck-deep in debt. Herndon, Virginia-based Thompson Hospitality Corp. (No. 12 on the BE industrial/service companies list with $321 million in revenues) acquired the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia restaurants for $13.1 million. THC also raised $1.9 million in capital from about 25 investors, and Thompson anted up about $100,000 of his own cash to convert the locations into Shoney’s restaurants. But the transaction wasn’t going according to plan.
