# CMG Companies

Plano, Texas. Ten franchise brands and more than 600 units run from Plano, with a published buy box naming corporate refranchising and the aging franchisee base as its deal supply, Arby's the newest flag.

- Website: https://cmg.team

## The Firm

CMG Companies is a Plano, Texas group of separate and independent entities investing in multi-unit franchising across restaurants, hotels, retail, sports, automotive, and real estate. Its own description ranks what it is: an operator first, then a sponsor investing its own capital, then a family office whose partners invest together. It has raised more than $500 million in debt and equity across twenty-five-plus years. Its brand page runs from KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic Drive-In, Little Caesars, Dunkin', and Arby's to Rent-A-Center, Ace Hardware, Valvoline Instant Oil Change, and American Freight, plus minority stakes in three professional cricket franchises.

The buy box is published in unusual detail. CMG looks for top-tier franchise systems where corporate refranchising, fragmentation, or an aging franchisee base makes acquisitions available. It wants lower-middle-market deals in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean, typically under $100 million, with targets holding $1 million to $50 million of EBITDA, and equity checks up to $15 million as a GP or sponsor. The stated edge is operational: run a playbook, become the preferred operator in a system, and consolidate back-office work across brands.

Franchise Times, which has covered the group since its Chalak Mitra Group days, counts 271 Sonic drive-ins, 61 Little Caesars, 40 Ace Hardware stores, and 160 combined KFC and Taco Bell units. It reports 14 deals for 118 locations in 2024, a deliberate 2025 slowdown to integrate them, and a 2026 entry into Arby's at more than 100 stores while the group's first Dunkin' opens with a development pipeline behind it.

For a franchise-resale searcher the published floor is the useful part. $1 million of EBITDA is a multi-unit package, not a single store, so the one-store deal is safe from CMG. Anyone assembling a package inside one of its ten systems will meet it as both rival bidder and likeliest exit. Its criteria page also doubles as a model of how a professional unit buyer underwrites, operations intensity first and back-office leverage second. Read again in September 2026: the site announces nothing itself, its press page being eight third-party cards inside a script bundle, so trade press remains the only source for its purchases, and the Arby's block appears nowhere on it. The about copy says more than 550 locations and a card says six hundred.

## Confirmed Deals

Deals traced to announcements, newest first. Firms that announce every deal show a fuller run here than firms that report acquisitions as quarterly counts, so read this as the evidence that clears the bar rather than as the firm's whole record.

- More than 100 Arby's restaurants (2026-07-20): The group's seventh restaurant brand, entered in 2026 at more than 100 stores as a first Dunkin' opens with a pipeline behind it. Source: https://www.franchisetimes.com/franchise_news/cmg-in-integration-mode-as-multi-brand-franchisee-also-adds-arby-s-dunkin-to-portfolio/article_2869924b-dd50-4965-be51-543fdc0cb0ab.html
- 118 locations across Sonic, Little Caesars, and Ace Hardware (2025-04-24): Fourteen 2024 deals across three brands, bought from existing franchisees with internal capital. Source: https://www.franchisetimes.com/franchise_finance/flurry-of-deals-adds-to-cmg-s-counts-in-sonic-little-caesars-ace/article_d0b65ff5-e390-4c88-a78c-6910559ff1b7.html

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Last checked: 2026-07-20

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