Blackstone is buying Jersey Mike’s; it also has a stake in these big brands

Blackstone is poised to become the majority owner of Jersey Mike’s through an acquisition that the investment firm announced on Tuesday.

The investment firm, run by CEO Stephen Schwarzman, will hold a majority ownership stake in Jersey Mike’s through its “most recent flagship private equity vehicle and other funds it manages upon the expected completion of the purchase of the sandwich chain early next year, Blackstone said.

BLACKSTONE BUYS JERSEY MIKE’S SANDWICH CHAIN

While the popular Jersey Mike’s is the latest company for Blackstone to pursue, it is far from the first. The firm, a prolific dealmaker, counts Ancestry.com, Bumble and Rover among some of its many other investments over the years.

FOX Business reached out to Blackstone for comment about the three companies.

Ancestry

Blackstone-managed private equity (PE) funds brought Ancestry into the investment firm’s portfolio in 2020 through a transaction that gave the popular genealogy website an enterprise value of $4.7 billion. They bought it from Silver Lake, GIC, Spectrum, Permira and others, with Blackstone saying at the time GIC would keep a “significant minority stake.” 

“We believe Ancestry has significant runway for further growth as people of all ages and backgrounds become increasingly interested in learning more about their family histories and themselves,” Blackstone said when it unveiled the acquisition. “We look forward to investing behind further data, functionality, and product development across Ancestry’s market leading platform to continue to provide a differentiated service.”

Ancestry has DNA information from over 25 million people, according to its website. Its paying subscriber count is over 3 million.

Bumble

Bumble Inc. inked a deal for Blackstone to buy a majority stake in the dating app company in 2019, when it was still called MagicLab and about two years before it went public.

A proxy statement filed by Bumble earlier this year showed the investment firm owned 23.9% of Bumble’s Class A common stock and 13.9% of its common units as of early March, while Bumble Executive Chair Whitney Wolfe Herd held less than 1% of Class A shares and 12.9% of common units. In December 2023 and March of this year, Bumble bought back some equity interests from Blackstone as part of a repurchase program.

The dating app company, which owns Bumble, Bumble for Friends, Badoo, Fruitz and Official, said earlier this month it saw $273.6 million in total revenues in the third quarter, marking a less than 1% decrease from the same period the prior year. Its quarterly net loss, meanwhile, was $849.26 million.

The company brought a slew of new features to its namesake app earlier in the year.

“Our work is focused on strengthening our ecosystem, rolling out a rebalanced marketing approach to drive high-quality user growth, achieving a steady cadence of product releases, and evolving our revenue strategy to better align with customer value,” CEO Lidiane Jones said, adding that it “will take time.”

Bumble shares have posted an over 46% drop in the past 12 months.

Rover

The closing of Blackstone’s acquisition of pet care services platform Rover occurred in February of this year. It turned Rover, which has kept its name and branding, back into a private company.

The deal was worth about $2.3 billion and all-cash, according to Blackstone.

BLACKSTONE PAYING $2.3B BILLION TO ACQUIRE ROVER

In a quarterly earnings report that Rover filed early November 2023 prior to the announcement of its deal with Blackstone, the platform had said it generated $165.85 million in revenue over the first three quarters of that year, a nearly 35.9% year-over-year increase. It had also said it expected to see revenue of $64-$66 million in 2023’s final quarter, according to the filing.

More than 2 million pet owners have used Rover for pet care services, per the platform.

Investments in other well-known companies

Blackstone owns or has a stake in other well-known companies. 

For example, it closed its acquisition of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, a fast-growing chain that offers smoothies and other food, earlier this year. It also has majority ownership stakes in Spanx and Supergoop.

Blackstone reported having 85 portfolio companies as of the end of June and corporate private equity assets under management totaling $152 billion as of late September.

Overall, the company manages more than $1.1 trillion in various assets. Its market capitalization hovered around $224.27 billion as of Tuesday evening.