Domino’s Pizza closes all stores in Italy

Milan – When pizza with pineapple meets the traditional margherita, the one containing pineapple – at least in Italy, the homeland of pizza – the hours are numbered. An error occurred in Domino’s Pizza, The American pizza giant with home delivery, which officially raised the white flag in our country by closing all stores: the 29 branches of the brand still located in Italy were headed by the franchisor, ePizza Spa, who declared bankruptcy. As part of insolvency proceedings, he explains financial timesIt was granted 90-day injunctive protection from its creditors, preventing them from demanding repayment or seizing the company’s assets that expired last month. “The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent prolonged restrictions have done serious damage to ePizza,” said the official, but president and largest shareholder Marcello Bottoli declined to comment when contacted by FT.

After arriving in Italy in 2015, the American chain – also famous abroad for its “unconventional” pizza toppings – opened stores in Milan, Turin, Bergamo, Bologna, Rome and Veneto. According to the most recent annual reports collected by Bloomberg The Italian company had debts of 10.6 million euros at the end of 2020. To complicate the expansion plans of the group, which aims to open 900 stores by 2030, it would have been a pandemic, with the explosive growth of competition in the food delivery sector.

A $14 billion listed giant on Wall Street

He was born in 1960 from his brothers Tom And the James MonaghanOver the years, Domino’s Pizza has become a catering giant listed today on Wall Street. In 1998 private equity fund Bain Capitalthen led by the future Republican candidate for the White House Mitt Romney, He acquired 93% of the company from Tom Monaghan for nearly $1 billion. At current market prices, the company’s capital is more than 14 billion dollars.

A brand, Domino’s, is actually the son of a play with words The first restaurant, in fact, got a name – Dominick’s Pizza – for its owner Dominick DeVarti. Five years into the business, and with three restaurants under their belt, the Monaghan brothers set out to search for a new name as Devarte was unwilling to reveal his name to other stores. The idea to switch from Dominick DeVarti to Domino came from a delivery guy and was welcomed by the owners. As for the three dots on the logo patch, it was Tom Monaghan himself in 2003 who provided an explanation. “I decided to put three points on Domino because we have three stores, and every time we create a new store, we add a point. You can see that at the time I didn’t think I was going to create a national chain.”