Sun Capital Partners -- The Florida-based private equity firm that owns Friendly's restaurant business -- has spent $12.2 million over the past few months buying back a dozen Friendly's restaurant locations across Massachusetts.
But the company remained tight-lipped Monday as to what -- if anything -- these purchases mean for the future of the beloved-but-troubled Friendly's brand.
The 12 transactions are on record in October and November at registries of deeds in Hampden, Franklin, Worcester and Middlesex counties, according to an online records search.
Among the purchases are Friendly's that remain open and one that closed last week: 65 Sumner Ave. in Springfield's Forest Park neighborhood.
All the purchases were made by SIC Property LLC, a corporate entity established by Sun Capital in Delaware in March and registered in Massachusetts in October.
Sun Capital also owns other restaurant chains, including Johnny Rockets and Smokey Bones as well as some regional chains in Seattle and a string of Mongolian restaurants in, Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota.
The seller in all cases was O Ice LLC, another Delaware corporation. O Ice LLC is owned by Realty Income Corp., a publicly held real-estate company that owns 5,600 commercial properties across the country including 78 in Massachusetts.
O Ice LLC and Realty also owns the Friendly's headquarters building and ice cream plant on Boston Road in Wilbraham. That ownership has not changed, according to the Hampden County Registry of Deeds.
And not every operating Friendly's was sold. For example, the one at 21 Southampton Road in Westfield is still owned by Pride Limited Partnership -- the company has long wanted to build a gas station on its adjacent plot -- and by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
The Friendly's at 190 Springfield St. in Agawam remains owned by Rocco J. Falcone of Rocky's Ace Hardware. Rocky's has a store in the plaza adjacent to Friendly's.
The locations that sold and their sale prices are:
- Auburn: 697 Southbridge St., $868,000
- Chicopee: 529 Memorial Drive, $1.57 million
- East Longmeadow: 562 North Main St., $1.274 million
- Gardner: 18 Pearson Blvd, $915,000
- Greenfield: 200 Mohawk Trail, $1.758 million
- Holyoke: 1745 Northampton St., $1.198 million
- Palmer: 1519 North Main St., $348,000
- Springfield: 65 Sumner Ave.: $529,000, now closed
- Springfield: 1811 Boston Road, $558,000
- Stoneham: 611 Main St., $468,000.
- West Springfield: 1094 Riverdale St., $1.57 million
- Worcester: 966 Grafton St., $1.2 million
Calls Monday to Sun Capital's headquarters in Boca Raton went unanswered.
In Massachusetts, Friendly's spokeswoman Alyssa Stevens said real estate changes hands from time to time, but Friendly's leases remain in place. When informed that it was Sun Capital that was buying the property, she said she would have to check and get a response. One was not forthcoming Monday.
Then known as Friendly Ice Cream Corp., Friendly's in 2007 sold its headquarters campus in Wilbraham and 160 of its restaurants to Realty Income Corp. That sale followed a protracted legal battle between co-founder S. Prestley Blake and Don Smith and others in the Friendly's management team.
Blake felt that Smith and his team were spending and borrowing too much.
As a result of the dispute, which ended up chronicled in a Harvard Business School case study, Smith's team sold the company to Sun Capital. Sun Capital sold the real estate soon after buying Friendly's.
Time has not been kind to the property values. Realty Income Corp. paid $2.17 million for the Memorial Drive in Chicopee location, for example.
The East Longmeadow location sold for $1.75 million in 2007.
Last week, Friendly's shut down six restaurants in four states including the Sumner Avenue and Seekonk locations in Massachusetts, as well as restaurants in Bennington and Rutland, Vermont, Dover, New Hampshire, and East Greenbush, New York, a suburb of Albany.
Today, the chain is down to 224 locations, about 125 of them franchises and the rest corporately owned. In Massachusetts, Friendly's restaurants also closed this year in Bourne, Gloucester, Ludlow, South Hadley and Westfield.
Brothers S. Prestley and Curtis Blake founded Friendly -- the apostrophe-s wasn't added until years later -- in 1935 in Springfield and grew the company quickly in the years following World War II. The brothers, who are both still living past their 100th year, sold to Hershey Foods in 1979.
Friendly's sold its retail ice cream and manufacturing business to Dallas, Texas-based Dean Foods Co. in 2016 for $155 million. Dean sells ice cream to supermarkets and Friendly's restaurants.
Dean Foods leases the plant in Wilbraham and supplies ice cream to stores and Friendly's restaurants.