Subway’s Hidden Billions Revealed: How Its Founders Sliced Up A Fortune | Forbes
发布时间 2023-04-17 23:07:21 来源
摘要
In the early 2000s, a footlong frenzy swept the United States. More than three decades after the first Subway opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the sandwich shop started appearing everywhere from strip malls to churches to Walmart Supercenters in all corners of the country. By 2011, Subway’s iconic yellow and green awnings were more ubiquitous than the golden arches of McDonald’s.
But almost as quickly as it arrived, the world’s seemingly insatiable desire for cheap subs began to wane. After the 2015 death of Subway cofounder and longtime CEO Fred DeLuca, which happened to coincide with a colossal public relations crisis for the company when its spokesperson Jared Fogle pleaded guilty to child sex and pornography charges, the restaurant chain saw its sales sputter. The years since have been an undoing of much of Subway’s rapid expansion. Nearly a quarter of the over 27,100 U.S. stores open at the time of DeLuca’s death are now closed.
So it wasn’t a huge surprise when in February, 15 months after its second cofounder, Peter Buck, passed away, the company officially said it’s for sale. According to reports, the price tag could be anywhere from $7 billion to over $10 billion.
New reporting by Forbes in light of that impending deal uncovers new details on just how much money Subway’s billionaire owners pocketed over the years, as well as the moves they’ve taken to both protect and minimize their wealth in the lead up to the sale. Through its ups and downs, one thing has remained constant: Subway has been paying out generously to its owners and their families for years.
This reporting–which is based on hundreds of pages of court documents, charitable filings, historical financial disclosures and interviews with experts and insiders–also pins down for the first time the fortune of DeLuca’s widow, Elisabeth DeLuca, 75, who debuted on the Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list in early April. DeLuca, who has one son, inherited her late husband’s 50% stake in the restaurant giant. With her family, she is estimated to be worth as much as $8 billion, after subtracting disclosed charitable gifts and calculating investment returns on the Subway royalties.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2023/04/17/subways-hidden-billions-revealed-how-its-founders-sliced-up-a-fortune/?sh=5b5bfa31648a
00:00 Subway's Origins And Rise
02:19 What Happened To the Founders' Fortunes
03:28 Subway's Multi-Billion Dollar Sale
06:55 Some Franchisees Feel Jilted By Subway
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中英文字稿 
The Subway was founded in 1965 by Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck. Fred DeLuca was then a 17-year-old aspiring medical student, and he went to his family-friend Peter Buck, who was a working nuclear physicist, and asked him for advice on how to pay for college. The two of them opened in 1965, the first location of Subway, which was then called Peats Super Summarines.
地铁早在1965年由弗雷德·德卢卡和彼得·巴克创立。当时，17岁的弗雷德·德卢卡在渴望成为一名医学生，向他的家庭朋友彼得·巴克求助，彼得是一名核物理学家，寻求资金支付大学学费的建议。他们两人于1965年开设了地铁的第一家店面，当时称为“皮茨超级潜艇”。
We've always known that Subway was a cash cow. Fred and Peter both debuted on Forbes' billionaires rankings in 2004 with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion each. But there's a lot of questions about their wealth, and we think that potentially there's billions of dollars that we didn't know about over the years.
我们一直知道地铁是一头摇钱树。2004年，弗雷德和彼得在福布斯的亿万富豪排名中同时亮相，预计净资产各为15亿美元。但是关于他们的财富仍有很多疑问，我们认为可能有数十亿美元的财富没有被揭示出来。
One clue to that was a 2017 deposition by Fred DeLuca's personal banker, which gave some rent in sight into their fortunes. She claimed that Fred DeLuca was pocketing about $7 million in royalties each week in the early 2000s, and that wasn't even at the peak of Subway's sales. Subway switched to a franchise model about 10 years after the first Subway sandwiches location opened, and from there it really experienced very quick growth. By 1988, they had 2000 locations across the US.
其中之一的线索是费德·德卢卡的个人银行家在2017年的证言，这为我们洞察他们的财富提供了一些线索。她声称，在本世纪初期，费德·德卢卡每周从版权中获得约700万美元，而这甚至还不是赛百味销售的顶峰。赛百味在第一家店开业约10年后转向特许经营模式，从那时起，其快速增长。到1988年，他们在美国拥有2000个门店。
His revenue peaked in 2012 at $18 billion, but has been on the decline since 2015, which was the fast year that Subway closed more locations than it opened. Number one, they began to read their point of no return in the United States that they had too many subways on too many street corners, and the number of stores just exceeded the demand. Number two, Subway had spent the prior 15 years not developing new products and just simply discounting their products. And every marketing professor and restaurant professional will tell you that if that's all you got, you're chuping your brand.
他的收入在2012年达到了180亿美元的顶峰，但自2015年以来一直在下降，这是地铁关闭的门店数超过新开业门店数的年份。首先，他们开始意识到在美国他们已经到了无法回头的边缘，因为他们在太多的街角都开设了地铁，门店数量超过了需求。其次，地铁在过去15年里没有开发新产品，只是简单地打折促销。而且每个市场营销教授和餐厅专业人士都会告诉你，如果这就是你的全部，你的品牌就会失去吸引力。
Both of the founding families of Subway are very private, and for a while after they died, died in 2015 from leukemia, and then Peter Buck died at the end of 2021. We didn't know what happened to Subway, but we recently learned what happened to half of the fortune when the foundation started by Peter Buck announced that in his will he had left instructions to give his half of Subway to the foundation, which then spends tens of millions of dollars helping charitable causes like in spanning journalism, land conservation efforts, and also causes in his local Danbury, Connecticut.
赛百味的两个创始家族都非常低调，直到他们中的一个2015年因白血病去世，而另一个彼得·巴克则于2021年底去世，我们一直不知道赛百味发生了什么事情。然而最近，巴克成立的基金会宣布，他在遗嘱中留下了指令，将他在赛百味的一半财产留给基金会，然后基金会会花费数千万美元来帮助慈善事业，如新闻编辑、土地保护工作，以及在他所在的康涅狄格州丹伯里的事业。
As for the other half owned by Fred Duluca, the family has not confirmed with us what happened to that half of the company, although there are a lot of signs pointing to the fact that it was inherited by his widow, Elizabeth Duluca, since his death Elizabeth Duluca has given hundreds of millions of dollars to charity from herself, so that signals that the royalties that were previously owned by Fred have been redirected to Elizabeth. The Duluca family, through multiple attempts, did not respond to a request for comment.
至于弗雷德·杜卢卡拥有的另一半公司，该家族尚未向我们确认该公司的情况，尽管有很多迹象表明这一半的公司被他的遗孀伊丽莎白·杜卢卡继承了，自从他去世以来，伊丽莎白·杜卢卡已经从自己的财产中捐赠了数亿美元给慈善事业，这表明以前由弗雷德拥有的版税已经重新指向伊丽莎白。杜卢卡家族通过多次尝试，未回复评论请求。
So the announcement of the gift comes as Subway confirmed that it is considering options for sale. The Willsreet Journal reported that the price could be as much as $10 billion for Subway. The timing of this gift means that Peter Bucks as avoid a pretty hefty tax bill. If he didn't donate his half of the company to the foundation, then his estate would owe 40 percent estate tax on the Femalk value of Subway upon his death.
这个礼物的宣布 coincides于 Subway 确认考虑出售的选择。根据 Willsreet Journal 报道，Subway 的价格可能高达 $100 亿。这个礼物的时机意味着 Peter Bucks 避免了一个相当巨大的税单。如果他没有将公司一半的股份捐赠给信托基金，那么在他去世时，他的遗产将需要支付 40% 的遗产税，该税根据 Subway 的市值计算。
In 2018, Peter Bucks was engaged in a legal battle with the IRS over his gifting of some of his land that he had accumulated in the North Main Woods to his two sons. Peter Bucks started buying Timberland in Maine in 2007 and during his lifetime became one of the largest landowners in the state, with over 1.3 million acres of Timberland. So he gifted some of that to his sons at a discount from what he paid for it and then got penalized by the IRS and he saved millions of dollars on taxes by doing that. It seems that the family still owns this land, his two sons likely on the land, which is valued anywhere from $300 million to $1 billion and that doesn't appear to have been included in the gift to the foundation for Mellia this year. Peter Bucks family through their representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
2018年，彼得·巴克斯与美国国税局展开了一场法律斗争，原因是他将在缅因州积累的部分土地赠送给了自己的两个儿子。 自2007年起，彼得·巴克斯开始收购缅因州的林地，并在其有生之年成为该州最大的土地所有者之一，拥有超过1,300,000英亩的林地。因此，他以比其购买价格低的价格将其中的一些土地赠送给了自己的儿子，但遭到了美国国税局的惩罚。通过这样做，他节省了数百万美元的税款。看起来，巴克斯家族现仍拥有这些土地，他的两个儿子可能在土地上，其价值介于3亿美元至10亿美元之间，而这似乎没有包括在今年为梅利亚基金会的捐赠中。 巴克斯家族通过他们的代表没有回应置评请求。
Peter Bucks was long charitable. We calculated that he had given away more than $500 million before his death to his foundation. Just for Fred Deluca, there was less charitable giving before his death in 2015. But since his death, his widow, Elizabeth, has been giving away money at a very fast rate. She's given away more than $400 million according to an analysis of public documents and that doesn't include gifts made in 2021 or 2022 as the filings haven't been made available yet. She's given more than $400 million to the Fred Deluca foundation since his death in just a few years. She also incorporated her own foundation, the Elizabeth Deluca Foundation in 2020.
彼得·巴克斯一向慷慨捐赠。我们计算他在去世前已经捐赠了超过5亿美元给他的基金会。相比之下，弗雷德·德卢卡在2015年去世前的慈善贡献较少。但自从他去世以来，他的遗孀伊丽莎白一直以非常快的速度捐赠资金。根据公开文件的分析，她已经捐赠了超过4亿美元的资金，这还不包括2021年或2022年的礼物，因为这些文件尚未公开。自弗雷德·德卢卡去世以来，她在短短几年内就给弗雷德·德卢卡基金会捐赠了超过4亿美元。她还于2020年创立了自己的基金会，即伊丽莎白·德卢卡基金会。
I spoke with one woman who runs a nonprofit that received a donation from the Deluca Foundation in 2021 and she described them as very purposeful in their giving. You actually can't apply for a grant from them like you can from many other foundations and instead they come to you is what this person said and they're known to have a big impact targeting the people who need help the most in some local communities in Florida.
我和一位妇女交谈过，她经营的非营利组织在2021年收到了Deluca基金会的捐赠，她描述他们在捐赠方面非常有目的性。她说，你实际上不能像从其他基金会申请拨款那样从他们那里申请拨款，相反，他们会主动找到你，而且他们以有针对性的方式帮助佛罗里达州一些社区最需要帮助的人群，对这些社区产生了巨大的影响。
As for the Bucks, Peter Bucks has a lasting legacy in Dambry, Connecticut where he's spent the later years of his life. According to somebody I spoke with, he helped transform the city which has a population of about 90,000 people and he was just very generous. They're both described to be very generous people.
关于雄鹿队，彼得·巴克斯在他晚年居住的康涅狄格州丹伯里留下了深远的影响。据我所知，他帮助改变了这座约有90,000人口的城市，他非常慷慨。他们两人都被描述为非常慷慨的人。
Since you know 2015 and 2016 when Subway is revenue started declining and the locations started closing, it's been tough to run a subway franchise according to the franchisees. In 2021 a group of over 100 franchisees wrote a letter to Elizabeth Deluca outlining a whole host of issues with the ownership of Subway that they alleged was making their jobs a nightmare in their own words. Their average store revenues went up and down like a ladder somewhere in the 400 to $500,000 range. Okay. And that's very hard to make any money on.
自从2015年和2016年，Subway的收入开始下降并且各地门店开始关闭，连锁经营者表示经营Subway连锁店变得艰难。2021年，100多名连锁经营者联名致信Elizabeth Deluca，详细列举了Subway所有权存在的各种问题，他们称这些问题让他们的工作变成了噩梦。他们的平均店铺收入在40万到50万之间上下波动，这非常难以盈利。
The other San Wolf sector competitors Jersey Mikes, Firehouse subs, they are all running in the $800,000 to a million dollar range. And that that hurts, you know, because you can make money at $800,000 or a million dollars per shop sale. But at 400 to $500,000, it's very difficult. Mr. Chidzy has noted in interviews that what they want to do is they want to consolidate out and kind of drive out, force out the smaller franchisees. The mom and pops if you will. This is not a surprise. They have been trying for the last couple of years to try to find bigger franchisee operators to come in and take over whole states of franchisees.
San Wolf部门的其他竞争者Jersey Mikes、Firehouse subs都在每家店销售额80万至100万美元的范围内经营。这对我们来说很困难，因为每家店的销售额为80万或100万美元时都可以赚钱。但在40万至50万美元的销售额下，情况非常困难。 Chidzy先生在采访中指出，他们想要的是整合并力图排挤那些小的特许经营者（“妈妈店”）。这并不意外。他们已经在过去的几年里一直在努力寻找更大的特许经营者，以便接管整个州的特许经营。
The issue is that the store level profit has to be higher for these bigger franchisee groups to be interested in coming over and taking over blocks of Subway. And so the charitable donations have some Subway franchisees kind of annoyed. I spoke with one who said that, you know, the owners get to look good on the backs of the Subway franchisees who have been struggling, who have lost their businesses in recent years. And that really those profits should be more in their pockets than in the owner's pockets. That's something that has been exacerbated as the sale nears.
问题在于，为了吸引这些更大的加盟商团体前来接管地铁店，店铺利润必须更高。因此，慈善捐赠让一些地铁加盟商感到有些恼火。我和其中一位加盟商谈过，他说业主们靠近年来陷入困境、失去生意的地铁加盟商的身上凸显自己，而那些利润应该流进加盟商们的口袋而不是业主的口袋里。随着出售临近，这种情况变得更加严重。
Subway responded to questions from Forbes and said that it is improving its relationship with its franchisees that has made multiple steps to do so over the past few years. And that it needs a good relationship with its franchisees to thrive and is doing everything it can to do that.
地铁公司回答了《福布斯》杂志的提问，并称其正在改善与特许经营商的关系，并在过去几年中已经采取了多种措施。地铁公司表示，它需要与特许经营商建立良好的关系才能繁荣，正在尽一切可能做到这一点。