New York Pizza buys three German chains. Meet the dealmakers

Dutch pizza chain New York Pizza has considerably beefed up its footprint in Germany with the acquisition of thee domestic players. The trio of deals were supported by dealmakers from Sazun, KPMG, Arqis and Florent. 

The first of the three deals closed at the start of September, when New York Pizza absorbed Stückwerk. Sazun, an Austria-headquartered corporate finance specialist, acted as the lead M&A advisor, advising New York Pizza across all steps of the transaction, from market research and target identification through to valuation, the negotiation of the deal structure and the coordination of the due diligence up to closing.

The addition of Stückwerk added 32 retail outlets and €19 million in franchise sales to New York Pizza’s operation in Germany. Stückwerk is primarily based in the North Rhine-Westphalia region.

Sazun’s team was led by Emanuel Müller, Max Schmiedeberg and Maximilian Gailer. The buy-side deal team further consisted of: KPMG, which conducted the financial due diligence (team: Erwin Kok, Emil Tahoglu, Jesse Clarke, Tatiana Golubnic, Luuk Haarmans); Arqis, which provided legal advisory (team: Christian Schulze, Christos Choudeloudis, Jonathan Boeckmann); and Florent, which provided legal expertise (team: Pieter van den Brink, Lidewei Lankreijer, Michiel van Lieshout).

“We would like to heavily emphasize the great collaboration we had with KPMG, Arqis and Florent,” said Emanuel Müller, the managing partner of Vienna-headquartered Sazun. 

When New York Pizza turned its eye to the next two acquisitions, the pizza chain’s deal team once again flew in Sazun and its partner dealmakers. The cohort of Sazun, KPMG, Arqis and Florent supported the Dutch pizza group with the purchases of Flying Pizza en Pizza Planet. Both deals closed last week. 

Flying Pizza has 43 retail outlets and is based in the North and East of Germany. Pizza Planet has around 30 outlets in the Berlin region. The two additions lift New York Pizza’s German footprint to 107 outlets. In the coming months, the Dutch group plans to add several other chains as part of its growth ambition in Europe’s largest economy.

“The ambition of New York Pizza is to become one of the largest players in Germany and to ultimately have about a thousand branches across the country,” said Joost Geurtsen, marketing director of New York Pizza.

New York Pizza is majority owned by Norwegian conglomerate Orkla, who took a 75% stake in the company in June 2021. That deal was advised on by Axeco, Roland Berger, JSA Tax, Deloitte, Houthoff, Florent, Buren and Maverick.