Brands
Inspira’s hunger games: Chinese Wok owner to gobble up Burger King India for Rs 1,500 crore
NEW DELHI: The king is dead. Long live the king. Burger King India is changing hands in a sizzling Rs 1,500-crore deal that sees Inspira Global—led by Aayush Madhusudan Agrawal—flipping the script on quick-service restaurants. The acquisition, announced on 20 January, marks Everstone Capital’s complete exit after a 12-year reign building India’s Whopper empire from scratch.
Inspira Global, whose food and beverage arm Lenexis Foodworks already operates over 250 Chinese Wok restaurants across 45-plus cities, is paying Rs 70 per share—a tasty 10 per cent premium to the closing price. The deal comprises three courses: Rs 460 crore to buy out QSR Asia’s entire 11.26 per cent stake, Rs 900 crore through preferential allotment of equity shares, and Rs 600 crore via warrants convertible within 18 months. Once fully digested, Lenexis will command a 26.74 per cent stake, assuming all warrants are exercised.
The transaction triggers a mandatory open offer to public shareholders under takeover regulations. Restaurant Brands Asia—as Burger King India is now formally known—has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting for 13 February to secure shareholder approval. The menu also includes hiking authorised share capital from Rs 700 crore to Rs 900 crore and granting special rights to the new promoters.
Board composition will get a thorough reshuffle. Out go non-executive directors Roshini Hemant Bakshi and Amit Manocha. In come Inspira’s nominees, who’ll hold four board seats as long as their collective stake stays above 25 per cent, dropping to three seats if it falls between 15 and 25 per cent. Ajay Kaul, currently a non-executive director who holds a two per cent stake in Lenexis, will switch hats to become a nominee director for the acquirers.
The new promoters will also gain the right to appoint the managing director and chief executive officer—cementing operational control over the 575-outlet chain that spans India and Indonesia, where it also operates Popeyes restaurants.
Whole-time director and group chief executive officer Rajeev Varman struck an upbeat tone: “We are excited to welcome Aayush Agrawal and Inspira Global as our new promoter. With their strong track record of value creation in India, long-term capital support and strategic alignment, we believe this will enable us to continue our strong growth journey.”
Aayush Agrawal himself waxed enthusiastic about the acquisition: “We see this as a long-term value creation initiative through focused sustainable growth and realising the true potential offered by the market. The investment strengthens Inspira Global’s focus on consumer businesses and deepens our presence in the high-growth QSR segment.”
Everstone co-founder and group chief executive officer Sameer Sain reflected on the journey: “We opened India’s first Burger King 12 years ago with a distinctive menu, an exceptional management team, and the ambition to build a marquee QSR brand. Today, with over 575 outlets, those foundations remain firmly in place.”
Restaurant Brands International – the global owner of Burger King and Popeyes — president for Asia-Pacific Rafael Odorizzi welcomed the new partnership: “We are pleased with Inspira Global’s commitment to making a significant investment in RBA and look forward to working with them as long-term partners.”
The deal requires approval from the Competition Commission of India, BSE, and NSE. Bathiya Advisors advised on the transaction, while Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors serves as manager to the open offer. The board meeting that sealed the deal was impressively efficient—lasting just 28 minutes from 8:10pm to 8:38pm.
One promoter exits medium rare, another enters well done.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
