Subway Heirs Could Make Billions from a Sale

Peter Buck and Fred DeLuca were an unlikely pair - a nuclear physicist and a high school graduate, respectively. However, the two went into the sandwich business together and over the next five decades, they built Subway into a global franchise with tens of thousands of stores in more than 100 countries. Together, they proved that anything is possible with hard work and determination.
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Now the chain is potentially exploring a sale that could turn their heirs into some of America's wealthiest people.
A sale of Subway could attract private-equity firms and value the closely held business at more than $10 billion, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. Subway responded that it doesn’t comment on ownership or business plans.
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DeLuca and Buck opened a sandwich shop in 1965 to help pay for DeLuca's college tuition. The business eventually transitioned to a franchise model in the 1970s, with Buck remaining on the board until his death in 2021.
DeLuca remained the company's hands-on front man until his death from leukemia in 2015 at 67. His sister, Suzanne Greco, took over from him as chief executive officer and retired in 2018. The following year, Buck and the board chose former Burger King CEO John Chidsey to become the first outsider to lead the firm, with a goal to reverse declining sales and store closures.
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The amount of money the founders collected from Subway over the decades is not clear. Unlike many other restaurant chains, Subway never went public, so observers could only catch glimpses of its finances through stray public filings or select bits of information published by the company.
But some clues have emerged over the years. In a 2017 deposition, a private banker named Fran Saavedra said DeLuca collected $1 million per day in royalties in the early 2000s, according to an Insider report.
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Buck was one of the largest landowners in the United States at the time of his death, according to the Land Report. In 2014, he sued the Internal Revenue Service after the agency challenged his gifting of land to his sons at a steep discount from what he had paid just days before, a move that lowered his gift tax bill. Buck won the suit.