Panera Brands' parent company, JAB Holding Company, has reportedly confidentially filed for an IPO for the fast-casual dining chain, according to the Financial Times. Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma highlights JAB Holding's leadership and Panera's position in the 2024 IPO market after several public offerings this year, including Mediterranean restaurant Cava (CAVA).

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

- Well, a new food company may be looking to test the public market.

Investment Group JAB, who owns Panera Bread, Caribou Coffee, and Einstein Bros Bagels has reportedly confidentially filed for an IPO.

That's according to the Financial Times.

Let's bring in our very own Brooke DiPalma, who's always on the food beat for us.

Brooke, this is-- I guess, it's a pretty big one.

It got a lot of us talking about our thoughts on Panera this morning.

BROOKE DIPALMA: Yeah, lots of us talking about that mac and cheese bowl perhaps, that bread bowl with some broccoli cheddar soup.

But there's also lots of people on the street talking about this.

This has been highly anticipated in recent years as Panera brands itself has been saying that it's looking for an upcoming IPO.

And just to note, Panera Bread was public for 25 years until 2017 when JAB Holdings took it private in a more than $7 billion deal.

Now as you noted, under JAB Holdings, it is now Panera Brands, and that includes Einstein Bros Bagels, Caribou Coffee, and Panera Bread.

And in recent years, they've really made changes to the company.

Most recently, they named a new CFO, Paul Carbone.

In August, he was previously Dunkin' brands CFO.

He also held the CFO position at Yeti, as well as Shark Ninja.

And they named a new CEO Jose Alberto Dueas back in July.

He was Einstein's president and CEO since 2019.

They're also building out their board.

They promoted Patrick Grismer to lead independent director.

He was former CFO of Starbucks.

He also was former CFO of Yum Brands, as well as Hyatt Hotels.

And Yahoo Finance's fan favorite, Mike Tattersfield, also will be joining as board chairman in January, 2024.

Of course, he took Krispy Kreme, which also was held by JAB Holdings public back in 2021.

It's also slimmed down its workforce by roughly 17% most recently.

And if you remember, if you go back in July of 2022, Panera Brands did call off its deal with Danny Meyer's special purpose acquisition company due to market conditions.

And so this really has been a long time coming, and many people have been keeping a close eye on it.