Restaurant Business: How Aziz Hashim Found Success in Franchising

As much as Aziz Hashim loves franchising, the one-time electrical engineer has never warmed to the risk factor, starting with the lone KFC he opened in his 20s with his parents’ life savings. Despite the quick success he found through diversifying in quick-service concepts in the Atlanta area, he knew even a strong market can falter, and all of Hashim’s restaurants were exposed to the economic conditions of one geographic area. So the multiunit, multiconcept operator became a multistate franchisee, expanding to some 90 units across a multitude of regions.

Now, after divesting all but 15 restaurants Hashim is taking his most ambitious hedge against risk by sharing brand ownership with several franchisees in exchange for a disproportionate chance at financial success, too. Through NRD Capital, an investment fund that franchisees can buy into for as low as  $500,000 a share, partners get first shot at franchise territories for brands that are acquired by the fund. They are guaranteed a chance to grow with the acquisition, and the acquired brand gets proven operators to roll it out.

“It behooves you to be on both sides of the franchise business,” says Hashim. “In some ways, they’re paying royalties to themselves.” 
But in all other respects, the partners are no different from other franchisees, except they have an equity stake in the franchisor upon which their restaurants depend.

In its 18 months, NRD has acquired two operations, Frisch’s Big Boy and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, the latter of which has grown from 74 stores to 104 through NRD’s franchisees-as-partners setup. 

Hashim has also worked diligently through his role as chairman of the International Franchise Association to protect the franchising model, launching ambitious efforts to make the world aware of franchising’s economic and social importance. Of particular concern, he says, is organized labor’s attempt to unionize the restaurant industry by reclassifying franchisors as joint employers of franchisees’ staffs. Labor proponents have openly said the business will be easier to organize if they’re dealing with corporate rather than thousands of franchises.

“There’s only one issue that keeps me up at night, and that’s joint employer,” he says. “Overtime pay, a $15 minimum wage—all of those things, we can find a way to deal with. Joint employer is an existential threat. If you unionize restaurant workers, the franchising model will come to a standstill.”

“The trajectory of my family’s life has been affected by franchising,” he says. “I feel very, very strongly that this business model has to be protected and has to be preserved for the future.”

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