Case Study: Portfolio-Level EPR Exposure for a PE Sponsor

A PE firm's restaurant portfolio carried $18M–$27M in unpriced near-term EPR liability. None of it reflected in the deal models.

PE sponsor | Multi-brand restaurant portfolio | National footprint

THE PROBLEM

The sponsor needed directional EPR exposure estimates across its full portfolio before engaging individual brands. The operating companies had yet to file their 2025 or 2026 supply reports. No packaging cost data existed at the portfolio level. And with unit counts and revenue spread across over a dozen concepts, there was no scalable way to size the liability without a model built for it.

OUR IMPACT

Using unit counts and revenue data provided by the sponsor, combined with publicly available fee schedules and industry benchmarks for QSR packaging costs, we built a per-store EPR fee model and scaled it across the full portfolio.

Total exposure was estimated at $18M–$27M in the near term, with a long-term range of $26M–$58M if all seven enacted states come online and vendors pass through full fees. The sponsor had a brand-by-brand breakdown, a methodology it could defend to deal teams, and a clear view of which concepts carried disproportionate exposure, all before a single brand supply report was filed.