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 Restaurant Brands International Inc. agreed to buy Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc. for about $1.8 billion, adding a fried-chicken chain to its lineup of burgers and doughnuts. 
 
 The cash offer of $79 a share represents a 19 percent premium to Popeyes’ closing price on Friday. The transaction is expected to close by early April, the companies said. 
 
 The acquisition would be the first major deal for Restaurant Brands, which was formed in the 2014 merger of Burger King and Tim Hortons. The company’s managers have long said they would consider taking over other brands, where they could boost profit by cutting costs and selling locations to franchisees. Restaurant Brands, backed by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital, also may look to expand the chain abroad. 
 
 “Restaurant Brands may be able to cut selling, general and administrative expenses in half in the next two years, and its private equity partners can boost international expansion as spicy flavors, chicken and rice tend to travel well,” said Michael Halen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “It fits right into the 3G playbook.” 
 
 Restaurant Brands shares rose as much as 7.3 percent to $57.84 in New York. The stock already was up 13 percent this year through the end of last week, lifted by speculation that Restaurant Brands would make a bid. Popeyes surged as much as 19 percent to $78.85 on Tuesday. 
 
 Eight Years 
 
 Popeyes, which has more than 2,600 restaurants in the U.S. and 25 other countries, has performed well lately, with the stock gaining for eight years in a row. Chief Executive Officer Cheryl Bachelder has improved relationships with franchisees, sped up service times and played up the brand’s New Orleans heritage with foods such as Magnolia Blossom Chicken. The chain will continue to be independently managed in the U.S., Restaurants Brands said. 
 
 Popeyes has done “pretty well since they’ve rebranded,” said Darren Tristano, president at industry researcher Technomic. “They’ve been very effective with advertising. They’ve also been pretty innovative.” 
 
 The chain’s same-store sales gained 1.8 percent in the third quarter as most U.S. restaurants endured a slump. The company will file its annual report on Wednesday. 
 
 ‘Iconic’ Brand 
 
 “We get to add another iconic, incredible brand with this really rich Louisiana heritage,” Restaurant Brands CEO Daniel Schwartz said in an interview. “We see it resonating with guests all around the world, and we see an opportunity to massively accelerate the growth.” 
 
 There are no plans for layoffs now, and Popeyes will continue to be based in Atlanta, he said. 
 
 The transaction is being paid for with cash on hand and a financing commitment from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. The company was advised by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Popeyes received financial advice from UBS AG and Genesis Capital and got legal counsel from King & Spalding. 
 
 For Restaurant Brands -- which counts Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management among its investors -- the buying may not be over. The company may look to add another brand to its portfolio in the next 12 months, Tristano said. 
 
 “This acquisition would indicate they may not be done acquiring brands yet,” he said. “Maybe they need a Mexican concept coming next.” 
 
 — With assistance by Kevin Orland 

 Mardi Gras is still a week away, but it looks like the Burger King is ready to take a stroll down Bourbon Street. 
 
 Restaurant Brands, the parent of Burger King and the Tim Hortons doughnut and coffee chain, announced Tuesday that it is buying Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, the company famous for its Cajun cuisine, for $1.8 billion. 
 
 The deal values Popeyes at $79 a share, nearly 20% higher than where the stock closed Friday. Shares of Popeyes (PLKI), living up to the company's "Louisiana Fast" motto, quickly rose 19% Tuesday morning to just under $79. 
 
 Reports of a Popeyes takeover surfaced last week, although there was also speculation that Restaurant Brands was considering buying another fast food chicken chain, El Pollo Loco (LOCO). El Pollo Loco shares fell more than 1% Tuesday. 
 
 Restaurant Brands CEO Daniel Schwartz said in a statement that the company looks forward to "taking an already very strong brand and accelerating its pace of growth and opening new restaurants in the U.S. and around the world." 
 
 Popeyes has more than 2,600 restaurants around the globe. The company was founded in New Orleans in 1972, but its corporate headquarters is now in Atlanta. 
 
 Popeyes CEO Cheryl Bachelder also noted that the "high trust partnership that we enjoy with our franchise owners" was a plus for Restaurant Brands. 
 
 Related: Popeyes CEO on fast food wage hikes: 'Life will go on' 
 
 I spoke with Bachelder in November 2015 about that partnership. At the time, many big fast food chains were starting to worry about how rising minimum wages across the country could be a problem for franchisees. 
 
 Bachelder dismissed those concerns. 
 
 "We will adjust to increased costs just like we have before," she said. "Life will go on. There's been too much hubbub about it." She added: "Profits make you happy. Our franchisees have been making a lot more money." 
 
 If that trend continues, Popeyes could help make Restaurant Brands an even more formidable threat to top rivals McDonald's (MCD), Wendy's (WEN) and KFC owner Yum! Brands (YUM). 
 
 Restaurant Brands has been a much hotter stock than those three lately, thanks in large part to stronger sales at Burger King. 
 
 The company has made a name for itself recently with gimmicky food mashups, such as onion ring-shaped chicken fries, Cheetos Chicken Fries, burgers with red and black buns and the Whopperito. Yes, that's the marriage of a burger and a burrito. 
 
 Related: The great American McDonald's comeback may be over 
 
 Adding Popeyes to the mix gives Restaurant Brands an even bigger presence in the red hot, but increasingly crowded, market for chicken franchises. 
 
 In addition to KFC and El Pollo Loco, there's competition from Bojangles (BOJA), Wingstop (WING) and upscale burger joint Shake Shack (SHAK), as well as privately held chains with cult followings like Chick-fil-A and Zaxby's. 
 
 Wall Street seemed to think the deal will be good for Restaurant Brands as well. Shares rose more than 7% Tuesday. The stock is up more than 20% in 2017. 
 
 So it's a win for two influential investors that back Restaurant Brands, too. Bill Ackman's Pershing Square owns an 18% stake in the company. And Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has a nearly 4% stake. 

 Restaurant Brands, the owner of Burger King and Tim Hortons, has agreed to pay $1.8 billion in cash to acquire fried chicken chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. 
 
 On Monday, the speculated tie-up was formally confirmed in a transaction that will bulk up Restaurant Brands to become an even bigger player in the quick-service restaurant segment. Restaurant Brands (rtbrf), with $24 billion in system-wide sales and over 20,000 restaurants, will add 2,688 Popeyes (plki) restaurants to the company’s portfolio with the deal. 
 
 “We look forward to taking an already very strong brand and accelerating its pace of growth and opening new restaurants in the U.S. and around the world,” said Restaurant Brands CEO Daniel Schwartz in a statement. 
 
 The purchase price of $79 per share is a 27% premium to Popeyes’ average stock performance in the 30 days of trading before media speculation began to swirl about a potential sale. The stock, which traded at around $66 apiece before the news was announced, jumped an additional 19% on the news. 
 
 The transaction for Popeyes further remakes Restaurant Brands after an $11 billion blockbuster deal joined burger chain Burger King with Canada’s coffee-and-doughnut specialist Tim Hortons. The move by Restaurant Brands to bulk up with additional brands comes at a time when other restaurant chains have been pressured to off-load brands and narrow their focus on fewer concepts. 
 
 Popeyes was founded in New Orleans in 1971 and has grown to become the world’s second-largest quick-service chicken concept based on number of units, trailing only Yum Brands’ (yum) KFC. Popeyes has reported sturdy growth in the U.S. and abroad, generating annual global same-store sales growth of 1.7% in the most recent year. The chain is also expanding, it opened 118 domestic and 98 international restaurants last year. The company’s menu features spicy chicken, chicken tenders, seafood and some regional items. 
 
 Following the close of the transaction, which is expected to occur in April, Popeyes will remain managed independently in the U.S. Restaurant Brands says it plans to develop the brand “at an increasing pace in the U.S. and international markets in the years to come.” 

 FILE - At left, in a March 25, 2015, file photo, a Heinz ketchup sign is shown on the side of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. At right, also in a March 25, 2015, file photo, the Kraft... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - At left, in a March 25, 2015, file photo, a Heinz ketchup sign is shown on the side of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. At right, also in a March 25, 2015, file photo, the Kraft logo appears outside of their headquarters in Northfield, Ill. U.S. food giant Kraft Heinz Co.... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Ketchup maker and packaged food giant Kraft Heinz has withdrawn a $143 billion offer to buy Unilever, backing away after the mayonnaise, tea and seasonings maker rejected the bid as too low. 
 
 The companies announced the decision Sunday in a joint press release, saying that Kraft Heinz has "amicably" abandoned the offer. 
 
 The deal would have combined Kraft Heinz brands such as Oscar Mayer, Jell-O and Velveeta with Unilever's Hellman's, Lipton and Knorr. The merged company would have rivaled Nestle as the world's biggest packaged food maker by sales. 
 
 Analysts say Kraft Heinz, co-headquartered in Chicago and Pittsburgh, is still in the market for acquisitions. The fact that it bid for all of Unilever and not just its food business indicates that Kraft Heinz is potentially open to acquiring other packaged consumer goods, one analyst said. 
 
 Unilever, which has a head office in London, also has a stable of personal care brands such as Dove soap. Unilever rejected the offer on Friday, but despite that, Kraft Heinz said at the time that it was still interested in the deal. 
 
 Such acquisitions might not lead to big changes that customers would notice on supermarket shelves, but shifting tastes are partly driving deal-making in the food industry. 
 
 Part of the challenge is the proliferation of smaller food makers marketing products that seem more wholesome, which makes it harder for the established companies to drive up sales simply by selling more of well-known products or by raising prices, as they have in the past. 
 
 "That obviously has its limits," said David Garfield, head of the consumer products unit at consulting firm AlixPartners, said last week. 
 
 Instead, major packaged food companies are being forced to dig deeper to find cost efficiencies or tap into new markets, Garfield said. That can include mergers that result in consolidated manufacturing systems, or that give companies access to distribution networks in regions of the world where they don't have a big presence. 

 Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital Partners LP sealed a deal in the restaurant business, just days after its plans to create a global packaged goods juggernaut fell apart. 
 
 Restaurant Brands International Inc., which was created in 2014 when 3G-owned Burger King bought Canadian doughnut chain Tim Hortons, said Tuesday it will buy chicken chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc. for about $1.64 billion. 3G Capital-backed Kraft Heinz Co. last week made a $143 billion offer for consumer products giant Unilever PLC but...
– Doughnuts, hamburgers, and as of Tuesday … chicken. That's what's now on the menu for Restaurant Brands International, the owner of Burger King and Tim Hortons that just raided the fast-food henhouse to buy the Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen chain for nearly $1.65 billion, per the Wall Street Journal. (CNNMoney and Bloomberg put the sale price closer to $1.8 billion.) The company's majority owner, Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital Partners LP, jumped onto this fast-food deal right after its failed attempts to form what the Journal calls a "global packaged goods juggernaut." The equity group had backed Kraft Heinz in its $143 billion offer to scoop up Unilever, but the deal fell through over the weekend, per the AP. Part of the Popeyes game plan, which would stay in line with Restaurant Brands' past maneuvers, will be to expand the chicken chain into international markets, especially since "spicy flavors, chicken, and rice tend to travel well," a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst says. The acquisition should also help the company up its game against competitors Wendy's, McDonald's, and Yum Brands, which owns KFC. Restaurant Brands CEO Daniel Schwartz tells Bloomberg that Popeyes—which Fortune notes boasts nearly 2,700 stores worldwide, with most in the US—will keep its headquarters in Atlanta, and existing staff will stay intact for now. The deal is expected to close in April. (If this guy still works for Popeyes, it makes the deal extra sweet.)