Subway’s Hidden Billions Revealed: How Its Founders Sliced Up A Fortune | Forbes

In the early 2000s, a footlong frenzy swept the United States. More than three decades after the first Subway opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the sandwich shop started appearing everywhere from strip malls to churches to Walmart Supercenters in all corners of the country. By 2011, Subway’s iconic yellow and green awnings were more ubiquitous than the golden arches of McDonald’s.

But almost as quickly as it arrived, the world’s seemingly insatiable desire for cheap subs began to wane. After the 2015 death of Subway cofounder and longtime CEO Fred DeLuca, which happened to coincide with a colossal public relations crisis for the company when its spokesperson Jared Fogle pleaded guilty to child sex and pornography charges, the restaurant chain saw its sales sputter. The years since have been an undoing of much of Subway’s rapid expansion. Nearly a quarter of the over 27,100 U.S. stores open at the time of DeLuca’s death are now closed.

So it wasn’t a huge surprise when in February, 15 months after its second cofounder, Peter Buck, passed away, the company officially said it’s for sale. According to reports, the price tag could be anywhere from $7 billion to over $10 billion.

New reporting by Forbes in light of that impending deal uncovers new details on just how much money Subway’s billionaire owners pocketed over the years, as well as the moves they’ve taken to both protect and minimize their wealth in the lead up to the sale. Through its ups and downs, one thing has remained constant: Subway has been paying out generously to its owners and their families for years.

This reporting–which is based on hundreds of pages of court documents, charitable filings, historical financial disclosures and interviews with experts and insiders–also pins down for the first time the fortune of DeLuca’s widow, Elisabeth DeLuca, 75, who debuted on the Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list in early April. DeLuca, who has one son, inherited her late husband’s 50% stake in the restaurant giant. With her family, she is estimated to be worth as much as $8 billion, after subtracting disclosed charitable gifts and calculating investment returns on the Subway royalties.

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