eir latest fiscal year, and includes Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caeser's and Papa Johns. Their collective growth slipped to 6.66% from 8.18% in the preceding year. Factors contributing to a decline in revenue growth were refranchising, or company-store divestitures and a slackening in the pace of franchised restaurant openings.Over a three-year span, the eight chains making up the pizza segment, have seen their collective market share erode from 9.39% to 8.84% with a slice being worth $10.93 billion collectively.As Pizza Hut enjoyed its first full fiscal year under the ownership of Tricon; a major shake-up took place at Domino's Pizza when founder Thomas S. Monaghan unexpectedly sold the pizza chain to Bain Capital Inc. of Boston, a private investment company. Bain paid an estimated $1 billion to acquire a 90-percent stake in Domino's. In addition to selling the Ann Arbor, Michigan based chain, Monaghan, who was chairman and chief executive, also stepped down from day-to-day operations.Despite fierce competition in the pizza segment and a year of unusually high cheese prices, three of the category's four largest players, Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa John's thrived in 1998 with strong sales' performance. Each player's source of revenues appears to be generally healthy and continue to grow moderately over last year.Table 4 indicates Pizza Chain Rankings for U. S. System-wide Sales for fiscal years ending 1998, 1997 and 1996 and supports the narrative and prior explanation on Page 9.PIZZA CHAINS RANKED BY U. S. SYSTEMWIDE SALESFOR FISCAL YEAR ENDINGMM-$CHAINDECEMBER 1998*DECEMBER 1997DECEMBER 1996Pizza Hut$4,800.0$4,700.0$4,927.0Domino's Pizza2,300.02,200.02,100.0Little Caesar's1,250.01,375.01,400.0Papa John's1,156.3867.7619.2Other1,420.11,369.81,301.8TOTAL SALES$10,926.4$10,512.5$10,348.0Source: Nation's Restaurant News*Actual Results, Estimates or ProjectionsPIZZA HUT HISTORY & PROFILEPizza Hut began in 1958, when two college s...
