Ann: Preliminary Final Report, page-6

If you had read the prospectus thoroughly you would know why they are buying back stores that they previously franchised out. In a nutshell each store they have bought back was making good profit for the franchisee, so why wouldn't you want to keep that profit within the company itself, rather than gift it to a franchisee. Also, by bringing the individual stores back under OLI management, they will be able to keep tighter controls on each store and this expected to make these stores even more profitable. Moving foward it will be interesting to see how they approach the foreign markets where they have registered the Olivers Brand name (USA , UK, EU, NZ etc)as to wether the overseas stores are company owned or franchised. Time will tell.