This posting is from: Mary Beth
----------
Usually in the case of franchise operations (and HM is a franchise), a
change in name/format often follows a rift between the franchise owner
and the franchise operator.
If a lot of operators start to bail at the same time it may mean that
the franchise owner may not have lived up to his end of the agreement
(to provide certain amounts of advertising, guidance, etc) or
conversely, the operators may have not run the franchises to the
specifications set forth in the franchise agreement.
Sometimes the operators stay with the franchise until they figure out
how to run the business themselves and then just stop paying the
franchise fees and royalties (I saw this firsthand in the 80s when I
was in the video business and franchises like National Video and West
Coast Video would collect exorbitant franchise fees and provide not a
whole lot of anything to the local shopkeepers.
As with everything else in life, follow the money.
mary beth
----------
(This posting was entered by Mary Beth, an external user of MyDLV.)