China Goes Shopping

摘要

In April, John Zhao learned through investment bankers that London-based Pizza Express (Restaurants) was for sale. Zhao, CEO of Beijing-based private equity firm Hony Capital, loved to go out for deep-dish pizza while he was studying for his MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in the mid-'90s, and he felt there was money to be made in bringing the U.K.'s largest pizza chain to China. After all, the country's burgeoning middle class had developed a healthy appetite for Western food, making China the biggest overseas market forYum! Brands' Pizza Hut chain.