It’s been a tough go for Middleby’s grill brands. Middleby bought Masterbuilt, Char-Griller, and Kamado Joe during the Pandemic which grill companies had record sales.

Fast-forward four years and there’s a stretched consumer, high tariffs, and lows in housing sales. Despite releasing some innovative products, those factors have prevented them from realizing the volume and the margin profile from their strategy.

Middleby picked up an activist investor at the beginning of the year and began evaluating their portfolio of companies. That led them to begin the process of spinning off their Food Processing business unit.

Their Residential business, which includes their grill companies, has a much smaller size and lower margins than their core Commercial business. Especially after Food Processing is gone, Residential just doesn’t fit with the rest of their company.

According to reporting by Financial Times, Middleby is now in talks to sell a majority stake in their Residential business unit. It would be through a joint venture where they own just under 50% of the entity.

The rumored potential purchaser is 26North, an investment firm formed by Josh Harris, a co-founder of the private equity firm, Apollo. The deal is said to be value the joint venture at $800 million. Middleby paid $385 million for just Masterbuilt, Char-Griller, and Kamado Joe, so that’s a pretty large decrease in value considering they would own just under 50% of the JV and it’s for all the Residential brands.

As with all rumored M&A deals, it could very easily fall apart or the terms could change. It seems likely that a transaction will occur for their Residential brands though in the future.