Have you seen restaurant stocks lately?

Evidently private equity giant Apollo has. They’ve been cratering, including Chipotle last week. Now Reuters reports that Apollo has pulled its $64/share bid for Papa John’s pizza chain.

Shares are quickly down 11.5%.

Notably, the market had sniffed out some risk here as shares were already trading well below the $64 bid price.

Also notable is this detail:

The private equity firm pulled its bid about a week ago as consumers
tighten spending and the quick-service restaurant industry starts to
stumble, these people said, asking not to be identified because the
negotiations are private.

Guess what else started happening a week ago? The shares started sliding.