Subway is exploring a sale that could value the business at more than US$10 billion, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The sandwich chain is reportedly looking to court corporate buyers or private-equity companies but is still early in the process.
The reported decision comes a little more than a year after the company's last surviving founder, Peter Buck, died in 2021. Subway is privately owned by its two founding families.
Subway has more than 37,000 restaurants in over 100 countries and is one of the world’s largest franchises. It is currently undergoing a reorganisation under CEO John Chidsey.
Over the last several years, the company has faced declining sales, store closures and a bizarre wrangle amid accusations that the tuna it used wasn’t tuna after the New York Times published a report stating that it found no tuna DNA in Subway's tuna sandwiches.
In a separate report, Reuters quoted a Subway spokesperson as saying: "As a privately held company, we don't comment on ownership structure and business plans."