Newport Man Completes Naugles, Del Taco Purchase

A Newport Beach restaurateur completed his purchases Tuesday of Del Taco and Naugles--two of the best known names in Mexican fast-food in California.

The combined purchase creates the second-largest Mexican fast-food chain with 373 restaurants, most of them in California. It is overshadowed only by Taco Bell, the Irvine subsidiary of Pepsico that has 2,700 restaurants.

The previously announced sales to newly formed DTI Acquisition were for undisclosed amounts of cash. DTI is controlled by Anwar Soliman, chief executive of American Restaurant Group which operates 360 restaurants.

In an interview when the transaction was first announced, Soliman told The Times that he intended to “create one big company--a powerhouse . . . to go after the very growing segment” of Mexican fast-food. Soliman in February estimated 1987 combined sales of Naugles and Del Taco at $250 million--or almost half of the market share for the Mexican fast-food industry.

The 171 Naugles restaurants were purchased from Los Angeles-based Collins Foods International. The Naugles subsidiary, based in Orange, has outlets in California, Utah, Nevada and Missouri.

Collins Foods announced Tuesday that it will realize a pretax gain of $4 million to $5 million, depending on the final accounting. This gain will be reflected in the company’s fourth quarter of fiscal 1988.

Christopher Thomas, Collins vice president of finance, confirmed that Collins “is making a gain on this transaction” but otherwise declined to disclose financial details.

Closely held Del Taco, based in Costa Mesa, operates 202 restaurants, all in California except for one in Yuma, Ariz.

It was unknown Tuesday whether Soliman plans to retain the Del Taco or Naugles names. Officials with both companies also said they were unaware of any planned changes in management.