MONTREAL - MTY Food Group has a friendly deal to acquire an Arizona-based restaurant franchise company with 2,800 stores worldwide.

The Montreal-based company will add more than a dozen brands to its current 30 restaurant banners including Cultures, Thai Express, Vanellis and ManchuWok.

It will pay about US$300 million to acquire Kahala Brands Ltd. and 18 brands such as Cold Stone Creamery, America's Taco Shop and Kahala Coffee Traders.

About US$240 million of the price will be paid in cash and the rest with about 2.25 million million MTY shares, which closed Tuesday at C$36.68 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

MTY chairman and CEO Stanley Ma says the company has been looking for the right foundation for its expansion into the United States and Kahala Brands is a "perfect match."

Kahala's network currently generates about C$950 million in system sales. MTY had more than C$1 billion in system sales last year