Struggling fast-food chain Jack in the Box acknowledged Monday it has been in talks with potential buyers as it explores “strategic and financing alternatives to maximize shareholder value.”

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The San Diego-based burger chain has been beset recently with increasingly strained relations with its franchisees, weak performance compared to its rivals and pressure from activist investors.

“The Company has had discussions with potential buyers; however, it noted that there can be no assurance that the exploration of strategic and financing alternatives will result in a transaction,” the Jack in the Box said in a statement. “That said, in the absence of a strategic transaction the Company remains committed to its previously communicated plan to have a new capital structure in place by the end of the first half of fiscal 2019. That capital structure could include, among other things, a securitization or bond issuance.”

Shares of the company were declining.

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