What is a regional master franchise?

Master franchise is the term, most often used in international franchising, for a situation where a third party is appointed and granted the rights to develop a franchised network within a defined area - normally an entire country. In effect, that party becomes the franchisor in that area, becoming responsible for marketing the franchise then recruiting, training and supporting all the unit franchisees.  In some big countries, such as the USA, Australia and India, geography dictates that it may be more effective to appoint master franchisees, who are granted such responsibility for just a region of that country - not least because the number of franchisees required to cover a region makes it viable to employ a team to recruit and support them.  However, in a small country like the UK it is a method that rarely works well and systems structured in such a way are often regarded with some caution by professional advisers, banks and the British Franchise Association - not least because the regional master is often a one-man band who doesn’t have the skills to do the whole support job properly and tends to focus solely on recruiting franchisees in order to recoup the regional franchise fee.