Restaurant Dividend Stock Acquired
- February 26, 2010
- Dividend News, Dividend Stock Picks, Featured
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This morning CKE Restaurants (CKR: 0.00 N/A) announced that it will sell itself to THL Partners for $619 million in cash. Shareholders will receive $11.05 per share in cash – a 24% premium over Thursday’s closing price.
Just days ago we profiled CKE Restaurants as one of our Top 5 Restaurant Dividend Stocks:
The operator of Carl’s Jr. and Hardees restaurants, is currently trading at only 10.7x consensus 2011 EPS estimates. This is below the relative multiples of their peer group and seems to discount the anticipated 15% earnings growth in 2011.
It appears that not only did dividend investors take notice of their nice dividend yield and attractive valuation, but the private equity industry was taking notice as well.
In the company’s press release this morning, Andrew F. Puzder, Chief Executive Officer of CKE Restaurants, said, “We believe this transaction provides excellent value to our shareholders and represents an exciting opportunity to continue the growth and development of CKE Restaurants in partnership with THL. THL’s proven history of success as an investor and value-added partner to its portfolio companies, coupled with its deep financial expertise and experience in the consumer sector, will also benefit all of our stakeholders, including our franchisees and our employees.”
The company is also actively searching for higher bidders over the next 40 days, which could push investors short-term returns even higher.
