Mon
Feb 6 2012
04:31 pm
Fidelity National Financial, Inc., a title insurance company out of Jacksonville FL, is buying the Nashville-based O'Charley's chain of 342 casual dining restaurants for $221 million in cash.
The company, which has branched out into other services such as mortgage origination, home warranties, document imaging, software, etc., entered the restaurant business with the acquisition of American Blue Ribbon, a Denver-based restaurant chain with 283 stores including the Village Inn, Baker's Square, Max and Ermas' and Legendary Baking brands.
Restaurant News quotes Fidelity National Financial chairman William P. Foley II as saying the company was looking to invest in "a larger, scalable, strategic restaurant operating company to complement our successful investment in American Blue Ribbons Holdings LLC."
Fidelity National Financial and O'Charley's sound like strange bedfellows to me. What would a title company know about running a restaurant chain? I once worked for a CEO who said "stick to your knitting." That seemed like pretty good advice.
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Diversify! They also own one
Diversify!
They also own one of the largest banking software companies in the U.S., FIS.
it's like GM getting into the
it's like GM getting into the home mortgage business ..
Instead of menus, they hand
Instead of menus, they hand you a prospectus.
Instead of menus, they hand
Instead of menus, they hand you a prospectus.
Probably a culinary improvement.
I need to figure out how to
I need to figure out how to best invest in this new parent company so I can get "bring back pretzel crunch chicken" as an agenda item on a board meeting.
I can't believe O'Charley's
I can't believe O'Charley's is worth that much.
I can't believe O'Charley's
I can't believe O'Charley's is worth that much.
Apparently nobody else did either. Their stock closed Friday at $6.91 and opened Monday at $9.84, a 42% jump on volume of 2.5 million shares compared to 2300 on Friday. Fidelity's offer is $9.85 per share.
P.S. I can't find a news report or press release prior to 9AM Monday. That would have given investors 15 minutes to run the stock up to 9.84 in pre-market trading. Insider trading?
They ought to outlaw off hours trading. It's risky business and not everyone can participate. Most little guys get left out of action like this, and the ones who try can easily get suckered in to bad bets because they don't know what Wall Street traders know. (What if you had shorted CHUX ahead of their Monday morning earnings report of a net loss for the quarter?)
P.P.S. At least five law firms are threatening to sue O'Charley's board of directors for breach of fiduciary duty for not shopping the company around to maximize shareholder value. One firm announced within about an hour of the news. (I'm guessing that's SOP for shark lawyers on about every merger or acquisition deal.)
I don't know, but if it were me I'd probably be happy waking up Monday morning to find out my $6.91 stock was suddenly worth $9.84. And then I'd sell it.
Then use the capital gains to
Then use the capital gains to go buy a O'Chucks Fried Chicken salad...
I ordered that once and the waiter said, do you want the lunch portion or the bubba sized salad. And I thought of SK Bubba!
Bubba sized. Heh.
Bubba sized. Heh.
Wow, that is a lot of money
Wow, that is a lot of money but I hope that the sellers of the restaurant chain have done their homework before agreeing to the sell. I mean, what do they know about running a restaurant?
The restaurant business is not something that just anyone can get into on a bright sunshiny day if they do not have the knowledge of running such an operation.