Frisch's reveals details of its decision to sell

Shareholders in family-controlled, publicly traded Frisch's Restaurants Inc., the Cincinnati-based company that owns 95 Big Boy restaurants and has another 26 franchised locations, are due to vote on the company's sale to Atlanta private equity group NRD Partners on Aug. 24. The company revealed details of its deliberations in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,

the

Cincinnati Business Courier

reported.

NRD Partners will pay $34 a share, or $175 million, for Frisch's, the article said. The deal is expected to be completed in September, the article said.

Frisch's board started exploring a sale of the company in January 2013, the article said. “It considered the stock undervalued and started looking at the possibility of selling the company, selling and then leasing back its real estate, going private, changing its franchising agreements or continuing to operate as it was,” according to the report. “The board spent the next year and a half examining options before going ahead with seeking a buyer for the company that has operated in Cincinnati and been run by the same family since 1905.”

The article also said that an alleged employee embezzlement of nearly $4 million, disclosed by Frisch in January, “slowed the sale process and caused executives and board members to deal with two enormous company developments at the same time.”

CEO Craig Maier owns 10% of the stock; his sister Karen, the company's vice president of marketing, owns 6%. “The Maiers will retire when the deal is wrapped up, although each will own one franchised location,” the journal article said.

An earlier


Cincinnati Business Courier




report

said the Maier siblings will make a combined $28.1 million in cash from the deal. NRD has also agreed to give Craig Maier the art owned by the company, which has been appraised at $4,200, the earlier article said. (Source:


Cincinnati Business Courier


Aug. 13, 2015; June 9, 2015.)