Randomly Noted

Today’s outrage: a fracas involving a restaurant chain called Landry’s. It turns out the CEO and majority owner, Tilman Fertitta, has been trying to take Landry’s private for nearly two years. Now, a shareholder is suing on the grounds that the $238 buyout is “unfair and grossly inadequate.” I don’t know who’s in the right here. But it doesn’t sit well that a publicly traded company has been headed by a guy who has spent 24 or so months trying to persuade shareholders to sell the firm to him. As DJN reports, the deal was struck last week at $14.75 a share; this is a far cry from Fertitta’s original offer of $23.50 a share in January 2008, before the economic crisis. The shareholder lawsuit, filed in a Texas district court, wants to stop the buyout and demands Landry’s board strengthen the firm and raise its market value. Should the lawsuit manage to kill Fertitta’s buyout, the investor wants any termination fee withheld from the CEO. Fertitta, the suit argues, effectively straddles both sides of the deal, and claims a special committee that was set up to review options for Landry’s wasn’t independent and objective. Wall Street seems to think an alternative bid for Landry’s, whose restaurants carry such names as Rainforest Cafe and Charley’s Crab, is possible. Shares are trading above the proposed buyout price. We have until mid-December to see how this problematic situation plays out.