2. Bob Evans Restaurants: Worth as much dead as alive?
An investor at odds with the family restaurant operator’s leadership said as much this week in its argument that the company be split in two.
While stressing that it wasn’t recommending the restaurants be closed, Sandell Asset Management noted that the restaurants were valued at a mere $385 million. Yet, it continued, the company owns the real estate under 300 of the units, and that land alone would sell for $300 million. Sandell noted that a private-equity firm could buy the restaurant division, sell the 300 parcels and get the restaurants essentially for free.
It’s pushing management to separate the restaurants from Bob Evans’ food processing operations, which it regards as undervalued.
Bob Evans Restaurants has been stung by a prolonged traffic slowdown.