Smith & Wollensky To Be Bought By Patina Restaurants for $95M
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Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc., the New York-based steakhouse chain, said it agreed to be bought by Patina Restaurant Group LLC for $94.6 million, topping a rival proposal from Landry’s Restaurants Inc.
Patina, owner of a namesake Los Angeles restaurant and the ice rink in New York’s Rockefeller Center, will pay $11 a share, 13% more than the Landry’s bid and 19% higher than its previous agreement to buy the restaurant company, Smith & Wollensky said in a statement yesterday.
Ninety deals for restaurants in America were announced in 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, 53% more than 2005, as buyers were lured by their cash flow and real estate.
Before Landry’s first expressed interest in January, Smith & Wollensky’s stock had fallen 41% after five years of losses since it first sold shares to the public in 2001.
“There’s quite a bit of an appetite for buyouts in the restaurant industry as a whole,” an analyst at Morningstar Inc, John Owens, said.
