OVERLAND PARK Kan. The top executives of Applebee’s International Inc. will be paid 2006 bonuses based on achieving only 43.6 percent of their performance targets for the year, the casual-dining powerhouse disclosed today in a securities filing.
The document also indicates that chief financial officer Steven Lumpkin has been given the additional title of chief strategic officer.
The performance calculation yields a cash bonus of $288,218 for president and chief executive Dave Goebel, $176,035 for Lumpkin, $99,190 for chief people officer Stan Sword and $88,49 for executive vice president of operations Carin Stutz, according to the filing. The awards were approved by the board’s executive compensation committee on March 14, the document showed.
The committee also revised the company’s policy for the personal use of corporate aircraft by Applebee’s officers, limiting it to extraordinary situations involving medical emergencies or “extreme hardship.” Dissident shareholder Breeden Capital Management LLC has criticized executives’ use of a company airplane some 29 times during 2006 for visits to Galveston, Texas, where Applebee’s has no restaurants but the beach home of a former CEO is located.
Applebee's disclosed Tuesday that it had sold one of its corporate aircraft, leaving it with a lone prop plane.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filing noted the new base salaries that were approved for Applebee’s top officers for 2007. Goebel would receive $650,000; Lumpkin, $525,000; Sword, $358,800; and Stutz, $335,000.
Applebee’s announced in February that it was considering a sale of the company and other strategic alternatives to boost the value of its stock. During the second week of March, the company disclosed that it had given its advisers the go-ahead to contact prospective buyers.
Breeden Capital , a 5-percent stakeholder in Applebee’s, had been urging the company to refranchise corporate restaurants, reduce its costs and to undertake sale-leasebacks on its real estate assets. Most recently, talks between Applebee’s and Breeden, a hedge fund that had been requesting four seats on Applebee’s 12-person board, had stalled after Breeden rejected an offer for two board seats that would create a 14-person board. Breeden said it would continue to pursue four seats on Applebee’s board in a proxy contest.
Late Tuesday, Applebee’s filed with federal regulators its preliminary proxy statement and confirmed that the annual meeting will be held in May, although a date had yet to be set. In the proxy materials, Applebee’s encouraged its shareholders to vote against Breeden’s board nominees. It told shareholders that Breeden’s nominees are “not in your best interest.”
Applebee’s board of directors has nominated to serve until the 2010 annual meeting: Jack P. Helms, current director and principal at investment banking firm Goldsmith, Agio, Helms and Co.; Lloyd L. Hill, current director and chairman; Burton M. Sack, current director and former company executive; and Michael Volkema, current director and chairman of furniture manufacturer Herman Miller Inc.
Breeden is nominating the fund’s chairman and chief executive, Richard C. Breeden, who also served as a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Other nominees include: Steven J. Quamme, a founding partner of Breeden Partners and former co-CEO of Milestone Merchant Partners, a merchant banking firm, as well as a former franchisee with Boston Chicken and Einstein Bros. Bagels; Raymond G. H. Seitz, a former vice chairman of Lehman Brothers; and Laurence E. Harris, counsel to the Washington law firm Patton Boggs LLP.
Based here, Applebee's operates or franchises 1,942 namesake casual-dining restaurants.