HOUSTON Tilman Fertitta, chief executive and chairman of Landry’s Restaurants Inc., has acquired a 9-percent personal stake in McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants Inc.
Since January, Fertitta has purchased more than 1.3 million shares in McCormick & Schmick’s at prices ranging from $1.80 to $3.11, for a total of about $3.5 million, according to documents filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. McCormick & Schmick’s stock has traded between $1.46 and $12.90 a share over the past 52 weeks.
Fertitta told the Houston Chronicle that he bought into McCormick & Schmick’s as an investment but could “become a more aggressive shareholder.”
McCormick & Schmick's, which operates 94 restaurants ranging from its high-end namesake chain to grills, has been struggling to reverse falling sales amid the economic downturn. Earlier this month, the company reported that same-sales plunged 13.5 percent in its fourth quarter ended Dec 27. In that quarter, McCormick & Schmick's net loss widened to $73.4 million, or $4.99 per share, compared with a loss of $1 million, or 7 cents per share, in the same quarter a year earlier
The largest shareholder in Portland, Ore.-based McCormick & Schmick is Fidelity Management, which as an institutional investor holds about 15 percent of the company’s shares. Co-founder Doug Schmick owns 131,252 shares.
Fertitta owns about 57 percent of Houston-based Landry’s Restaurants after acquiring shares in the company he founded during an aborted going-private deal last year.
Landry’s owns dining, restaurant and gaming properties ranging from Landry’s Seafood and Chart House to Rainforest Cafe and the Golden Nugget Hotels and Casinos.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
