Most of Bob Evans's restaurants are in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Mohseni, slated to take the helm in January, indicated he would like to see the Bob Evans brand expand nationally. This month, Bob Evans hired restaurant industry veteran Saed Mohseni as chief executive.
The foods division makes and distributes pork sausage and other refrigerated and frozen foods. Sandell, a former Bear Stearns trader who had launched a proxy fight and won a third of the company's 12 board seats, had pushed for the company to separate its food and restaurant businesses.
Under the terms of the deal, BEB Foods will lease the plants for an initial 20-year term.īob Evans is also pursuing similar sell and lease-back deals for its New Albany, Ohio, headquarters and about $200 million worth of its restaurant real estate. The company, which has been under pressure from billionaire investor Thomas Sandell, sold two of its BEF Foods properties in Lima, Ohio, and Sulphur Springs, Texas, last month for $51.6 million. On a per-share basis, Bob Evans affirmed its adjusted profit projection of $1.85 to $2. The company had previously projected comparable sales to improve 1% to 2%. On Tuesday, the company adjusted its projections for the year saying it expects net sales of about $1.35 billion, compared with its earlier view of sales of $1.33 billion to $1.39 billion, with sales at restaurants open for at least 1 1/2 years expected to decline 1% to 2.5%.