Sandell sheds most of stake in Bob Evans
Activist investor Thomas Sandell has been selling off his stake in Bob Evans Farms, a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed.
Sandell, a Swedish billionaire and the CEO of hedge fund Sandell Asset Management, accumulated close to 10 percent of Bob Evans’ stock beginning in 2014. Sandell used the position to call for changes at the restaurant and prepared-foods company, including selling off massive real-estate holdings and splitting the company in two.
He parlayed his investment into four seats on Bob Evans’
board — including the chairmanship — and the board then pushed out Steve Davis as CEO.
After three years of battling executives, Sandell got what he wanted last spring. Bob Evans sold its restaurant division to Golden Gate Capital, a private-equity firm with a history of restaurant investments. The sale came with a windfall dividend of $7.50 per share paid to investors.
Since then, Sandell has been whittling his stake in the company. Sandell, who once held more then 2 million shares, now owns just 200,000. He sold several hundred thousand shares early this year, but the big selloff was between May and August, according to Sandell Asset Management’s mostrecent investment report.
Sandell sold more than 750,000 shares this summer, reducing the value of his position from a reported $62.9 million in May to $14 million.
Shares fell last summer to a years-long low of $35.67; since mid-March, they have been above $60 — a level never before achieved — and closed at $67.23 on Monday.
What Sandell plans to do with the remaining stake, or with the proceeds from his campaign at Bob Evans, is unknown. A Sandell representative declined to comment. Bob Evans also declined to comment on Sandell’s actions.
Bob Evans is a different company now. With the restaurant division owned by the private-equity firm, the prepared-foods division, which makes refrigerated side dishes and sausage for retail sale, is at the heart of the publicly traded company.