Officials at Rubio\u2019s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: RUBO), a company that started as a simple walk-up taco stand on East Mission Bay Drive in 1983, announced May 10 that the company has entered into a merger agreement with private investment firm Mill Road Capital for $91 million. Founder and San Diego native Ralph Rubio, who started the company with his father, grew the business from a one-stop taco shop to a thriving restaurant chain with more than 180 locations in the western half of the United States. Under the agreement, Mill Road will buy all the outstanding shares of common stock of Rubio\u2019s Restaurants for $8.70 a share, a 14 percent premium over the closing share price of Rubio\u2019s common stock on May 7, according to company officials. Ralph Rubio, Rosewood Capital and Rubio\u2019s president and CEO Daniel Pittard collectively own 24 percent of those outstanding shares. Mill Road currently owns 4.9 percent of the company. “Rubio\u2019s is a long-established institution in its core western markets with a consistent track record of providing delicious Baja-inspired food to its large base of loyal customers. As a long-term shareholder, Mill Road Capital is delighted to have the opportunity to increase its investment in the great institution that Ralph Rubio created 27 years ago and to work with Dan Pittard and his talented team in executing their strategic plan and building an even greater Rubio\u2019s,” said Scott Scharfman, Mill Road\u2019s managing director, in a prepared statement. The merger is still subject to approval by regulators and Rubio\u2019s stockholders, as well as other customary closing conditions, but it is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010, officials said. According to Mill Road\u2019s website, the company specializes in investments in publicly-traded companies valued at less than $250 million. Mill Road\u2019s portfolio already includes businesses in retail, manufacturing, business services and consumer products. Representatives from Rubio\u2019s were not immediately available for comment regarding what impact the buyout may have on the Carlsbad-based operations or the individual restaurant locations.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Officials at Rubio\u2019s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: RUBO), a company that started as a simple walk-up taco stand on East Mission Bay Drive in 1983, announced May 10 that the company has entered into a merger agreement with private investment firm Mill Road Capital for $91 million. Founder and San Diego native Ralph Rubio, who started […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Rubio\u2019s Restaurants, famous for fish tacos, sells for $91 million","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}