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Blog
Nickoloff Explains Sale of Claim Jumper Restaurants
January 2, 2006
Waiting around for a restaurant executive’s call is part of my job—a part that I wish I could do without, given that sometimes they don’t call. This happened over the holiday season: wait, no call; wait, no call. But this time I didn’t really mind. In fact, I was anxious to talk to this particular executive. Name: Craig Nickoloff, and the funny thing is, I can’t recall ever talking to him.
But that’s not what’s grabbing my attention. It’s the fact that Nickoloff, a son and grandson of restaurateurs, this fall sold controlling interest of the company he founded, Claim Jumper Restaurants, to Leonard Green, a private-equity company, also based in Southern California.
The private-equity firm paid a princely (though undisclosed) sum at auction for the 37-unit chain. The deal, in fact, is alleged to be highest price ever paid by a private-equity firm for a restaurant company. Nobody is talking, so who knows?
Anyway, I want to ask Nickoloff how he arrived at the decision to give up controlling interest (he owned 85 percent of Claim Jumper). “We felt it was time to take some of the proverbial chips off the table and do some financial family planning,” he explains during a 30-minute phone call.
Yet Nickoloff turned around and re-invested a significant of amount (also undisclosed) back into the company, where he remains CEO. “Hopefully,” he added, “the family will get a second bite of the apple.”
Posted by David Farkas on January 2, 2006 | Comments (0)