California Pizza Kitchen Inc. shares jumped 14 percent Friday after a news report that the Century City restaurant chain is shopping itself to potential buyers
Private-equity firms are among the parties that have been approached, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter. Company officials have not commented on the report.
The 25-year-old company, which went public in 2000, has grown to 252 restaurants, 205 of them company-owned. In addition, the company licenses its name and recipes to Glendale-based Nestle SA for a Kraft Foods line of frozen pizzas available in retail stores
Restaurant sales struggled during the recession, but overall revenue was up 3.8 percent to nearly $168 million in the quarter ended Jan. 3. The company id report a larger quarterly loss after it wrote down the value of some restaurants.
Shares close up $2.56, or 14 percent, to $20.74 on the Nasdaq, and were up 23.5 percent for the week according to the Business Journal’s index of Los Angeles’ largest public companies.
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