{"id":3420,"date":"2023-05-03T23:06:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T23:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/?p=3420"},"modified":"2023-05-03T23:06:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T23:06:09","slug":"darden-restaurants-to-acquire-ruths-hospitality-group-for-715-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/darden-restaurants-to-acquire-ruths-hospitality-group-for-715-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Darden Restaurants to Acquire Ruth&#8217;s Hospitality Group for $715 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants is buying Ruth&#8217;s Hospitality Group, the parent company of Ruth&#8217;s Chris Steak House, for $715 million. Ruth&#8217;s, owner and operator of Ruth&#8217;s Chris Steak House (&#8220;Ruth&#8217;s Chris&#8221;), will complement Darden&#8217;s portfolio of differentiated brands, which currently includes Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Cheddar&#8217;s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Bahama Breeze and Eddie V&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Darden said its balance sheet is strong enough to pursue the all-cash deal without new financing, despite an estimated $55-60 million in acquisition and integration costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company will pay $21.50 per share, a 34% markup over yesterday&#8217;s closing price, for Ruth&#8217;s, which owns the 154-unit Ruth&#8217;s Chris Steak House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3421\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-420x420.jpeg 420w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-640x640.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-681x681.jpeg 681w, https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/darden-chart-96x96.jpeg 96w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Darden&#8217;s deal is likely the most significant restaurant space acquisition this year, as the prohibitive cost of raising capital has deterred other brands from pursuing buys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The deal will add Ruth&#8217;s units, which have a $6.2 million AUV at company-owned stores, to Darden&#8217;s brand portfolio. Cheryl Henry will continue to lead Ruth&#8217;s as brand president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although Darden owns other steakhouse brands, CEO Rick Cardenas said Ruth&#8217;s was distinctive enough and had a sufficiently strong brand identity to make an excellent addition to the company&#8217;s stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The deal is expected to close in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants is buying Ruth&#8217;s Hospitality Group, the parent company of Ruth&#8217;s Chris Steak House, for $715 million. Ruth&#8217;s, owner and operator of Ruth&#8217;s Chris Steak House (&#8220;Ruth&#8217;s Chris&#8221;), will complement Darden&#8217;s portfolio of differentiated brands, which currently includes Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Cheddar&#8217;s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Seasons [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[574,573,572],"class_list":["post-3420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brands","tag-darden","tag-olive-garden","tag-ruth-chris"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3423,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions\/3423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tridence.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}