CKE Sells 125 More Restaurants

ORANGE COUNTY, CA-Less than a month after announcing plans to sell 48 of its Hardee’s restaurants, locally based restaurant giant CKE Restaurants Inc. says it will sell all of its highly profitable Taco Bueno fast-food chain to a San Diego-area investment group for $90 million.

The sale to privately held Red Tail Ventures LLC, based in the San Diego County of Carlsbad, involves 125 Taco Bueno stores. The transaction will allow Anaheim-based CKE to focus on its Carl’s Jr. hamburger chains and on turning around the under-performing Hardee’s restaurants that are left in its portfolio.

Though the sale itself is unlikely to effect any leases involving the Taco Bueno chain, CKE is already trying to restructure terms of many of its bank loans. The loans require that CKE apply proceeds from the sale toward its $255 million in debt.

CKE announced plans earlier this year to sell at least 500 stores in 2000 in an effort to raise $200 million. As part of those efforts, it agreed last month to sell 48 of its Hardee’s restaurants for $13.5 million to Doro Inc., a chain based in Wisconsin.