Golden Gate Capital To Buy CPK

California Pizza Kitchen will be acquired for $470 million by private-equity firm Golden Gate Capital. The deal was announced May 25. San Francisco-based Golden Gate said it would begin its tender offer for the publicly traded CPK by June 8 and expects to close the deal in the third quarter.

The deal comes a little more than a year after Los Angeles-based CPK said it would it seek strategic options, including a possible sale. CPK, founded in 1985, owns 205 of its restaurants, and licenses or franchises 60 others.

Golden Gate is already familiar with casual-dining. Among its brands are On The Border Mexican Grill and Romano’s Macaroni Grill, which it acquired at different times from Chili’s parent company Brinker Int’l. “The business that the CPK team has built, with its great product offerings, makes it an ideal fit with our long-term oriented approach to investing,” Josh Olshansky, a managing director with Golden Gate Capital, said in the statement.