Hardee S Food Systems Inc

CKE Restaurants Inc., the nation's fourth-largest hamburger chain, said Thursday that sagging sales at its Hardee's unit had caused another quarter of losses. The Anaheim company, which also owns the Carl's Jr. chain, said Thursday it lost $2.5 million, or 5 cents a share, in its first quarter ended May 22. A year ago, the company reported net income of $19.4 million, or 37 cents a share.

The hottest new hamburger at Hardee's is an unabashedly unhealthful mountain of meat called the Monster Thickburger. Loaded with two 1/3-pound Angus beef patties, four strips of bacon and three slices of cheese, slathered with a generous glob of mayonnaise and encased in a buttered bun, it's not exactly a celebration of calorie counting. Who's counting? When the 1,420-calorie, 107-fat-gram behemoth was unleashed, people gobbled it up.

CKE Restaurants Inc. of Anaheim said Friday it expects to report an 87% gain in revenue, to $1.15 billion, for the year ended Jan. 26, thanks to its acquisition of Hardee's Food Systems. The company said same-store sales at its Carl's Jr. Restaurants rose 6.7% in the fourth quarter and 4.8% for the year, while Hardee's same-store sales fell 9.3% in the fourth quarter because some menu items were deleted.

CKE Restaurants Inc., the Anaheim operator of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. fast-food chains, said Tuesday its fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened because sales at Hardee's restaurants fell while labor and maintenance costs increased. Despite a larger loss for the year as well, the company's stock rose 26% Tuesday, gaining 56 cents to close at $2.70 on the New York Stock Exchange.

CKE Restaurants Inc., an operator of fast-food chains, said sales at its Hardee's stores open at least a year will decline for the rest of the year as it struggles to revive consumer interest in its hamburger and chicken-sandwich lunch and dinner menus. These same-store sales, an important business barometer, are expected to fall about 7% in the fiscal third quarter and about 2% in the fourth quarter, said C.

Shares of CKE Restaurants Inc. are getting charbroiled by investors, who apparently want improved performance from the Hardee's franchise more quickly than the hamburger chain can dish it up. Anaheim-based CKE, best known for its Carl's Jr. fast-food outlets, has had a lot to chew on since it purchased 557 Hardee's restaurants from franchisee Advantica Restaurant Group Inc. on April 1.

CKE Restaurants Inc. executive Andrew F. Puzder has been tapped to run the company's struggling Hardee's chain. Puzder, 49, who for years served as attorney for CKE founder Carl Karcher, takes over a chain that has been a major drain on the Anaheim company's resources. "He's got some heavy lifting ahead of him because Hardee's is in a serious state of disrepair," said Allan F. Hickok, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.

Hardee's announced a new, leaner quarter-pound hamburger, but competitors said the fast-food company is playing catch-up. The Rocky Mount, N.C.-based company on Tuesday announced "The Lean 1," a quarter-pound burger with an average of 18 grams of total fat, which it described as the lowest-fat burger in the business. A spokesman for competitor Wendy's said that firm's quarter-pound single hamburger has 15 grams of fat, lower than any of the competitors.

CKE Restaurants Inc., the nation's fourth-largest hamburger chain, said Tuesday it sold 121 more of its company-owned Hardee's restaurants to franchisees for about $37 million. The company sold 112 of the Hardee's restaurants to one buyer for about $35 million and the other nine in a separate transaction for about $2 million.

CKE Restaurants Inc., owner of the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. hamburger chains, said it sold an additional 121 of its company-owned Hardee's restaurants to franchisees for a total of about $37 million. The company sold 112 of the Hardee's restaurants to one buyer for about $35 million and the other nine locations in a separate transaction for about $2 million.

CKE Restaurants Inc., the nation's fourth-largest hamburger chain, said Thursday that sagging sales at its Hardee's unit had caused another quarter of losses. The Anaheim company, which also owns the Carl's Jr. chain, said Thursday it lost $2.5 million, or 5 cents a share, in its first quarter ended May 22. A year ago, the company reported net income of $19.4 million, or 37 cents a share.

CKE Restaurants Inc., the nation's fourth-largest hamburger chain, said Thursday that sagging sales at its Hardee's unit had caused another quarter of losses. The Anaheim-based company, which also owns the Carl's Jr. chain, said it lost $2.5 million, or 5 cents a share, in its first quarter ended May 22. A year ago, the company reported net income of $19.4 million, or 37 cents a share.

CKE Restaurants Inc. executive Andrew F. Puzder has been tapped to run the company's struggling Hardee's chain. Puzder, 49, who for years served as attorney for CKE founder Carl Karcher, takes over a chain that has been a major drain on the Anaheim company's resources. "He's got some heavy lifting ahead of him because Hardee's is in a serious state of disrepair," said Allan F. Hickok, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.

Standard & Poor's lowered its ratings on CKE Restaurants Inc.'s debt Thursday, citing the survival struggle in the Anaheim company's Hardee's restaurant chain. CKE, the fourth-largest quick-service hamburger chain in the U.S., operates 3,865 restaurants operating primarily under the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's brand names. S&P said it is likely to take some time before the sales trend at the Hardee's chain turns positive, despite major efforts by CKE to revitalize it.

Carl's Jr. parent CKE Restaurants Inc., looking to gain complete control of the Hardee's burger chain, said it plans to buy the remaining 557 Hardee's restaurants it doesn't own from South Carolina-based Advantica Restaurants Group Inc. Anaheim-based CKE would pay $415 million in cash and stock to Advantica, which was known as Flagstar Cos. before emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

The owner of Carl's Jr. restaurants, bidding to become one of the nation's largest hamburger-chain operators, has agreed to acquire the 3,100-outlet Hardee's fast-food chain, sources said Sunday. The $325-million deal, which sources said will be announced this morning before the stock market opens, would dramatically expand the operations of Carl's Jr. parent CKE Restaurants Inc. beyond its Southern California base by giving it an immediate presence east of the Mississippi River.

Hardee's is turning to some popular recording artists to try to ring up more sales for the struggling restaurant chain. Motown legend Smokey Robinson, Vonda Shepard of television's "Ally McBeal," Boys II Men, Lace and Lou Bega are the centerpieces of a new $100-million marketing campaign created by Johnson/Ukropina Creative Marketing in Irvine. Hardee's parent, CKE Restaurants Inc. in Anaheim, hired Johnson/Ukropina as the chain's national advertising agency in December.

The struggling Hardee's hamburger chain has hired Irvine-based Johnson/Ukropina Creative Marketing as its national advertising agency, overseeing a new media campaign to update Hardee's' image. Johnson/Ukropina will handle print and broadcast advertising for Hardee's, which has an annual advertising budget of $100 million. The new ad campaign is scheduled to debut in March. Johnson/Ukropina replaces Leap Partnership in Chicago, which had the Hardee's account for just over a year.