Carl’s Jr. Chairwoman Denies She’ll Resign : Fast food: Elizabeth Sanders rejects reports of a June departure, says she’ll remain in Karcher Enterprises post as long as the board backs her.

Elizabeth A. Sanders angrily denied reports that she plans to resign her position as chairwoman of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain, a post she was handed Oct. 1 when directors ousted the company’s founder in a bitter boardroom battle.

Reached Thursday while traveling, Sanders forcefully rejected the notion in published reports that she would step down by June from the top spot of Carl Karcher Enterprises.

“I don’t have any plans to resign,” Sanders said. “There has not been any discussion of resignation between me and the board. I have a willingness to serve as long as I am beneficial to the company.”

Karcher Enterprises spokesman Roger Pondell also said Thursday that “there are no specific plans” for her to step down.

Sanders, 47, of Sutter Creek, acknowledged that she took the position on an interim basis after she joined a board majority to remove Carl N. Karcher as chairman. But she said she intended to remain in her new post as long as the board wished her to remain.

Karcher had been locked in a protracted battle over the company’s strategic direction. Last week, an investor group took control of most of Karcher’s shares and the board invited him back as chairman emeritus.

Both Sanders and Orange County title insurance executive William P. Foley, who heads the new investor group called the Cannae Limited Partnership, predicted that the board’s composition would change anyway by June.

One other director is believed ready to step down soon, perhaps as early as the board’s next meeting in January.

“There will naturally be evolution on this board, and that is how it should be,” Sanders said. “A board continually needs to be refreshed. But I deny any plans to resign. There Elizabeth A. Sanders

are no specific dates, we haven’t even discussed it.”

Fellow board member Kenneth Olsen said, however, that a departure by Sanders “wouldn’t surprise me at all.” She took the job “in an interim role,” he said.

“She’s been coming down (to Anaheim) for eight to 10 hours a week from her home in Sutter Creek, but she never intended to be a full-time chairman, and the outside directors knew that,” Olsen said.

Sanders vehemently dismissed the idea that the distance between her Northern California home and Orange County has any impact on her ability to work. She said she often flies into Orange County on other business.

Foley and his investment group, which won two seats on Karcher’s nine-member board Dec. 10, haven’t talked to Sanders about her intentions either, said Frank P. Willey, one of the investors.

Both Foley and Willey said that reports Wednesday of her intentions to resign surprised them as much as it did her.

Were she to leave soon, Willey said, it would throw a new set of issues at the investor group, which, with Karcher and other allies, controls about 40% of the company’s stock.

No one, for instance, has thought about whether anyone needs to occupy a salaried position as chairperson, especially with Karcher as chairman emeritus and Donald E. Doyle as chief executive.

“We haven’t had a lot of discussions with the board yet on (Sanders’) role or the need for a full-time chairman,” Willey said. “We’ve got to look at a lot of things from a cost-containment perspective. Maybe the full-time salary is something we need to think about.”

Foley has previously said he didn’t intend to become CKE’s chairman, though Sanders and others say he would have no trouble being elected to the post.

Foley already may have his hands full as chairman and chief executive of Irvine-based Fidelity National Financial Inc., which has grown quickly to become the nation’s fifth-largest title insurance company and is building a war chest to acquire more companies.