Summit Investors Vote on CKE Restaurants Merger

Shareholders of Summit Family Restaurants Inc. met Friday to vote on a proposed merger with CKE Restaurants, but executives at the two firms declined to release results.

“We’re not going to say anything until we hear from Summit’s board,” a CKE Restaurants spokeswoman said. Meanwhile, executives at Salt Lake City-based Summit said late Friday that results of the vote were not yet ready to be released.

CKE, the Anaheim-based parent company of the Carl’s Jr. chain, had offered $25.9 million in cash and stock for Summit, which operates 124 JB’s Restaurants, Hometown Buffets and Galaxy Diners in western states.

It was uncertain on Friday whether a group of disgruntled Summit stockholders had succeeded in derailing the planned merger. In June, CKE executives said that they would back away from the Summit deal if the shareholder challenge made the deal too costly to complete.