This year's annual meeting will be a busy one for shareholders of Granite City Food & Beverage Ltd. They will not only vote on a stock transaction that will make a private equity firm the biggest shareholder of the casual restaurant chain, but they will decide whether pay for performance principles should be abandoned when the performance is bad.
Shareholders will consider a measure that would replace almost 200,000 stock options with new options, priced at $2. The company's shares currently trade at just under $4.The new options would vest on Dec. 28, 2011.
About 70 percent of the underwater options are held by four current executives, and the weighted average strike price is $23.04, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company said the lower-priced options would "restore rentention incentives."
GCFB's shares traded as high as $38.52 in early 2007, but they've been below $10 since late '08. The company has lost money every year since at least 2006.
