Cheesecake Officials to Repay Option Proceeds

Officials at The Cheesecake Factory will give back a reported $1 million in pay they received as a result of improperly dated stock option grants. The company said that it “incorrectly applied the measurement date” in granting stock options to executive officers in fiscal years 1997 through 2001, to non-executive officers and other employees between fiscal years 1997 and 2004 and to outside directors in the fiscal years 2000 and 2001. Cheesecake also said it would restate its financials to record expenses totaling about $5.5 million as a result of the improperly applied options. The executives will repay the difference between the stock option proceeds received and the proceeds that would have been received had the options been granted using different dates. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, David Overton, CEO of Cheesecake, along with its former CFO Gerald Dietchle, are among the executives involved in the stock option grants.