Starbucks rival Panera stumbles along...

Panera Bread, the "next Starbucks", reported on Feb.12 (Reuters) that its fourth quarter earnings fell to $18 million ($.56 cents/share) compared to the previous year's net of $18.9 million ($.59/share). The company apparently continues to be squeezed between higher costs, lower traffic, and governance issues. All of this keeps the managers of two Shamrock Activist Value funds (notably Roy Disney and Disney lawyer Stanley Gold) not happy with company management as their over 5% stake in the company has been in a state of steady decline for the last several months. Shamrock has called for a number of changes in Panera, including: splitting the chairman and CEO positions; adding new board members; converting class B shares into class A shares, with one-for-one voting rights to diminish founder Ron Schaich's 16.3% voting right at Panera through his control of more than 90% of the class B shares.