Benihana Holder Able To Sell Over 20-Days Worth Of Share Volume (BNHN)

Benihana Inc. (NASDAQ: BNHN) is soon able to see some rather large selling from a key shareholder.  While no shares have to be sold and while no commitment to sell shares has been made, this could be the equivalent to more than twenty-seven trading days worth of shares coming on the market.  It is also after shares are much closer to a 52-week than a 52-week low.

The company filed an S-3 on behalf of BFC Financial Corporation as the selling stockholder and that entity may sell 1,582,577 outstanding shares of common stock.  These shares were issued upon the conversion of its Series B Convertible Preferred Stock originally issued to the selling stockholder in June 2004.   This does not mean that all shares will be sold at once nor that they will be dumped on the market.  The holder may offer the securities “through public or private transactions, on or off the NASDAQ Global Select Market, at prevailing market prices or at privately negotiated prices.”  The holder may also pledge, donate or transfer its securities and by other non-sale transferees; and these shares may also be sold under Rule 144 or other private placement methods.

Benihana shares closed at $11.38 on Thursday and the 52-week trading range is $6.76 to $12.01.  The average daily volume per Yahoo! Finance is only about 57,000 shares.  If the offering were to come all at once, the real tally would come to 27.7-days worth of trading volume.

As far as the total size at full market value of about $18 million, Yahoo! Finance lists the current market capitalization rate of the common shares as $203.9 million.