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Robert Merritt has 24 years of experience in the restaurant and food industry having served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of three publicly traded companies. After beginning his career in 1975 as an auditor with the CPA firm of Price Waterhouse & Co., he spent four years each as the CFO of JB’s Restaurants and Vie de France Corporation, overseeing the initial public offering (IPO) of the latter.
Recently retired after 16 years at Outback Steakhouse, Inc. (Outback), Merritt was the CFO, Senior Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. Outback is a New York Stock Exchange Listed company with approximately a $3 billion market capitalization. He joined the company in 1989, managed the IPO and two secondary equity offerings from 1991-1992 and helped steward the growth of the Company from five restaurants in 1990 to over 1250 today. In 2005, he was named by Institutional Investor as the best CFO in the restaurant industry. Merritt has served on the boards of numerous for-profit and not-for-profit organizations including Outback Steakhouse, Inc., and each of its operating subsidiaries and joint ventures. He was also the past Chairman of the Board of the Association of Publicly Traded Companies, the Florida Orchestra and the Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa. | 