Marcato is an activist investor that began building up a stake in Buffalo Wild Wings last year. After a bitter proxy battle, Marcato won three of the four board seats it was seeking. After the contest ended, Buffalo Wild Wings' CEO Sally Smith said she would retire by the end of the year. The chicken-wing company has yet to name her successor. "This process has taken longer than we expected, which we believe could be due to the company and board struggling to define a clear vision for improving shareholder value," Chris O'Cull, a Stifel analyst, wrote in a research note Monday. Marcato isn't likely to gain much from a deal with Roark at its current price. It first started buying Buffalo Wild Wings shares in July 2016, when the stock was around $143 a share. Ahead of the proxy battle, Marcato owned 9.9 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings' outstanding shares.