SONIC (SONC) up 18%, GOING PRIVATE AT 15X EBITDA – WHO IS NEXT?

Inspire Brands, affiliated with Roark, the private equity firm, has announced the intended purchase of Sonic, at a premium of about 18% to the market price prior to the offer. That values SONC at about 15 times trailing EBITDA and 30 times the current years estimated earnings. Without question, the valuation is high by historical standards, consistent with the valuations about a year ago when Buffalo Wild Wings (also by Inspire Brands) and Popeye’s by Restaurant Brands (QSR) were taken private. The valuations are a function of investors’ desire for franchising companies (“asset light”, generating “free cash flow”), as well as the relatively low interest rates that have prevailed for almost a decade now. It should also be noted that fifty-year-old Sonic’s carhop service has emerged as a uniquely efficient way to serve the convenience driven Millennials, no doubt contributing to the willingness to pay what appears to be a full price.

The natural question is “who’s next?”.

The following list of public franchising companies provides pertinent valuation parameters as well as a really brief comment about their current fundamental appeal, starting with the lowest trailing multiple of Enterprise value to trailing twelve months’ trailing (TTM) EBITDA (according to Bloomberg).

Jack in the Box (JACK) – sells at 10.4x TTM EBITDA. Having recently sold Qdoba, management is concentrating on reinvigorating the JIB chain, but there is little current sales momentum and real estate economics preclude new unit growth. The refranchising has been done, and a buyer would have to be confident in sales improvement. It happened at Arby’s but that chain had been severely mismanaged, not the case at JIB.

Papa Murphy’s (FRSH) – sells at 11.0x TTM EBITDA. This chain has consistently disappointed since coming public in 2014. Domino’s has run rings around them, attracting the FRSH Take ‘n Bake potential customer. Though several years ago disillusioned franchisees were a feature here, new management has been installed, and that problem seems to have receded. Thomas Lee owns 25% and billionaire Michael Price about 15%, so they would have to be tired of the situation at the same time that a new player became enthused.

Bojangles (BOJA) – sells at 11.1x TTM EBITDA. This chain is only about 57% franchised so more of that could be done. Operating in a very competitive segment, against KFC and Popeye’s and others, sales and traffic trends have been challenged, so a buyer would hope to restore top line momentum.

Papa John’s (PZZA) – selling at 12.1x TTM EBITDA has been a well described problem situation since John Schnatter became “the story”. We have written several articles on this subject, which you can “Search” for from our home page. The food and service were not the problem, and PZZA competed with DPZ fairly well until recently.

Denny’s (DENN) – selling at 12.2x TTM EBITDA has been improving operations in recent years, under the excellent leadership of John Miller. However, the family dining segment is very competitive, current real estate economics make it difficult to generate strong ROIs, and there is nothing unique about the venue. Much of the (modest) new unit growth has come at “non-traditional” venues such as truckstops. There is not a lot of low hanging fruit here because operations have already been improved in recent years.

Yum Brands (YUM) – selling at 12.5x TTM EBITDA, having spun off the Chinese franchisee to the public, YUM is not expensively priced, but now there is concern about the government debt driven Chinese economy. Also, with a $37B current Enterprise Value, the deal would have to approach $50B, which is getting to be real money. If an investor was comfortable with Chinese fast food, which is where the growth at YUM will come, they could look at Yum China (YUMC) which sells at only 8.0x TTM EBITDA, and that has been talked about since YUMC stock came down recently with disappointing results.

McDonald’s (MCD) – selling at 14.4x TTM EBITDA is once again playing at leadership role in the QSR space, especially among the big three hamburger chains. Especially since there is major real estate ownership here, MCD would be an obvious candidate, except that the current Enterprise Value is $159 billion, and a premium to that would be pretty large even in a world where a billion dollars isn’t what it used to be. MCD, themselves, is buying back billions of their own stock.

Wendy’s (WEN) – selling at 17.4x TTM EBITDA is adequately valued, considering that their venue is not unique and they continue to be in a battle among the big three hamburger chains. Controlled by a Peltz affiliate, Trian, who are master financial engineers, you can bet that the low hanging financial fruit has already been picked through.

Dunkin’ Donuts (DNKN) – selling at 18.0x TTM EBITDA, now without “Donuts” in their name, DNKN continues to lose market share to Starbucks, who we can bet is doubling down to regain their own traffic momentum. You never know whether JAB, who has been paying up for anything related to coffee and breakfast (Green Mountain, Peets, Panera, etc.etc.) will decide they need DNKN, but we don’t like to bet on a mediocre business based on a takeover.

Restaurant Brands (QSR) – selling at 18.6x TTM EBITDA, has been the stalker, not the stalkee. They are already leveraged, brilliant financial engineers on their own, Tim Horton’s is troubled, and Popeye’s can’t move the overall results by much. They could find a relative bargain of a company to buy, but their stock does not qualify.

Domino’s (DPZ) – selling at 25.7x TTM EBITDA is already fully valued based on their outstanding performance. A buyer would have to be very enthused about the overseas prospects (which are a fact) to pay this kind of price.

Wingstop (WING) – selling at an astronomical 53x TTM EBITDA. A fine company, but the stock is obviously not a bargain. The fundamentals may well catch up with the stock price, so we (and private equity buyers) will leave this one to the long term growth stock investors.

Conclusion:

Based on the above, we would, and we have, bet on Papa John’s (PZZA) as a takeover possibility. As we finish this article, it has just been announced that John Schnatter has shopped the company to private equity buyers. The stock is up over $3.00 today. We have written several articles on this subject, which you can “Search” for from our Home Page.

As a second candidate, though we have not purchased the stock, we suggest that Bojangles (BOJA) could be interesting. It’s not an easy turnaround, but private equity players have lots of confidence in themselves, and they don’t always ask for my opinion?. The valuation is reasonable enough, some of the company stores could no doubt be franchised, and their balance sheet is only modestly leveraged at the moment.

Footnote:

With all the above in mind, nothing surprises us in the current interest rate environment. Very low cost of capital encourages misallocation of same, and the capital markets have been demonstrating this in lots of ways for a decade.  In general, relative to the valuation of restaurant companies, we are much closer to the top of the cycle than the bottom. We suggest that there will be better purchase opportunities in the not too distant future.

Roger Lipton