Tag Archives: RESTAURANT STOCKS

FOLLOW THE MONEY with ROGER LIPTON – article published in prestigious RESTAURANT FINANCE MONITOR – 1/15/22

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RESTAURANT FINANCE MONITOR – 1/15/22 ISSUE – Follow the Money with Roger Lipton – Roger’s monthly column

Inflation is in fact the real concern, but not necessarily the kind the journalists are talking about. The headlines are all about supply channel distortions that lead to a rise in commodity prices and the increase in minimum wage that drives labor costs up. Those are ripples in the inflationary sea compared to the tidal wave that is lurking offshore. It just so happens that the dangers we are about to describe hang over us just as the economy is already cooling. Open Table data shows indoor dining during Christmas week was down 33% from 2019 and Jeffries’ economist just cut their Q1 Real GDP Growth estimate from 6.6% to 1.5%.  Here’s the problem. A large part of the “recovery” in the economy has been generated by consumers taking their savings rate back to 6-7% from over 30% at the beginning of the pandemic and the wealth effect due to home values and stock market indexes near record highs. Even with household wealth (on paper) at record levels, consumers’ sentiment is the lowest in at least 13 years, the lowest in 40 years by some measures. The “wealth”, however, is largely a mirage. Over half the return in the S&P 500 since April has come from five stocks, the concentration higher than 1969 or 1999, before those bubbles deflated. A number of prominent bubbles have already deflated, including the SPAC universe, and Bitcoin is down 33%. Stock in the Robinhood trading platform is down 50%, amplified by the declines of over 50% from the highs in Game Stop and AMC. All of this is to say that tens of trillions of dollars printed by central banks around the world has had a predictable effect. Until recently it did not impact food prices but asset inflation drove the wealth effect that has kept the music playing for over ten years. We doubt that our Federal Reserve leading worldwide central banks, and the conspiring political class, will have the political will to take the punch bowl very far away. The attempt to do so, however, could be very unpleasant.

Restaurant stocks, on the other hand, have corrected materially from their much higher valuations in the Spring of 2021. Especially since many well-run chains have discovered new profit centers by way of servicing off-premise diners, and could even produce record high profit margins once the pandemic dust finally settles, the fundamentals at the current valuations justify a fresh look. For example, five well established restaurant chains, starting at the top of the alphabet, BJRI, BLMN, CAKE, CBRL and CHUY, on January 5th are down an average of 28% from their highs last May. While it is true that QSR chains are actually up 10-15% over the last two years, that is distorted by the extraordinary performance of Domino’s, Papa John’s, Wingstop and Chipotle, all major beneficiaries of the pandemic. Absent those, the rest of QSR is down as well.  The five IPOs of ’21, DNUT, SG, FWRG, PTLO and BROS are down a similar 29% from their post IPO highs. The two rapidly growing service companies, TOST and OLO, are both down over 50% from highs, more extreme declines no doubt due to the fact that, promising as they are, neither is yet profitable. At this point investment in “best of breed” companies is one way to go, with names like Darden, Cheesecake and Texas Roadhouse in full service, McDonald’s and Starbucks in QSR. Priced much lower, at 6-7x near term EBITDA are mature chains such as Bloomin’ Brands, Brinker and Ark Restaurants in full service. Well established franchising companies, here to stay (and grow), in spite of recent disruptions, are companies such as Ruth’s Chris, Jack in the Box and Restaurant Brands, now trading at near term EBITDA multiples in the low teens. All these valuations are 25-40% lower than just seven to eight months ago.

Over one hundred percent has been made in less than a year in a restaurant stock that has been publicly held for almost forty years, namely Luby’s (LUB). Some of us remember when Luby’s “wrote the book” in the cafeteria business, with highly paid store managers leading a great operating culture. As late as 1999 LUB was paying $.80 per share in dividends. After a $49M loss in ’01, including a $30M write-down, the Pappas brothers, highly regarded Houston based restauranteurs, bought effective control (9% of the Company for $10M). Importantly, at that time the Company owned the land and building under 125 of their 219 restaurants. LUB has lost money in 12 of the twenty years of Pappas ownership. In the course of it, Fudruckker’s was bought in 2010 for $63M in cash, with 59 company operated stores (22 with land and building) and 129 franchised restaurants. In 2012 LUB bought Cheeseburger in Paradise for $10.3M in cash, with 23 full-service restaurants in 14 states. At the end of 2020 the Company consisted of 61 Luby’s (42 with land & building), 24 company operated Fudruckker’s (9 with land and building), 71 Fudruckker’s franchised locations, zero Cheeseburger’s. In late 2018, with the stock at $1.50, an activist investor initiated a proxy contest against 36% Pappas owners, which precipitated a Board decision in May ’19 to “consider strategic alternatives”, resulting in a September ‘20 decision to liquidate LUB with an estimated $3.50 per share value. So far $2.00 per share has been paid out, with an estimated additional $3.00 per share to come. This result illustrated, as this column suggested back in September, that the dirt can be worth more than the operations. It also didn’t hurt that both the Pappas brothers were over 70, likely an incentive to monetize their long-term holding in Luby’s.

Roger Lipton

THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY AT THE PANDEMIC’S ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY – WHAT NOW?

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THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY AT THE PANDEMIC’S ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY – WHAT NOW?

The last twelve months have been unprecedented, not only from a business/health standpoint, but from a fiscal/monetary standpoint. There has been more governmental stimulus as well as monetary accommodation than ever before, which has floated all kinds of boats. The Dow Industrial Average hit an all time high just this morning, and, though the NASDAQ index has retreated the last month or so, stocks from Apple to Tesla to Gamestop have written a new book in terms of valuation.

Based upon the new $1.9 trillion Covid bill, the likelihood of a new multi-trillion dollar infrastructure bill, as well as the Federal Reserve’s ongoing willingness to buy at least $120B of Treasury securities every month, there is every indication that the above trends will continue.

We thought that the last twelve months of performance for individual restaurant stocks might give us a hint as to where to focus going forward. Since some of the obviously large stock gains have taken place among those with the heaviest short position, we have focused on the “short interest ratio”, the number of shares sold short divided by the average daily trading volume. The table just below provides that tabulation, ranked from the highest to lowest current short interest ratio.

From a broad brush, it is shocking to see how large the moves have been from March 8, 2020 until now. It is interesting that several of the best performing “pandemic plays”, namely Domino’s, Wingstop and Papa John’s, which made very big moves over six to nine months, have retraced and are up more modestly now (zero, 56% and 47%, espectively).

This industry, by no stretch of anybody’s imagination is generally in a place that makes these companies “worth” from 50% to 90% more today than they were before the pandemic. There is somewhat less independent competition, and some companies may have learned how to serve off-premise diners better than before, but there are also a great many uncertainties. These include (1) the cost of labor with a new mix of in-store vs. off-premise (2) commodity inflation (3) other expenses to meet health requirements (4) unpredictable consumer spending (5) still substantial competition (6) ongoing high occupancy expenses, especially for new sites. There is also, in many cases, new debt to service.

Fundamentals aside: the stocks have done the following, ranked by today’s short interest ratio.

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What do we see? The average gain among the fourteen stocks with the highest short interest ratio is 90%. The bottom fourteen stocks went up by 57%. Without our focus on individual company fundamentals, readers can scan the list and conclude for themselves which stock performance is most removed from the fundamental outlook.

Where do we go from here?

Before considering the above noted $1.9 trillion Covid bill and trillions more for infrastructure, the Treasury is sitting on $1.44 trillion (to be reduced to $500B by June 30th) that was returned from the Fed last year and the Fed is currently creating $120 billion per month. This means that almost $1.5 trillion of accommodation will be provided to the economy and the markets by June 30th, before the effect of the new $1.9 trillion. This also means that equities, including restaurant stocks, may well go a lot higher in the short term. There is just too much liquidity in the capital markets.

THE BOTTOM LINE

For investors: Other things equal, we would focus on the top portion of the table above. 90% is better than 57%

For companies: In almost all cases, we would sell company stock. Pay down debt and/or build your cash balance. It may be a long time before you see these valuations again.

For management: Lighten up. You can always grant yourselves some more stock options.

Roger Lipton

(BITE) NEW ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) INCLUDES RESTAURANT STOCKS – WHAT TO KNOW

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  • Two to three analytical pieces per week (“Roger’s Rap”) personally written by Roger Lipton describing corporate developments within his industry specialization, including their relevance to the broader economy.
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