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When things get tough restaurants are one of the first to get squeezed and they are getting squeezed with fuel and higher COGS....
Yep...Things will turn and these will be nice. Most all of those restaurants are big players with a long track record.
BUCA, Inc. Announces 4th Quarter and Full Year 2007 Financial Results - Posted 3/11/2008
Minneapolis, MN
BUCA, Inc. (NASDAQ: BUCA) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2007.
The company reported a net loss of $5.3 million, or ($0.26) per share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, compared with net income of $0.9 million, or $0.05 per share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006. For the fiscal year 2007, the Company reported a net loss of $16.2 million, or ($0.79) per share, compared with a net loss of $3.6 million, or ($0.18) per share, in fiscal 2006.
The fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 contained 13 weeks as compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 which contained 14 weeks.
John Bettin, the company’s Chief Executive Officer commented, “The recent restaurant environment has been challenging for us and for the industry. While we are disappointed with our recent results, we did make progress on several initiatives designed to improve average unit volumes as we work toward profitability. During fiscal 2007, we continued to evolve and strengthen the Buca di Beppo brand, implementing initiatives such as catering and our single portion option called BUCA Mio, which we believe are resonating well with our guests. On the cost side, we implemented a new labor management system, which is beginning to drive improvement as shown by our year over year labor savings in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, and we delivered improvement in product costs on a year-over-year basis.”
Fourth Quarter Results
Total restaurant sales were $64.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 as compared to $71.5 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006. The decrease in total restaurant sales was due to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 being a 13-week period as compared to 14-week in fiscal 2006, the closure of two underperforming restaurants in the first half of fiscal 2007, the loss of sales due to the temporary closure of the Company's San Francisco restaurant during parts of the quarter and the fact that the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 did not include New Year's Eve. No new restaurants opened in the period.
Buca di Beppo comparable restaurant sales decreased 2.5% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 as compared to the same period last year. The comparable restaurant sales numbers reported exclude the results of the Company’s San Francisco restaurant for the entire fourth fiscal quarters for each of 2006 and 2007. The restaurant, one of the Company’s highest sales locations, was closed for renovation beginning September 24, 2007 and reopened on November 20, 2007.
The company reported a net loss of $5.3 million, or ($0.26) per share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 as compared to net income of $0.9 million, or $0.05 per share, in the same period of the prior year. The net loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 includes a loss on disposal of assets of $0.5 million related to repairs and renovation of the Company’s San Francisco restaurant and asset impairment charges of $4.3 million.
Total restaurant costs in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 were $60.1 million, as compared to $64.5 million in the same period of the prior year. As a percentage of restaurant sales, these costs were 93.8% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, as compared to 90.1% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006.
Fiscal Year 2007 Results
For fiscal 2007, total restaurant sales were $245.6 million as compared to $253.8 million in fiscal 2006. The decrease in restaurant sales was primarily due to a shift in the Company's fiscal calendar caused by the 53rd week of fiscal 2006 which removed the relatively high sales week prior to and including New Year's Eve from the Company's first quarter of fiscal 2007 and New Year's Eve from the Company's fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. The Company's fiscal 2007 results also reflect the closure of two underperforming restaurants in the first half of 2007, the loss of sales due to the temporary closure of the Company's San Francisco restaurant during parts of the third and fourth fiscal quarters and a decrease in beverage sales.
Buca di Beppo comparable restaurant sales increased 0.7% for fiscal 2007 as compared to the same period last year. The comparable restaurant sales numbers reported exclude the results of the Company’s San Francisco restaurant for the entire third and fourth fiscal quarters for each of 2006 and 2007. The reported revenue numbers include all of the Company's revenues for all periods, including those of the San Francisco restaurant.
The company reported a net loss of $16.2 million, or ($0.79) per share, in fiscal 2007, as compared to a net loss from continuing operations of $4.6 million, or ($0.23) per share, in fiscal 2006. The fiscal 2007 net loss includes a loss on disposal of assets of $0.9 million related to repairs and renovation of the Company's San Francisco restaurant and asset impairment charges of $5.1 million.
Total restaurant costs were $233.4 million in fiscal 2007 as compared to $234.7 million in fiscal 2006. As a percentage of restaurant sales, these costs were 95.1% for fiscal 2007, as compared to 92.5% in fiscal 2006.
Conference Call
BUCA, Inc. will host a conference call on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time (3:30 p.m. Central Time) to discuss these results. John Bettin the company’s Chief Executive Officer, and Dennis Goetz Chief Financial Officer, will be hosting the call. The participant call in number is 1-888-778-9067 or 1-913-312-0962 for international callers. The passcode is 6484508. The call will be webcast and can be accessed but cutting and pasting the following link: http://viavid.net/dce.aspx?sid=00004B3A into your browser. If you are unable to join the call, a replay will be available beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on March 11, 2008 and can be accessed by dialing 1-888-203-1112 or 1-719-457-0820 (international), passcode 6484508.
About the Company:
BUCA, Inc. owns and operates 89 highly acclaimed Italian restaurants under the name Buca di Beppo in 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Thanks!
For anyone that is interested in swing trades the restaurant sector have been beat up and are starting to turn...
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=12260
How sweet is this...
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html
How sweet is this...
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html
Way to go blue....Came out swinging!
By the way is this the same Chad?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/profile.asp?user=69779
I simply did a search using the following word...
numarketing
Nothing more nothing less. Nice try!
Looks like they are able to help companies sell some shares and raise capital...
http://www.numarketsolutions.com/Performance.html
Not bashing I just did a I-Hub search for "Numarket" as I wasn't familiar with them...
Hard times are on the menu at restaurants
By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY
The restaurant industry has fallen, and it can't get up. To add insult: The worst may be yet to come.
Same-store sales are sliding. Commodity prices are climbing. Units are closing. Customers are dwindling. Some of the top names in all ends of dining are in pain, from Starbucks (SBUX) to Applebee's to The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE).
"Whether or not the rest of the economy is in a recession, the restaurant industry certainly is," says Ron Paul, president of restaurant researcher Technomic.
The financial squeeze is hitting hardest at dinner. Dinner traffic fell 2% last year, says research giant NPD Group. Lunch is slowing, too, says Dave Jenkins, president of NPD's U.S. foodservice business.
More serious troubles may be ahead for the $558 billion industry. Except at McDonald's (MCD)— which posted a mostly terrific 2007 — same-store sales at the nation's largest restaurant chains grew a paltry 0.3% last year, Technomics says. Same-store sales are those at stores open at least a year.
Worse, 49% of restaurants surveyed by the National Restaurant Association reported same-store sales fell in January, and 54% said customer traffic fell in January, the fifth month in a row.
"In the lifespan of casual dining, we haven't seen economic times like this," says Marc Buehler, CEO of Lone Star Steakhouse, which just closed 27 of 179 stores.
Evidence of tough times:
•Restaurants are closing. After the Lone Star closings, 1,500 employees lost their jobs. "We're gonna get through this," says Buehler. "But it won't be easy."
Starbucks plans to close 100 low-performing units and will unveil a strategy of key changes at its annual meeting on March 19. Pick Up Stix, a fast-casual Chinese chain, closed 26 of its nearly 100 locations in January.
•Same-store sales are falling. Few chains have been hit as hard as Ruby Tuesday (RT), whose same-store sales at company-owned stores fell 10.8% in the fourth quarter. "Unlike paying the mortgage, going out to eat is discretionary and can be changed easily," laments Richard Johnson, senior vice president.
Same-store sales at Applebee's dropped 2.9% in the fourth quarter. "Despite a challenging environment, we believe we can reverse this trend," says Julia Stewart, CEO of parent IHop (IHP). She says a new menu is in the works.
Steak 'n Shake's (SNS) same-store sales dived 9.5% in the fourth quarter at company units. Chili's fell 2.4%. And Wendy's (WEN) sales at company-owned stores fell 0.8%.
Cheesecake Factory fell 0.4%, and Howard Gordon, senior vice president, says that since going public in 1992, "We've never seen a time like this."
I usually don't smoke this early in the AM...But to each his own!
Yes they have been moving and shaking for a while now. Good stuff!
DODGERS
Team I will be rooting against
Anti GIANTS
Anti GIANTS
Anti GIANTS
Anti GIANTS
Anti YANKEES
Market Directions Sunday March 30, 2008
The Commodity Currencies
Two of the Asian Dollars, the Australian and the New Zealand and one of the North American, the Canadian, are the currencies of best know and largest of the world’s natural resource based economies. These currencies have tended to rise and fall with the commodity use cycles of global economic growth. In the past, as the industrial world economic growth waxed and waned these currencies would move higher and lower anticipating the state of world commodity usage six months to a year in the future. As the economic growth cycle reached it peak the currencies would decline with the pending drop in economic productivity, anticipating also the central bank rate cycle. In the past, growth cycles were relatively well coordinated across the western industrial world and Japan, with the United States acting as the engine for worldwide economic activity.
Into this simpler world of industrial consumers and resource producers, twinned in economic cycles, has entered the developing world, and the newly industrialized nations of Asia, foremost India and China.
These countries constitute a resource market independent of the older industrial countries. With very large populations and burgeoning consumer classes, they have continued their breakneck economic growth ignoring, so far, the slowdown in the United States. Their internal markets for consumer goods, many of them of their own production, have also grown apace. Their rapid ascent as large resource consumers has outstripped the development of new sources for commodity production. One result has been the commodity price boom, led by the most ubiquitous of all industrial commodities, oil. Resource extractions economies and their currencies have benefited with strong GDP growth and buoyant currencies.
But the situation is about to change. The American economy has stalled, it may have already entered recession, the length and depth of which is unknown. To date there have been few signs of a sympathetic slowdown in Europe, China or India. But some degree of spillover from the United States is still an assumption the currency markets cannot discount.
Will the commodity currencies, dependant as their economies are on resource exports, maintain their current high levels in the face of this potential economic slowdown? What other factors have contributed to the long sustained run in these currencies?
All three currencies have been at or near historic highs against the US Dollar in the past several months. The worldwide commodity boom and the weakness of the US currency have provided much support. But equally important for the two Asian Dollars have been the activist anti inflation policies of their central banks. The base rates in New Zealand and Australia, 8.25% and 7.25% respectively, are some of the highest in the world. But, as with global economic growth change is looming.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has not altered rates since last summer and recently moved to a neutral stance. The Australian Central Bank added 25 basis points in March and retains a tightening bias. But as the only major industrial bank still raising rates it is doubtful the policy will continue much longer. As with the ECB, the next move, at whatever timing, will likely be lower. The present rate hike cycle appears to be over. Canada with its much closer ties to the American economy has already begun its rate reductions. The support that had been provided to these currencies by the widening rate differentials will probably begin to reverse over the next months.
The last support factor for these currencies has been the extraordinary speculative run in the so called ‘carry trade'. But that too has been severely diminished in the past six months.
The New Zealand Dollar/Japanese Yen cross peaked at 97.75 last July. At its current level of 79.00 it is almost 20% below the top. Since the massive risk aversion drop in August of last year the currency pair has exhibited a steady if volatile downtrend. Much the same can be said of the Australian Dollar/Japanese Yen cross. It peaked in July at 107.50, fell precipitously at onset of the credit crisis in August, climbed again to 107.85 in late October on strength in the Australian Dollar and has since moved steadily if chaotically down to its current level of 91.00, 16% below the summit. Likewise the Canadian Dollar/Japanese Yen pair reached 125.50 early last November and is now languishing near 97.00, a 22% decline.
A good portion of the weakness in these crosses is attributable to the fall in the US dollar component of the crosses -- the dollar yen -- as the rate of the US dollar against the yen is called by traders. The cross rate for two of these pairs is obtained by multiplying the dollar yen rate by the rate for the Australian the New Zealand Dollar. But the driving force down has been the sustained aversion to speculative risk that has overtaken the currency markets since the beginning of the credit crisis last August.
The steady support these speculative crosses supplied to the non yen component, the Australian Canadian and New Zealand Dollar, as the crosses moved ever higher has been lost. And a return of the dollar yen component, that is a rise in the US Dollar against the yen will not bring these crosses back. Any gain to the cross will likely be balanced by losses in the opposite component; as the US Dollar moves higher the three other dollars will sink; the cross rate will not gain. In other words if the US dollar strengthens then the Australian New Zealand and Canadian Dollar will weaken and the carry trade crosses will continue to fall.
Of the three factors that have contributed to the long bull market in these commodity currencies only one, the demand and price for their resource exports is likely to remain at elevated levels. With the increasing worldwide demand commodity prices will not return to pre boom levels as would normally happen at the end of an expansionary economic cycle. Until high prices bring development of new sources for commodities or substitutes to market, commodity prices are likely to remain above historical norms.
The two remaining factors, the rate advantage over the US dollar and the structural support provided by the rising carry trade to the cross rate and its components have already moved to neutral, the rate advantage, or reversed, the carry trade. Neither will give the commodity currencies any further extraordinary support.
Prediction is risky, but it is likely that all three commodity currencies have peaked and will over the next year revert to more historical levels.
Joseph Trevisani
FX Solutions
Chief Market Analyst
This will get really interesting...
everyone
I will
interesting...
looks
Chart
Howdy!
Growing fast...
Nice stuff...
Nice chain.
Yes.
Howdy!
Howdy!