For what it's worth, I'll put my current thoughts and opinions down.
The stock is definitely dead money until the audited financials and merger are completed. It is my opinion that is why they have been so quiet, they are waiting to complete this.
The committments and $$$ from franchisees keeps on coming in, which tells me that they realistically could get to 75+ stores in 2007. That is very significant and would put them in the top 25 of all pizza chains, growing up the list quickly. I'd love to hear on a CC how the current stores revenue are doing...
I have to imagine that there is a significant amount of stock coming into the mkt once the merger is done, but with that said, I do believe there are a lot of strong hands in the stock. I know for one that I am most definitely not looking to sell for a few years. The way I look at it is we'll make a very good amount of $$ if we're right, or we'll lose our investment and the risk side of the equation will come home to roost.
We have some very powerful external dynamics that could work in our favor though, in my opinion. It is MY opinion that the economy is going to get shakey rather soon (probably in 07), and that means that more $$$ will be spent on eating out in the non-Chili's, Applebees, chains. People's habit is to eat out, but they'll be more apt to eat at Papa Johns, Unique Pizza, Subway, Jimmy Johns, etc... I doubt that lifestyles will change all that much, but if consumers have less to spend they'll go where they get more for their money. Pizza is generally a fairly recession-proof business.
An even more outlying idea is that the race car we're sponsoring actually starts winning, and gets upgraded to the Busch series or even the Nextel Cup. It's a long-shot, but the publicity could be perfect timing with a slew of stores opening. I'm not betting on this, but like the possibility of it happening someday.
Lastly, I think the stock market could be in for a fall soon, or at least people will be less-optimistic. Why would this help us?? It gives mgmt a little more time to get the model built well, and when the market decides to rally big again, hopefully we can really jump on the PR and get significant institutional interest in the stock. This again is just my speculation, but it wouldn't necessarily be terrible for us.
I think you have to look 2 years out on this, and watching each tick is going to cause you much nervousness. It is thinly traded, needs to get to the OTC quickly, and there are dynamics that could scare shareholders in the near term (audit, merger, etc). We should be a $200M company in 18-24 months if I were to guess, and that is a quadruple from here, I'd take that to start. In 5 years, you never do know, but if things go as planned (IF!), it could be a $500M-$700M company. Don't be so dissapointed with how quickly market cap grows today, look at the model, look at the way the local stores are doing financially, look at the # of committments to open new stores, and consider the acquisitions they could make a couple years down the road when things get moving... It's an investment, and there are a lot of long-term investors here that trust the mgmt and have put good $$ behind it.
Good luck. All IMO.
AI
