Tuesday March 7, 2023, 07:00:00

WEN: Could Wendy’s Raise its Royalty Rate at Some Point, Over Time?

By Mark Kalinowski

On its March 1st conference call, Wendy’s management commented that “we are building upon this foundation with the launch of our new Pacesetter development incentive program in the U.S. and Canada. Pacesetter will approximately double the incentive offered in our previous program, while increasing the royalty rate for new restaurants built under these development agreements to 5%.”

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Wednesday March 1, 2023, 13:09:14

WEN (Post-Call): Put Another Set of Financial Targets on the Barbie, Mate

By Mark Kalinowski

Earlier today, Wendy’s reported adjusted Q4 EPS of $0.22, coming in ahead of our $0.19 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $0.20. Fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA was $123.5 million, which had been pre-announced back on January 13th. Also pre-announced at that time was Q4 U.S. same-store sales growth of +5.9%.

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Friday January 13, 2023, 09:18:50

WEN: Doubles its Dividend, Sales Strong, But Largest Shareholder Won’t Bid for It

By Mark Kalinowski

Earlier today, Wendy’s pre-announced its Q4 results, and updated its capital allocation plans. Overall, we view most of the key points as positive for Wendy’s, although we do note that its largest shareholder is no longer considering acquiring Wendy’s outright. While we believe this outcome was widely anticipated on the Street, it may still hamper the stock in trading today. Nevertheless, we’d remain buyers of WEN.

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