DIN (Post-Call): Sales Recovering Despite IHOP Turning Adam Sandler Away

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on May 5, 2021 at 1:22 PM

Earlier today, Dine Brands reported adjusted Q1 EPS of $1.75, well above our $0.80 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $0.87. We attribute the EPS outperformance relative to our forecast to: (1) a much more favorable tax rate than projection (-6.6% actual vs. 25.0% projected); this helped Q1 EPS by about +46 cents, (2) better-than-expected Cost of Franchise and Restaurant Revenues as a percentage of Franchise and Restaurant Revenues (47.9% actual vs. 51.8% estimated), (3) more favorable than anticipated G&A/Revenue (19.5% actual vs. 20.6% forecasted), and (4) same-store sales than beat expectations for both Applebee’s U.S. and IHOP U.S.

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Updating our Q1E Kalinowski Family Dining Same-Store Sales Index

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on April 7, 2021 at 4:23 PM

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Family Dining Index for Q1E to -7.8%. This 7.8% figure reflects implicit monthly numbers of about -27% for January 2021, -26% for February 2021, and +54% for March (helped by super-easy year-over-year comparisons being lapped from mid-to-late March 2020… we believe family dining sector same-store sales declined by about -45% during March 2020 as a whole, getting worse as that month progressed).

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DIN: Updating our EPS and Same-Store Sales Forecasts for IHOP

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on April 7, 2021 at 4:02 PM

With this report, we increase our Q1E U.S. same-store sales forecast for IHOP by +600 basis points, to -5.0%. As of this writing, sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) is at -9.9%. Our increased forecast represents (inter-related) factors including: (1) general improvement in one-year and two-year family dining sector sales trends, (2) benefits from stimulus-related consumer spending in March, and (3) “spring fever” perhaps finding itself a little more in bloom than usual amongst consumers this time of the year, given all that has been battled over the last 12+ months.

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