By Mark Kalinowski
Published on September 3, 2019 at 12:00 AM
With this report, we downgrade the shares of Domino’s (DPZ) to Neutral (from Buy). Our downgrade reflects (1) growing concerns that over the next 12-18 months, competition from third-party delivery aggregators will have a larger (i.e., worse) effect on Domino’s U.S. same-store sales than they did over the last 12-18 months, (2) our worries that the law of large numbers may have finally caught up with Domino’s U.S. following the annual +5.4% to +12.0% same-store sales gains of 2013-18, (3) rising competition from the leading fast-casual pizza concepts, particularly privately-held Blaze Pizza, whose co-founder Rick Wetzel comments “There’s a huge opportunity to go at Domino’s in particular,” and (4) the possibility of a reinvigorated Papa John’s (PZZA; Buy) down the road, given that concept’s recent hire of a new “change agent” CEO.
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By Mark Kalinowski
Published on August 27, 2019 at 12:00 AM
Earlier today, Papa John’s (PZZA) announced a CEO change, bringing in Rob Lynch — most recently President at privately-held Arby’s Restaurant Group — to be the new CEO. We upgrade the shares of PZZA to Buy (from Neutral) based on this switch, as we expect Mr. Lynch to be a catalyst for a greater pace of change at the company.
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By Mark Kalinowski
Published on August 6, 2019 at 12:00 AM
In our June 17th report “DPZ: 2019 Franchise Disclosure Document Review for Domino’s,” (see also our June 18th “DPZ: Clarification re: 2019 Franchise Disclosure Document Review for Domino’s”) we included tables showing average weekly unit sales and median weekly unit sales for franchised, company-owned, and combined Domino’s U.S. stores for 2013-17 because — as of June 17th — data in this respect for 2018 was not yet part of the Franchisee Disclosure Document (FDD). However, Domino’s recently updated its 2019 FDD, and now includes this information for 2018. As such, here is that information for 2014-18:
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