By Mark Kalinowski
Published on July 9, 2020 at 12:00 AM
In this report we examine the bull and bear cases regarding Papa John’s (PZZA; Buy, $88.26). While we maintain our Buy rating on PZZA — it continues to be our top small/mid-cap restaurant-stock pick — it is good for investors interested in PZZA to be aware of the bull and bear cases surrounding the stock, no matter what our rating on the shares is.
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By Mark Kalinowski
Published on July 6, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Is it possible the Street is underestimating sales and market-share opportunities in 2021 for the larger publicly-traded quick-service pizza concepts? We believe that Domino’s (DPZ; Buy, $374.09) and Papa John’s (PZZA; Buy, $83.66) both remain well-positioned for the future for multiple reasons, but this particular factor may be underappreciated. Incidentally, it’s possible for Pizza Hut (owned by Yum Brands [YUM; Neutral, $86.55]) to benefit from the same issue, although Pizza Hut will over the short-to-medium term likely have to deal with net unit closures, limiting to some meaningful degree its opportunity to take market share from other pizza outlets’ closures.
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By Mark Kalinowski
Published on May 27, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Earlier today, Papa John’s (PZZA; Buy, $76.32) reported that its North American same-store sales rose by a remarkable +33.5% for the April 27-May 24 timeframe. This comes on the heels of the previously-announced +26.9% for March 30-April 26, suggesting that Q2-to-date North American same-store sales are up by roughly +30% through May 24th. We raise our full-Q2E forecast by +900 basis points to +28.0%, which includes implied projections for May 25-June 28 of +20% for company-owned stores and +25% for franchised outlets.
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