Look to Popeyes to Learn about Domino’s and Papa John’s (Updated)

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on February 16, 2021 at 4:59 PM

In December, we published a report — “Look to Popeyes to Learn about Domino’s and Papa John’s” — in which we noted that Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen would lap highly challenging same-store sales comparisons before Domino’s and Papa John’s would, and how Popeyes performed might have some lessons for these pizza players. Since then, Popeyes’ parent company Restaurant Brands International (QSR; Not Rated) reported that Popeyes’ Q4 2020 U.S. same-store sales declined by -6.4%. This, of course, lapped Popeyes’ Q4 2019 U.S. same-store sales advance of +37.9% — the best quarter for any publicly-traded restaurant concept of meaningful size of which we are aware.

YUM (Post-Call): U.S. Same-Store Sales Off to Double-Digit Start in Early 2021

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on February 4, 2021 at 3:00 PM

Earlier today, Yum Brands reported Q4 2020 adjusted EPS of $1.15, above our $1.01 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $1.01. We calculate that the Q4 adjusted tax rate was approximately 8.5%, much more favorable than our 21.0% estimate and consensus of 20.8%. We further calculate that relative to our tax-rate projection, the actual adjusted Q4 tax rate added about +15 cents to Q4 adjusted EPS. Excluding this factor, Q4 adjusted EPS would have been closer to $1.00.

Updating our Q4E Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Same-Store Sales Index

By Mark Kalinowski Published on January 25, 2021 at 12:00 AM

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index for Q4E to -2.4%. While this is a lot better than Q2 2020’s -17.5%, and similar to Q3 2020’s -2.0%, it is somewhat disappointing in the context that as of mid-October we thought there was a 40% chance that Q4 2020 would turn positive. That was not meant to be.