DENN (Post-Call) Accelerated Refranchising and Grand Slam Same-Store Sales

By Mark Kalinowski Published on July 30, 2019 at 12:00 AM

After today’s market close, Denny’s (DENN; Buy) reported adjusted Q2 EPS of $0.23, ahead of our $0.18 estimate and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $0.18. We attribute the EPS beat to some “tax provision benefits” — the Q2 actual (adjusted) tax rate was -1.2%; a more normalized tax rate of approximately 20.0% would have led to an adjusted EPS number of about $0.18, by our calculations.

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DPZ The Low Point for The New Normal… Or Not

By Mark Kalinowski Published on July 16, 2019 at 12:00 AM

Earlier today, Domino’s (DPZ; Buy) reported second-quarter EPS of $2.19, ahead of our $2.04 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $2.02. However, a lower-than-projected tax rate of 12.9% (versus our 20.5% projection and consensus of 19.8%) helped EPS by about $0.20 relative to our forecast. On the other hand, EPS was hampered by about $0.04 related to a loss on the sale of 59 New York City area stores. Taking the tax-rate and refranchising loss issues out, Q2 EPS would have been one cent below our forecast and one cent above sell-side consensus.

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YUM (Post-Call) Favorable Tax Rate Helps Q1 Adjusted EPS

By Mark Kalinowski Published on May 1, 2019 at 12:00 AM

Earlier today, Yum Brands (YUM; Buy) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $0.82, surpassing our $0.72 forecast (which had incorporated an anticipated -$0.09 hit from markto-market of Yum’s investment in GrubHub [GRUB; Not Rated]) and the $0.81 consensus number (likely not apples-to-apples with our forecast). Yum notes that “We reflected the change in fair value of our investment in Grubhub by recording $20 million of pre-tax investment expense, resulting in a negative ($0.05) impact in EPS.”

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