I guess there ARE still Big Boy restaurants still out there! I remember the old one in my former abode which had the plaster statue of the fat kid out front. Always used to have comic books and games for the kids and they DID have a nice Burger...ok I will stop waxing nostalgic.
Frisch's Restaurants (FRS) is having a nice day today: currently FRS is trading at $23.75 up $1.40 or 6.26%. And that will buy you a few fries!
FRS, according to money.cnn.com "...operates, as of 6/1/03, 88 family restaurants using the Big Boy trade name and 20 Golden Corral grill-buffet style family restaurants."
On July 14, 2003, FRS announced fourth quarter and year-end results for the quarter ending June 1, 2003: revenues were up 12% to $58 million from $51 million last year and net earnings for the quarter rose to $3.06 million from $2.02 million last year or on a per share basis: $.61 vs $.40 last year. This was reported by PRNewswire and posted by the NYTimes on the Web.
Morningstar confirms the recent trend of growing revenue with $141 million reported in 1998, $148 million in 1999, $167 million in 2000, $190 million in 2001 and $212 million in 2002. Revenues were $234.9 million in 2003 as just reported in the previous paragraph.
To add a little ketchup and mayo to the already juicy burger: FRS announced on 9/3/03 that they were increasing their quarterly dividend by 22%. (excuse my puns!)
Free cash flow has been much less than spectacular with $2 million reported in 2000, ($9) million in 2001, ($9) million in 2002 but $1 million positive cash flow has been reported in the past twelve months per Morningstar.com.
Assets and Liabilities are a bit heavy on the liabilities side with $2.9 million in cash and $8.5 million in other current assets reported. Unfortunately, Morningstar reports $25.5 million in current liabilities and $44.2 million in long-term liabilities. This is a definite negative on this issue.
Per Yahoo, the market cap is a SMALL $117.49 million. The trailing p/e is a very reasonable 11.46, the price/sales is downright cheap at 0.47 and price/book is at 1.65. As already noted, the stock DOES pay a dividend, currently yielding 1.97% on the common. There are only 4.95 million shares outstanding and 2.90 million of them that float. There are 4,000 shares out short representing 0.14% of the float and 1.333 trading days.
This, I believe, is our SECOND burger stock with the other stock being Red Robin Gourmet Burger....the numbers are attractive and if the debt situation improves, I suspect we may see an expansion of the p/e and a nice profit on an investment like this.
I do not own any shares of this stock but would be a candidate to purchase some if the cash became available. Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions or comments, always think about posting right here on the comments below the post...or email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Bob