Established 1999
 
8,000 companies from
USA,Canada and India.
 
   
Search over 25,000 News & Earnings Archives    
 
Earnings Calls: 
Darden Restaurants Third Quarter Earnings Call
Author: 123jump.com Staff
123jump.com
Last Update: 6:39 AM EDT March 28 2008


(Continued)

Email article | Print article

The world’s largest full service restaurant company reported sales increase of 25% from $1.45 billion in the year ago quarter to $1.81 billion in the current year quarter. This was due to the addition of LongHorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille as well as strong new and same-restaurant sales growth in Olive Garden. The quarter EPS, including discontinued operations, were 88 cents versus 72 cents last year quarter. The management expects net EPS growth of 2% to 4% in the fiscal year 2008.


Investors Question and Answers

 
 Company Website Links:
Investor Relations Financial Info Corporate / History Profile Executives Products Services
 
Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:August  Q2:November  Q3:February  Q4:May
 
Brad Richmond: The 33% on G&A would be correct. There is some impact on restaurant expenses.

Clarence Otis: It was 36 basis points on restaurant expenses and 140 basis points favorable on labor and 140 basis points unfavorable on food costs.

Brad Luddington (Keybanc Capital Markets): What was the impact of the integration costs and purchase accounting?

Brad Richmond: The one-time items in the quarter were about 5 cents.

John Ivankoe (J.P. Morgan): We’re in a very interesting industry environment where a lot of your peers are taking pricing in excess of your own and have traffic that is more negative than your own. Can you give us a view on the consumer and how the consumer is responding to menu price and whether you think that you can pass through without affecting your underlying traffic trend?

Brad Richmond: It’s a tricky environment. We think basically the consumer is very value and price sensitive, and the trade is pricing against traffic. We do think that given our competitive advantages in terms of support costs and those are amplified right now by the synergistic cost savings from the acquisition that we are in a position where we can be a little bit more judicious on the pricing side and profitably build market share.

Joseph Buckley (Bear Stearns): You gave the full year same-store sales guidance on a blended basis. Just for clarification, where are you at the end of the third quarter and does that include RARE only from the date of acquisition? What does it imply for the fourth quarter blended rate?

Brad Richmond: On a year-to-date, blended rate including Longhorn for our entire fiscal year is in the mid 2.5% range.
  1  2  3  4 More: Earnings Calls

 


 

350 Fund Managers Interviews - 10-year Annual earnings on 4,600 U.S. companies - 20-quarter Earnings on 3,800 U.S. companies - 3,200 U.S. IPO Prospectuses
- 2,100 Economic data releases from U.S., EU, UK, India, HK and Australia. 10-year Annual reports on 3,500 U.S. companies -
U.S. Earnings Calendar with 4,800 companies - 90,000 10-K reports - 26,000 Global markets news archive - 2,200 Earnings Conference Call Summaries

© 1999-2008 123jump.com. All rights reserved