SYRACUSE — Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TAST), the world’s largest Burger King franchisee, earned $2.1 million, or 5 cents a share, during the first quarter of 2016. That’s a big improvement from a net loss of $9.3 million, or 27 cents a share, in the prior-year period, Syracuse–based Carrols reported on May 10. The company’s […]
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SYRACUSE — Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TAST), the world’s largest Burger King franchisee, earned $2.1 million, or 5 cents a share, during the first quarter of 2016.
That’s a big improvement from a net loss of $9.3 million, or 27 cents a share, in the prior-year period, Syracuse–based Carrols reported on May 10.
The company’s restaurants generated revenue of more than $222 million, up 15 percent compared to the more than $193 million generated during the first quarter of 2015.
The 2016 figure includes more than $53 million in sales from the 190 Burger King restaurants that it acquired between 2014 and 2016, the company said.
Carrols’ adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) more than doubled to $18.5 million from $7.7 million in the prior-year period.
The first quarter marked a “strong start” to 2016, Daniel Accordino, CEO of Carrols, said in the company’s earnings report.
“We posted a 5.7 percent increase in comparable-restaurant sales against a formidable increase of 8.4 percent in the prior year, improved restaurant-level EBITDA margin by over 400 basis points to 13.8 percent, and more than doubled adjusted EBITDA to $18.5 million. Our solid performance reflects the effectiveness of Burger King’s product and promotional strategy in this competitive environment. We also successfully leveraged these strong top-line gains, and with the help of lower beef costs, were able to substantially increase overall profitability. Given our first quarter results, we have moderately revised our full year guidance,” said Accordino.
The company CEO, in an earnings conference call, said that Burger King had success with its newly launched “5 for $4 offering,” which includes a bacon cheeseburger, four-piece chicken nuggets, small fry, a small drink, and a chocolate-chip cookie. He also credited the new product launches of grilled hot dogs and the “angriest WHOPPER Sandwich” as helping boost sales.
In revising its earnings outlook, Carrols now anticipates total restaurant sales between $935 million and $960 million, up from its previous range between $930 million and $955 million.
The updated sales estimates include a comparable-restaurant sales increase of between 2 percent and 4 percent, which is “unchanged from our previous estimate,” Carrols said in the earnings report.
In the report, Accordino also noted that Carrols will “continue to focus” on other “strategic priorities,” in addition to its “ongoing” efforts to improve operations and financial performance at recently acquired restaurants.
“…enhancement of our asset base through our multi-year remodeling program and opportunistically expanding our business through accretive acquisitions. During the first quarter, we reimaged 10 restaurants to the 20/20 design image and plan to have approximately 75 percent of our restaurants remodeled by the end of the year. We also acquired 12 restaurants in central Pennsylvania in February 2016 and are currently working on several other potential transactions that are in various stages of evaluation or negotiation,” said Accordino.
Carrols owned and operated 717 Burger King restaurants at the end of the first quarter on April 3, the company said.
Carrols reported its first-quarter earnings before the open of trading on May 10. Its stock price rose nearly 5 percent that day.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com