Carrols’ third-quarter loss narrows

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TAST) on Wednesday reported a loss of $1.7 million, or 5 cents a share, in the third quarter that ended Sept. 28.

The Syracuse–based firm is the nation’s largest Burger King franchisee.

The latest quarterly loss is an improvement over the loss of $2.8 million, or 12 cents a share, that Carrols reported in the prior-year quarter.

Carrols announced its third-quarter financial results before the open of trading Wednesday morning. The company’s stock price fell 31 cents, or nearly 4 percent, to $7.55 yesterday, and was unchanged in today’s trading, as of 3:10 p.m.

Carrols also announced the completion of its acquisition of 64 Burger King restaurants from certain subsidiaries of Heartland Food LLC. Downers Grove, Ill.–based Heartland Food is the second largest franchisee of the Burger King restaurant chain, according to the Heartland website. Carrols first announced that acquisition on Aug. 22.

The net loss included acquisition and integration costs in this year’s third quarter, along with impairment and other lease charges in both 2013 and 2014. Such charges totaled $1.2 million, or 2 cents per share, after tax in the third quarter of 2014 and $1.1 million, or 3 cents per share, after tax in the prior-year period, Carrols said.

Restaurant sales totaled more than $179 million in this year’s third quarter, up nearly 7 percent from the more than $168 million generated during the year-earlier period.

The revenue included $7.8 million in sales from 29 Burger King restaurants that Carrols acquired in 2014 through the end of the third quarter.

Comparable restaurant sales increased 3.3 percent compared to a 0.4 percent increase in the prior-year period, according to the Carrols earnings report. That’s the firm’s best quarter in that measure in almost two years, according to Daniel Accordino, Carrols CEO.

“This reflected continued traction from the 2 for $5 menu promotions and success of the limited-time return and promotion of Chicken Fries. Despite the headwind from a 32 [percent] increase in beef costs from the third quarter of 2013, we also increased restaurant-level EBITDA, restaurant-level EBITDA margin and adjusted EBITDA due to operational improvements made over the past year at the restaurants acquired from Burger King Corporation in 2012. We are further encouraged by robust October sales trends from our recent $1.49 Chicken Nuggets promotion,” said Accordino.

EBITDA is short for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Carrols is now operating 675 Burger King restaurants across 15 states.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com