Franchise takeout food operator Restaurant Brands Ltd reports better trading conditions have allowed it to increase its profit guidance for the year to February 28 to $17.5 million.
This represents a 50% or $5.8 million improvement on the prior year's result, and will produce earnings per share of 18 cents for the company, which manages the KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks brands in New Zealand. EPS in the last financial year was 8.5 cents.
The profit upgrade is the second in the last two months. The company announced in September that it expected net full year earnings to top $15 million, thanks to strong growth in the KFC business and turnaround at Pizza Hut. KFC accounted for almost 70% of total revenue and 90% of earnings last year.
The announcement was made after trading closed today. RBD was unchanged for the day at $1.46 a share.
“Just like most retail investors the New Zealand government, thanks to Bill English’s decision to suspend payments to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) last year, has missed out on the big upswing in markets.
As I noted in an earlier blog April 2009 was quite possibly the worst time, in an investment sense, to suspend [...]” David ChaplinMore »