FAT Brands Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 31, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to FAT Brands Inc. 2nd Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen only mode. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, July 31, 2024.

Operator

On the call from FAT Brands are Chairman of the Board, Andy Waterhorn and Co Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Ken Hewitt. This afternoon, the company made its Q2 2024 financial results publicly available. Please refer to the earnings release and earnings supplement, both of which are available in the Investors section of the company's website at www.fatbrands.com. Each contain additional details about the Q1. But before we begin, I must remind everyone that part of the discussion today will include forward looking statements.

Operator

These forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward looking statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The company does not undertake to update these forward looking statements at a later date. For a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial condition, please see today's earnings release and recent SEC filings. During today's call, the company will also discuss non GAAP financial measures, which it believes can be useful in evaluating its performance.

Operator

The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation nor as a substitute for the results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are available in today's earnings release. I would now like to turn the call over to Andy Weidderhorn, Chairman of the Board.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. I'd like to begin by thanking all of our team members, franchisees and dedicated employees across our brand portfolio. Their unwavering commitment and strong execution are the driving forces behind our continued growth. First, let's briefly discuss our financial highlights the Q2. Total revenue grew 42.4 percent to $152,000,000 compared to $106,800,000 in the prior year quarter, driven by the acquisition of Smokey Bones in September of 2023.

Speaker 1

System wide sales grew to 614 point $7,000,000 a 7.3% increase when compared to the prior year quarter. Turning to profitability, adjusted EBITDA was 15,700,000 compared to $23,100,000 in last year's same quarter. It's important to note that in Q2 of 2023, we received employee retention tax credits of $12,700,000 versus $2,100,000 in Q2 of this year, a difference of $10,600,000 If you exclude the ERTCs and you look at adjusted EBITDA on an apples to apples basis, our adjusted EBITDA actually increased $2,800,000 or 30.8 percent in Q 2 of 2024. Over the last several years, FAT Brands has experienced significant expansion, boasting a portfolio of 18 diverse brands. To support this rapid expansion and to follow and to allow for continued growth, which together form the cornerstone of our strategy, we have implemented a robust and comprehensive management and systems platform.

Speaker 1

The infrastructure was designed to not only sustain our current brands, but also enable an efficient and accretive incorporation of other brands that we may acquire. This month, we were recognized for our commitment to excellence throughout our continued growth, earning a spot on Time Magazine's and Statista's America's Best Midsized Companies of 2024 list. The list factored in revenue growth, employee satisfaction and sustainability transparency. Our brands also achieved many accolades over the quarter, including 11 of our brands being named to Technomic's top 500 list for 20 24, which ranks the highest grossing restaurant brands in the U. S.

Speaker 1

Fizzoli is being recognized by Technomic Ignite Consumer for the highest score and the value amongst other fast casual brands and Marvel Slab Creamery receiving a top spot on USA TODAY's 2024 10 Best Readers' Choice Awards list in the dessert and treat category. Now let me provide some updates on each of our 3 strategic priorities. First, organic growth. As of June 30, 2024, our franchisee base consisted of approximately 7 90 franchisees who operate in aggregate of approximately 2,100 restaurants, including restaurants under construction. We also directly own and operate approximately 190 corporate restaurants across 4 brands.

Speaker 1

In the Q2, we expanded our footprint by opening 24 new locations, bringing our total year to date openings through July 31 to 45 units. We anticipate opening 120 new units in total this year, which is comparable to the amount of new stores we opened in 2023. Both established and new franchisees alike are actively signing new development agreements for not only brands they currently own and operate, but also for other brands within our portfolio. This ongoing investment and diversification by our franchisees is a strong indicator of the overall health and confidence within the fat franchise system. Our development pipeline remains robust with over 1100 additional units slated to open in the coming years.

Speaker 1

We project when opened that this substantial pipeline of additional units can generate approximately $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 in incremental adjusted EBITDA, which provides an opportunity to organically reduce our leverage. As part of this pipeline, we are prioritizing accelerated growth within our polished casual segment, which consists of our Twin Peaks and Smokey Bones brands. Twin Peaks is currently our fastest growing concept with average unit volumes at company operated locations of $6,000,000 but at some key market locations, particularly in Florida, locations generate sales between $9,000,000 $12,000,000 Twin Peaks currently operates 113 locations, up from 83 locations when we acquired the brand 2.5 years ago. During the quarter, we opened a lodge in Naples, Florida and in July, we opened a restaurant in Fort Mill, South Carolina, our 4th location in that state. Most of our development pipeline is weighted to the back half of the year when we plan to open 12 to 15 total new Twin Peaks ending 2024 with approximately 125 lodges.

Speaker 1

This will equate to a growth in unit count since our 2021 acquisition by approximately 50 percent. Over the next 5 years, the Twin Peaks development pipeline calls for 125 additional new restaurants, potentially driving system wide sales to around $1,000,000,000 and 2.50 units by count. The opening of these restaurants will increase the mixed franchise locations to between 75% 80% of the total unit count. As you know, we purchased Smokey Bones in Q4 of last year. Our intention is to use Smokey Bones to fuel Twin Peaks growth through conversions, while over time still restoring the Smokey Bones brand to the 120 unit count it once had.

Speaker 1

This fall, we will complete our 1st Smokey Bones to Twin Peaks conversion in Lakeland, Florida. We expect several additional conversions to take place later this year with the majority occurring throughout 20252026. In May, Twin Peaks and Smokey Bones as a combined entity confidentially submitted a registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission to become a standalone public reporting company. While the timing and the size of any transaction is subject to market conditions and other factors, we are working diligently to expedite a successful transaction. We view an IPO or alternative transaction as an opportunity to monetize the business for the benefit of Fat shareholders.

Speaker 1

We plan to use proceeds to deleverage the balance sheet and build new restaurants. We're also planning to refinance our Twin Peaks securitization debt prior to an IPO or other transaction. Looking to our other segments, in May, Roundtable Pizza strengthens its presence in Texas with the opening of a second location in San Antonio. This development is part of a broader strategic partnership with Brahma Brands. Notably, this new San Antonio location marks the beginning of Brahma Brands' commitment to establish 40 Roundtable Pizza locations across the state, underscoring the substantial growth potential we see in this market.

Speaker 1

Our Fazoli's brand continues to gain momentum in Florida with the recent opening of our 2nd Tampa location, bringing our total presence in the state to 6 restaurants. We've also bolstered Pizzoli's footprint in Arizona, launching our 3rd location in the Greater Phoenix area with a new restaurant in Glendale. This location featuring a fresh brand book is off to an incredibly strong start breaking Fizzoli's opening weekend sales records. These strategic expansions reflect our ongoing commitment to grow in key markets and our confidence in the brand. Co branding also continues to be a key part of our strategy.

Speaker 1

Following the debut of our 1st Fatburger and Roundtable Pizza co branded concept last year, we've seen remarkable interest in the pairing with over 50 new locations currently under development. The success of this model was evident from its launch in Texas. And building on this momentum, we're thrilled to announce our expansion into Utah. Our newly announced deal will bring 12 co branded Fatburger and Roundtable Pizza franchise restaurants to Utah over the next 6 years, with the first unit set to open in 2025. Our co branded model of Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery also continues to thrive.

Speaker 1

Over the last several months, we have continued to secure our foothold in Georgia, where we currently operate over 50 locations. Recently, the sister concepts opened 4 new locations in Georgia, namely, Acworth, Bethlehem, Marietta and Snellville. Additionally, a standalone Great American Cookies opened in Columbus, Georgia. We continue to lean into strategic value offerings across our brands to drive customer engagement and traffic. At Fazoli's, we underscored the brand's long standing value proposition during the July 4 holiday by offering $4 pasta dishes, then relaunching a fan favorite limited time offer pizza baked spaghetti at $5.99 Both promotions reinforce our commitment to providing high quality menu items at an affordable price point, a key pillar of the brand since its inception.

Speaker 1

Similarly, Smokey Bones celebrated National Hamburger Day a nostalgic promotion offering their signature cheeseburger platter for just $6.49 with the purchase of a beverage, the same price as when the brand launched in 1999. To celebrate National Ice Cream Day and Ice Cream Month in July, Marble Slab Creamery offered $5 off their ice cream cakes and a free small cup of ice cream with the purchase of another small or large cup on National Ice Cream Day. And on that day, we saw same store sales up 3.8% over strong comparables from last year. Our brands continue to innovate and excite customers with new menu items and exciting partnerships. Pretzel Maker debuted Cheetos, Pretzel Bites as a limited time offering.

Speaker 1

Fatburger and Buffalo's Express introduced a new collaboration with Frank's Red Hot launching Nashville Hot Chicken Strips and Nashville Hot Fries. And Hotdog and the Stick announced its latest hand stomped lemonade creation, Sour Patch Kids Watermelon Lemonade. These initiatives across our portfolio demonstrate our ongoing efforts to keep our offerings fresh, engaging and aligned with current consumer preferences. Non traditional venues such as airports, cruise lines, amusement parks, universities and casinos represent a key area of growth. This type of expansion not only diversifies our revenue streams, but also increases brand visibility in unique high volume locations.

Speaker 1

During the quarter, we opened a roundtable pizza location Stanford University in their student union and have further plans to build roundtable brand on campus in the coming months. In July, we also expanded our partnership with Royal Caribbean by opening our 15th location on their iconic ships, the Johnny Rockets on the newly launched Utopia of the Seas. Moving on to our 2nd strategic pillar, growth through acquisitions. We are assessing several new potential acquisitions that could add significant strategic value to our organization similar to how we targeted Smokey Bones to fuel growth at Twin Peaks and Nestle Tollhouse Cafe by Chip to boost our manufacturing facilities utilization. We're also looking at other categories to round out our portfolio such as salad, sandwich or coffee brands.

Speaker 1

When evaluating acquisition targets, we must ensure that the brand is both scalable and synergistic within our existing platform and when possible leverage our existing manufacturing capacity, which brings us to our 3rd strategic priority, leveraging our Georgia based manufacturing facility. Our manufacturing facility, which produces pretzel mix and cookie dough for our portfolio brands, demonstrated strong performance in Q2. While sales remained relatively constant at $9,600,000 for the quarter, the factory contributed $3,800,000 to adjusted EBITDA, an increase of 9.3% over last year's quarter. The plant's utilization has improved from 33% at acquisition nearly 3 years ago to its current 45%, Should additional demand materialize beyond what we could currently absorb, a modest $1,500,000 investment in additional equipment could double our capacity. We also have 3.5 acres of unused real estate on-site that can be expanded upon.

Speaker 1

This presents a significant growth opportunity for our factory business. To boost utilization, we have leveraged our portfolio of brands by enhancing our dessert offerings, selling cookies and other products made at the facility within our restaurants. Recently, we added dessert items across the Fizoli's locations and have plans to complete the rollout in our remaining casual dining and polished casual segments in the future. That brand's foundation, I'd like to mention for a minute. I'd like to update you on the growth and work at the foundation.

Speaker 1

The foundation continues to make incredible strides with its grant giving. Through June, the foundation made 36 grants, which already has nearly surpassed the number of grants they were awarded in the full year of 2023, supporting many impactful nonprofit organizations. We are also honored to share Fat Brands Foundation recently gained recognition from the Los Angeles Business Journal at its Annual Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards. Jessica Wiederhorn, the foundation's President and also founding member, was named Nonprofit Executive of the Year in the emerging category by the LA Business Journal. To conclude my remarks, FAT Brands continues to position itself for significant growth.

Speaker 1

Our business is built on delivering exceptional authentic dining experiences across our portfolio and we're uniquely positioned with the seasoned leadership team in a robust adaptable brand management platform that allows for efficient integration of new brands. Our strong and expanding development pipeline promises sustained growth for years to come. We sincerely appreciate your participation today and your ongoing interest in SAP Brands. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Ken to discuss our financial highlights from the Q2.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Andy. I'd like to now review our quarterly performance. Total revenues increased 42.4 percent to $152,000,000 driven by the acquisition of Smokey Bones in the Q4 of 2023 and revenues from new restaurant openings. Costs and expenses increased $66,400,000 or 75.2 percent in the 2nd quarter. Included in costs and expenses, general and administrative expense increased $19,600,000 or 197.2 percent to $29,600,000 from $9,900,000 in the prior year period, primarily due to the Smokey Bones acquisition and the recognition of $12,700,000 in employee retention tax credits during the Q2 of 2023, partially offset by the recognition of $2,100,000 in employee retention tax credits during the Q2 of 2024.

Speaker 2

Cost of restaurant and factory revenues increased to $100,100,000 compared to $59,500,000 in the prior year quarter, primarily due to the Smokey Bones acquisition and higher company owned restaurant sales. Depreciation and amortization expense increased $3,200,000 to $10,200,000 from $7,100,000 in the year ago quarter, again primarily due to the Smokey Bones acquisition along with depreciation of new company owned restaurant properties and equipment. Advertising expense varies in relation to advertising revenues and increased to $14,700,000 from $11,600,000 in the year ago period. Total other expense net for the Q2 of 2024 and 2023 was $34,800,000 $24,200,000 respectively, which is inclusive of interest expense of $34,000,000 $24,300,000 respectively. Net loss was $39,400,000 or $2.43 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $7,100,000 or $0.53 per diluted share in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 2

And on an as adjusted basis, our net loss was $30,900,000 or $1.93 per diluted share compared to net income of $3,000,000 or $0.08 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. And lastly, EBITDA was $6,800,000 compared to $25,600,000 in the Q2 of 2023 and adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $15,700,000 compared to $23,100,000 in the year ago quarter. And as Andy mentioned, we received employee retention tax credits of $12,700,000 in the Q2 of 2023 versus $2,100,000 in the Q2 of 2024, a difference of $10,600,000 And with that, Kaylee, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from Joe Gumbs with NOBLE Capital.

Speaker 3

Good afternoon and thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 1

Hi Joe.

Speaker 2

Hey Joe.

Speaker 3

So somewhat of a similar theme with the Q1, revenues were up nicely, but expenses were up even in more. And here in the Q2, they grew even at a faster rate than they did in the Q1. I understand part of that is due to the tax retention credits, but when do we think we'd start to see that kind of flex and where the revenue growth will exceed the expense growth on a quarterly basis?

Speaker 1

Sure. I think you have to reconcile the difference in net loss or adjusted net loss from Q2 a year ago to Q2 2024, there's really 5 or 6 components. 1 of them is interest expense, one of them is the tax credits, one of them is depreciation and then you have some net income losses from the Smokey Bones acquisition and a little bit from Fizzoli's and Roundtable Pizza, where Roundtable, we own some corporate stores that were sold, so we no longer have that income. And you put all that together and it gets you to that difference between the $32,000,000 difference basically. As we see the refinancing of Twin Peaks and hopefully the public company listing of Twin Peaks that will peel some of that off of the FAT Brands platform.

Speaker 1

It will also create an opportunity to raise equity and reduce interest expense in total. And so that's going to be a key driver because Twin Peaks sits at approximately $400,000,000 of debt to reduce that debt with equity raise will substantially affect that number. The second thing is, of course, the pipeline of new store builds that adds somewhere between $6,000,000 $10,000,000 a year of incremental royalties depending on which brand and how many units get open. So I think that's those are the 2 things. And then finally, of course, legal expense has to end here somewhere maybe 12 to 18 months from now and that will be the final touch of it.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks for that, Andy. You talked about the new store development here. So in the second quarter, you had projected that you were going to open, I think it was 40 some odd stores. On the Q1 call, you project you could open, I think, 40 some odd stores here in the Q2.

Speaker 3

And obviously, we fell short of that. You still seem to think you can come up to that 120 ish for the full year. Anything in particular that has caused the rate of store openings to kind of slow down from our initial expectations?

Speaker 1

So there's a couple of things that contribute to it. One is that you just generally have franchisees dragging their feet just a little bit, just a little slower to get things done, whether that's financing or whatever that they're applying. But they are on track to open. I mean, we have scheduled opening dates through the end of the year for those remaining 80 something stores, 75 stores and 20 or 30 of those are international where they're very much on track to open in their multi unit repeat operators, so they don't need a lot of assistance from corporate. So we feel pretty good about these dates, but you never want to be in December opening new So we really want to get them open as many as we can before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1

And we have an awful lot scheduled, so we feel pretty good about it.

Speaker 3

Okay. And then one more for me, I'll jump back in queue. You talked about M and A and you still are assessing some opportunities. You mentioned the same thing in the Q1 call. Are these the same opportunities or have new opportunities come about here?

Speaker 3

I'm seeing a little bit of ups and downs here recently in the restaurant industry. As I'm wondering if there's been maybe an opening, so to speak, of people looking to come to somebody like you, a consolidator and be more open on price that maybe some of that has started to percolate?

Speaker 1

Definitely the latter. We're seeing more deals than ever right now, and certainly than we did last year. And we're seeing sellers with reasonable expectations. And so I think that there's an opportunity to make acquisitions similar to sort of the pricing around like Smokey Bones where it was in the 3 to 4 times cash flow range versus stuff that where people are still trying to hold out for 7 to 10 times and it's just hard in this environment to justify that. We want to see from consumer trends standpoint, we want to see the election behind this and interest rate cuts behind us and that would create some momentum I think as well.

Speaker 1

But I think from a pure M and A standpoint, there are opportunities out there. They are delevering opportunities, meaning that we could add EBITDA and cash flow at a much lower rate than our leverage rate today. So that's an interesting opportunity for us as a way to delever the balance sheet and add to our scale.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks, Andy. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Joe.

Operator

Your next question comes from Alton Stump with Loop Capital.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you and good afternoon, Andy and Ken. Hope you're doing well. I just want to ask first off on the same store sales being down only 1.6% held flat on a 2 stack basis sequentially versus the Q1. I'm sure you guys have all read all of the negative news out there.

Speaker 4

And for those that have come out with earnings, it's probably going to be one if not the only one out there that actually kept to your stacks unchanged in 2Q versus the Q1. Clearly, you guys own obviously almost 20 different concepts. You've got a lot of different things going on, I'm sure, at each concept. But was there any handful of sort of key out performers in your portfolio that you think enabled you to hold that to your stack trend flat in what was obviously a very challenging quarter for the overall quick service industry?

Speaker 1

Yes. The Burger segment has been very solid. Fast casual segment has been very solid. And the snack segment has been very solid as well. Where you see where we've seen what other people have seen, which is on the QSR side of things, your traffic is off and your sales are off, your top line sales are off.

Speaker 1

We have company owned stores in that bucket, so it affects you harder. And that consumer just doesn't have anywhere to go. And so you've got to focus on value and try to focus on frequency and make sure that you're driving profitable value opportunities. You're not cannibalizing sales and trying to drive traffic where you're actually losing more money. So we've been focused on that, but we've definitely seen it there.

Speaker 1

So it's kind of interesting to see how snack brands and how the fast casual brands where burgers and their average checks can be in the low $20 are doing pretty well and you've got other pain thresholds where it's a higher pushback. We've also seen, for example, our Ponderosa and Bonanza Steakhouse brands have just consistently been up mid to high single digits. And I'm sure that's a value We've seen in the We've seen in the post casual segment, same store sales are off just a little bit and a lot less than they were off as we started the year. So we've had a very good recovery in those segments or that segment. And we anticipate it getting better and better after we get out of the dog days of summer here.

Speaker 1

There's not a lot of sports that drive people to sports bars in the over the next few weeks and then we'll be back into football and everything should be great again. The Olympics don't actually drive people people don't go to the sports bar to watch the Olympics as much as they do it at home and it's also the time change. So I don't think that's the solution. But we do we are pretty optimistic about the second half of the year now for the polished casual segment.

Speaker 4

Great. That's great color. Thank you for all that. And then I guess just one other follow-up and I'll hop back in the queue, but you obviously are just now underway with your first conversion of Smokey Bones to a Twin Peaks. So it's awfully early, I just want to understand.

Speaker 4

But how has that gone so far? And have you learned anything yet that could help you sort of as you look to accelerate that conversion process, as you mentioned, not just over the course of the back half of this year, but into next couple of year period?

Speaker 1

Yes. Well, Joe Hummel, our Twintiq CEO and his team are pros at conversions of 2nd generation restaurants basically Probably 75% of the TwinTiex restaurants in existence today are 2nd generation restaurant units. So very focused on how to do it quickly and efficiently. This Lakeland, Florida location will be up and running in under 9 months. So we're very happy with that.

Speaker 1

When we bought Smokey Bones in Q4 of last year, our franchisee base and even for corporate stores, we had already picked out most of the 2024 new stores to open. Franchisees have already purchased land. We're building buildings or lease new locations. Same thing with corporate. We had 3 or 4 company owned stores under construction or development.

Speaker 1

So the timing of the conversions of the Smokey Bones is really a 2025 and 2026 event just because 2024 everybody already had all the plates full with all the stores they could open. And remember, these stores take up a lot of money to open. So it can be anywhere from $3,500,000 $4,000,000 on a conversion of the store to $7,500,000 to build a brand new store. And so you can only ask a franchisee to write so many checks at a time in a given year and they've planned their cash flow for that purpose and same with corporate. So we feel good about it.

Speaker 1

We're excited for the momentum. When you see the brands that get the best valuations and biggest part of the multiple expansion here right now, it's brands with high unit growth and certainly Twin Peaks has high unit growth planned for the next 3 years. So does FAT Brands having 2,300 restaurants open another 1100 in the pipeline paid for by franchisees and on a schedule to build them. So we really feel like being a franchisor having high unit growth, executing on that unit growth should really see some of the stuff get behind us here. And of course, as we refinance our different securitization transactions over the next 24 months, we think that we'll be still see savings there as well.

Speaker 4

Great. It makes sense. Thank you. That's helpful. I'll hop back in the queue.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Walton.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to Andy for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

I just want to thank all of you for joining the Tapinence conference today, and we look forward to updating you further on our Q3 earnings call and hopefully some exciting stuff to talk about at that time. Thank you very much, operator.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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FAT Brands Q2 2024
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