Jeff Lawrence
Analyst · Guggenheim. Your line is now open
Thank you, Ritch, and good morning again everyone. I'll cover off the first quarter financial results as well as provide a brief preliminary financial update for the business for the first few weeks of the second quarter. Starting with the first quarter results, we continue to lead the broader restaurant industry with 36 straight quarters of positive U.S. comparable sales and 105 consecutive quarters of positive international comps. We also continued to increase our global store count as we opened 178 gross new stores and 69 net new stores in Q1. This net store growth number includes the closure of the 71 stores, comprising our South Africa market during the quarter that was unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our diluted EPS in Q1 was $3.07, an increase of 39.5% over the prior year quarter, primarily resulting from a significantly lower effective tax rate and strong operational results. With that, let's take a closer look at the financial results for Q1. Global retail sales grew 4.4% as compared to the prior year quarter, pressured by a stronger dollar. When excluding the negative impact of foreign currency, global retail sales grew by 5.9%. This global retail sales growth was driven by both an increase in the average number of stores opened during the quarter and higher same-store sales. Same-store sales for the U.S. grew 1.6%, lapping a prior year increase of 3.9%. And same-store sales for our international business grew 1.5%, rolling over a prior year increase of 1.8%. Breaking down the U.S. comp, our franchise business was up 1.5%, while our Company-owned stores were up 3.9%. The U.S. comp this quarter was driven by ticket growth. We continue to see robust growth in our carryout business, while our delivery comp for Q1 was slightly negative, consistent with previously-discussed market dynamics. Our international comp for the quarter was driven entirely by order growth. We estimate that the international comp for the quarter was negatively impacted by approximately 1 point to 1.5 points by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the unit count front, we opened 30 net U.S. stores in the first quarter, consisting of 35 store openings and just five closures. Our international division added 39 net new stores during Q1, comprised of 143 store openings and 104 closures, including the closure of the 71 stores comprising our South Africa market. Turning to revenues. Total revenues for the first quarter were up 4.4% from the prior year, driven primarily by higher global retail sales, which drove higher supply chain and global franchise revenues. These increases were partially offset by lower Company-owned store revenues, resulting from the New York store sale in Q2 of 2019. International royalty revenues were pressured by $1.4 million during the quarter by foreign currency exchange rates. Moving now to operating margin. As a percentage of revenues, consolidated operating margin for the quarter increased to 39% from 38.6% in the prior year quarter and was positively impacted by the New York store sale and higher revenues from our global franchise business. Supply chain and Company-owned store operating margin percentages were relatively similar year-over-year. G&A expenses decreased approximately $1 million as compared to the prior year quarter. We continue to see the benefit of improved discipline and focus in this important area, while continuing to invest in strategic initiatives throughout our business. Our reported effective tax rate was negative 3.7% for the quarter, down 18.8 percentage points from the prior year quarter. The reported effective tax rate in the quarter included a 26 percentage point positive impact from tax benefits on equity-based compensation. We do expect to see continued volatility in our effective tax rate related to these tax benefits. When you add it all up, our first quarter net income was up $29 million or 31.2% over the prior year quarter. Our first quarter diluted EPS was $3.07 versus $2.20 in the prior year which was a 39.5% increase. Here is how that $0.87 increase breaks down for the quarter. Our lower effective tax rate, resulting primarily from higher tax benefits on equity-based compensation, positively impacted us by $0.58. Lower diluted share count, resulting primarily from share repurchases over the past 12 months, benefited us by $0.14. Higher net interest expense, resulting primarily from higher average debt balances, negatively impacted us by $0.08. And most importantly, our improved operating results benefited us by $0.23. Now turning to cash. During the first quarter, we generated net cash provided by operating activities of more than $95 million. After deducting for CapEx, we generated free cash flow of almost $78 million, which was pressured by normal balance sheet movement. During the first quarter, we repurchased and retired approximately 271,000 shares for $80 million or about $294 per share on average. It's important to note that these repurchases were made during the first week of the first quarter. All in all, a good quarter for the business in Q1. As we now move away from our Q1 financial discussions, I'd like to remind folks that we did issue a business update on March 30, which contain preliminary estimates of selected Q1 information, including comps, store growth and global retail sales information. We also inform the market that due to the uncertainty surrounding the global economy and our business operations, considering COVID-19, we withdrew our 2020 guidance measures related to G&A, CapEx, store food basket pricing and the impact of foreign currency on royalty revenues. We also announced that as a precautionary measure we borrowed the remaining funds available to us under our outstanding variable funding note to further strengthen our already strong financial position. I'd like to now switch gears and give a financial update on the business for the first few weeks of the second quarter for which we have available results. This information contains preliminary unaudited estimates and is being provided to assist our stakeholders with a high level understanding of how the business is performing during these extraordinary times. In the U.S. business, comps were up 7.1% during the first four weeks of Q2. U.S. retail sales were up 10.7% over the same time period. Sales trended up significantly over this four-week period. As it relates to U.S. customer behavior during this crisis, this is what we are generally seeing thus far. Delivery and carryout mix are holding relatively steady on average. Weekday sales have been significantly up, while weekends have generally been more pressured. Lunch and dinner dayparts are up, while late night had been more pressured. And we are seeing larger order sizes throughout the week. Again these are initial observations regarding consumer behavior and we may experience volatility in our sales going forward as a result of this dynamic environment. In our international business, comps were down 3.2% during the first three weeks of Q2. Important to note here that we are only reporting three weeks of international sales information due to the normal reporting lag in that business. To be very clear, the international same-store sales comp for the last two weeks of Q1 and the first three weeks of Q2 was negatively impacted by COVID-19. The negative impact primarily occurred from stores that had sales in a week, but we're were limited due to a service restriction, carryout and/or delivery and in some markets even dining restrictions, a part of the week temporary closure and/or a change in store hours. If a store was closed the entire week and had zero sales for that week however, it is not included in same-store sales definition or results. Moving on to retail sales for international. Retail sales, excluding FX were down 13.2% over the same time period, reflecting the many stores internationally that have been temporarily closed or have some other operating restriction, impacting sales. Turning now to our franchise partners. We have not provided widespread economic relief to our franchisees globally. While we acknowledge that this could change depending on the time period that this crisis persist and its overall impact on our results, we attribute our current situation to the underlying strength of our business model and the overall economics that our franchise partners have earned alongside of us over the past many years. The strength and resiliency of the Domino's brand has never been more evident. As Ritch discussed earlier, we are making significant investments in our team members and our communities during this time of crisis, including frontline bonuses, enhanced sick pay policies, community giving in partnership with our franchisees and investments in supply such as face coverings and gloves. We anticipate pressure on our Q2 earnings related to these investments of approximately $15 million. Based on trends we've seen to date, we also anticipate pressure on our Q2 earnings of an additional approximately $5 million related to lost revenues from our international franchise stores due to those temporary store closures. These are current estimates and are preliminary and could very likely change. We would also be remiss if we didn't comment on what we're seeing in the FX markets. If FX rates hold for the remainder of the year, we believe it could be a substantial headwind to 2020 cash flows and earnings of approximately $10 million. This current estimate is preliminary and could very likely change as foreign currency rates continue to fluctuate. Shifting now to cash and liquidity matters, we currently have more than $325 million in available cash and we note that our ongoing operations have provided positive net cash flow to the business during this crisis so far. Out of an abundance of caution, we have not repaid amounts on our variable funding notes and that cash is included in the available cash balance I just mentioned. We continue to invest in our strategic initiatives and we paid our shareholders our previously declared dividend on March 30. Additionally, earlier this week, our Board of Directors declared a $0.78 per share dividend to be paid on June 30. Separately, we have not repurchased any shares under our authorized share repurchase program since the first week of January. As a reminder, we currently have $327 million remaining under our Board authorization for future repurchases. In closing, we remain in good shape financially and we will continue to closely monitor all aspects of our business as we operate in these uncertain times. We will continue to focus on doing the right thing for our team members and our communities today, while ensuring that we not only survive, but are best positioned to thrive coming out of this crisis tomorrow. Thank you again for joining the call today and I'll turn it back over to Ritch.