Tonya Robinson
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Your line is open
07:07 Thanks, Jerry. As I begin, please note that most of the comparisons in my prepared remarks are versus 2019 in order to provide a clear understanding of our underlying performance. Please refer to our earnings release for a more detailed discussion of results versus 2020. Results versus 2019, unless otherwise noted are unadjusted and include the negative impact of lapping an extra week in December of that year. 07:35 For the fourth quarter of 2021, we reported diluted earnings per share of $0.76, up 24.1%, driven by strong revenue and restaurant-level profit growth along with the lower income tax rate. Revenue was up $170.3 million, driven by comparable restaurant sales growth of 21.2%, including 8.1% traffic growth and an average check growth of 13.1%. Check growth includes positive mix of 5.3% as guests have moved our higher-priced entrees and increased their frequency of purchasing appetizers and other add-on items. 08:15 Traffic growth continues to be driven by strong to good sales, while guest counts in the dining room were down slightly. For the fourth quarter, our restaurants averaged approximately $17,500 per week in to-go at sales, which represented 14.4% of total sales. Average weekly sales were relatively consistent throughout the quarter at nearly $122,000, compared to $101,000 in Q4 2019. 08:45 By month comparable sales grew 23.6%, 24.7% and 16.6% for our October, November and December periods respectively. We estimate that sales growth for December and the fourth quarter were negatively impacted by 7.1% and 2.8%, respectively due to Christmas shifting from a Wednesday in 2019 to a Saturday in 2021. 09:15 As Jerry mentioned, our sales momentum continued into the first seven weeks of 2022 with comparable sales up 20.6% as compared to the same period in 2021. During the seven weeks, average weekly sales were over $127,000 with to-go sales of just over $20,000 per store or 15.9% of total sales. For the fourth quarter, restaurant margin as a percentage of total sales was 15.8%, down 124 basis points as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. We also focus on restaurant margin dollars per store week which were up 11.9% to over $19,300 as compared to Q4 2019. 10:00 Food and beverage costs as a percentage of total sales were 35% for the fourth quarter. This was 262 basis points higher than 2019, driven by 17.6% commodity inflation, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, which was in line with our forecast for high teens inflation. Our beef outlook for the first half of 2022 has improved slightly, but we still expect overall commodity costs to remain elevated with approximately 50% of our commodity basket locked for the first half of 2022, we now expect approximately 17% inflation over that time period. 10:41 For the back half of 2022, we have only a small portion of our basket locked, which makes it challenging to provide meaningful inflation guidance for this time period. However, based on our internal projections which we continuously review and update, we expect inflation in the back half of the year will moderate mostly due to the beef and other prices that we will be lapping. 11:04 Overall, this would result in 12% to 14% inflation for full year 2022. But keep in mind that even if inflation moderates in the back half of the year, the underlying dollar costs for beef and other high-use items will likely still be higher, both year-over-year and sequentially. 11:24 Labor as a percentage of total sales improved 42 basis points to 32.6%, as compared to Q4 2019 even as labor dollars per store week increased 19.2%. This increase in labor dollars per store week was driven by wage and other labor inflation of 15.4% and growth in hours of 3.6%. The remaining increase of 0.2% was primarily due to a $0.8 million adjustment to our quarterly reserve for workers comp. 11:56 For 2022, we are forecasting wage and other labor inflation of approximately 7%, including the impact of enhanced benefits that we are offering to our previous expectation for wage and other labor inflation driven by wage trends as our managers continue to invest in their people. One thing to note here, we expect inflation will be above this level in the first quarter as wage rates did not begin to significantly increase until so the second quarter of 2021. 12:28 Other operating costs were 14.7% of sales, which was 84 basis points lower compared to Q4 2019. Approximately 10 basis points of the decrease relates to the benefit of a $0.8 million adjustment to our quarterly reserve for general liability insurance. Most of the remaining benefit comes from sales leverage. 12:49 Moving to our restaurant margin. G&A came in at 4.8% of revenue, a $4.5 million increase versus 2019. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 13.5%. Our tax rate continues to see a higher than normal benefit from FICA tip credits driven by the increase in our sales and a higher benefit related to our share-based compensation expense. 13:12 For 2022, we expect an income tax rate of approximately 15%, assuming no changes to the federal tax code are enacted. With regards to cash flow, we ended the fourth quarter with $336 million of cash, which is down $101 million from the end of the third quarter. Cash flow from operations was $120 million and was more than offset by $62 million of capital expenditures, $28 million of dividend payments, $37 million of share repurchases and $90 million of debt repayment. We expect full year 2022 capital expenditures will be approximately $230 million, with the $30 million year-over-year increase, primarily driven by the planned relocation of 6 Texas Roadhouse restaurants in 2022. 14:06 I will also mention on the first day of fiscal 2022, we spent $27 million on the acquisition of 7 domestic franchise restaurants. These restaurants are included in our expectation of 6.5% store week growth. 14:21 Lastly, as announced today in our earnings release, our Board of Directors has authorized a 15% increase in our quarterly dividend payment, increasing it to $0.46 per share from $0.40 per share in 2021. 14:35 Like Jerry, I want to thank everyone for their commitment to Texas Roadhouse and for their hard work, which has helped us achieve so much in 2021 and sets us up for a legendary 2022. 14:47 Operator, please open the line for questions.