MARYVILLE, Tenn. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Apr. 9, 2014 - Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE: RT) today reported financial results for the fiscal third quarter ended March 4, 2014.
Results for the third quarter include:
JJ Buettgen, Chairman, President and CEO, commented, “We have made solid progress over the past eight months on our brand transformation strategy. The execution of this strategy resulted in sequential quarterly improvement in our same-restaurant sales and guest counts, both of which also reflected sequential improvement by month during the third quarter. We continue to make progress on the four primary touch points of our strategy: menu, service, atmosphere, and communication, and we have made advances on key initiatives as we work to reposition the brand as more energetic, affordable, and broadly-appealing.
We believe there is great opportunity as we execute on our brand transformation strategy and continue to build on this early momentum. We still have work to do, but we are pleased with our progress over the last two quarters. We are confident in our brand transformation strategy and believe we have the right teams in place to support our goal of increasing guest counts, growing same-restaurant sales, and increasing shareholder value.”
As announced earlier in the year, the Company has undertaken a comprehensive review of its cost structure. In our second quarter earnings release we announced that we had identified initiatives that will reduce cost of goods sold by $6.0 million annually and SG&A expense by $7.0 million annually. All initiatives have been implemented and are starting to deliver their projected savings. These initiatives are expected to save $3.0 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 and deliver their targeted annual savings in fiscal year 2015.
We continue to review all aspects of our business to ensure that we are operating efficiently and cost effectively. Key areas that we are focusing on include supply chain, restaurant operations, and marketing.
As we discussed on our fourth quarter fiscal 2013 earnings call, as a result of a number of strategic initiatives we are implementing to reposition our brand, combined with the challenging casual dining environment, we are not providing earnings guidance. There are, however, certain items we would like to highlight, including the following:
Non-GAAP Earnings Reconciliation
The Company believes excluding special items from its financial results provides investors with a clearer understanding of the Company’s ongoing operating performance and comparison to prior-period results.
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Ruby Tuesday, Inc. has 755 Company-owned, operated, and/or franchised Ruby Tuesday brand restaurants in 45 states, the District of Columbia, 11 foreign countries, and Guam, in addition to 28 Company-owned and/or franchised Lime Fresh brand restaurants in five states, the District of Columbia, and one foreign country. As of March 4, 2014, we owned and operated 679 Ruby Tuesday restaurants and franchised 76 Ruby Tuesday restaurants, comprised of 31 domestic and 45 international restaurants. We also owned and operated 20 Lime Fresh restaurants and franchised eight Lime Fresh restaurants, comprised of six domestic and two international restaurants. Our Company-owned and operated restaurants are concentrated primarily in the Southeast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest of the United States, which we consider to be our core markets.
Ruby Tuesday, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (Symbol: RT).
The Company will host a conference call, which will be a live web-cast, this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The call will be available live at the following websites:
http://www.rubytuesday.com
http://www.earnings.com
This press release contains various forward-looking statements, which represent our expectations or beliefs concerning future events, including one or more of the following: future financial performance, future capital expenditures, the effect of strategic initiatives (including cost-cutting initiatives), sales of our real estate, future borrowings and repayments of debt, availability of financing on terms attractive to the Company, compliance with financial covenants in our debt instruments, restaurant growth (both Company-owned and franchised), payment of dividends, stock and bond repurchases, restaurant acquisitions, and changes in senior management and in the Board of Directors. We caution the reader that a number of important factors and uncertainties could, individually or in the aggregate, cause our actual results to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements (such statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to cost savings that we estimate may result from any programs we implement, our estimates of future capital spending, our targets for annual growth in same-restaurant sales and average annual sales per restaurant, and the benefits of our television marketing), including, without limitation, the following: general economic conditions; changes in promotional, couponing and advertising strategies; changes in our customers’ disposable income; consumer spending trends and habits; increased competition in the restaurant market; laws and regulations affecting labor and employee benefit costs, including further potential increases in state and federally mandated minimum wages, and healthcare reform; customers’ acceptance of changes in menu items; changes in the availability and cost of capital; potential limitations imposed by debt covenants under our debt instruments; mall-traffic trends; weather conditions in the regions in which Company-owned and franchised restaurants are operated; costs and availability of food and beverage inventory; our ability to attract and retain qualified managers, franchisees and team members; impact of adoption of new accounting standards; impact of food-borne illnesses resulting from an outbreak at either one of our restaurant concepts or other competing restaurant concepts; effects of actual or threatened future terrorist attacks in the United States; and significant fluctuations in energy prices.
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SOURCE Ruby Tuesday, Inc.
Michael Moore
Ruby Tuesday, Inc.
865-379-5700
EVP and Chief Financial Officer
Our Company-owned and operated restaurants are concentrated primarily in the Southeast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest of the United States, which we consider to be our core markets.