This gives an answer to the big question mark of how much it...

This gives an answer to the big question mark of how much it will cost rfg for their historical poor treatment of franchisees.

Looking at their most recent financials their balance sheet still looks quite vulnerable (to me at least), although a lot less dire than a few years ago. They have at 30 June negative net current assets -$4m, we need to deduct circa $10m from that for this settlement, so approximately-$14m. They had approximately $37m total debt. Their profit was $5.3m and FCF was approximately $2m.

Given that their debt is only supported by FCF (negative net tangible assets), debt reduction will be the priority with any FCF until debt is negligible. To me that means it is likely to be several more years until cash is available to paid to shareholders. There's also the risk that the business goes backwards, if that occurs there's very little buffer for bad times. Overall slightly negative on the stock, not enough to call it a sell (as there's the potential post Covid for the business to improve significantly), but I couldn't bring myself to buy here. It may be different if they have a good year or two and the balance sheet strengthens.