I have previously spoken to management and convey a few items of concerns:
- Why did they acquire the new pie business? Surely if it can be scaled, it should already have been done by now. This is run by a family, and they cannot / won't do it and they are very motivated, so RFG chance of success here is 70% failure, and they have to go into debt for the acquisition, whilst they still carry debt. Highly bad for long term. - Is management pursuing the same strategy as the previous crooked management - what I meant is that they are buying businesses to show growth at the top line level whilst hiding the weaknesses in existing businesses, which was what the previous group did. This was one of my major red flag the recent report confirm this. The business is going backward on a net work sale level, despite ATV going up another 4% on top of what I think was 9% in the previous year. Sure, you can crank up the price, but at some stage, you will lose customers. Yet despite this, network is still down, and corporate stores have increased in this period, meaning it should have gone backward alot more if not for these intiatives. The store count include the Rips business, which is almost laughable that you add menu under a new brand and call it a new outlet (akin to Domino selling chicken wings and market is under a new brand and say store counts have grown by 1000). This is almost deceptive territory, but management has no qualm in doing it to make the headline looks good. There are weaknesses everywhere including overseas market. Their overseas AR has write offs (i.e. they cannot pay their debt to RFG, meaning they are about to close or about to go bankrupt). - Are theylooking to buy more businesses? They have 8/9 brands (don't know now, lost count) and they should look to consolidate and improve these brands and retire debts and defend and take back market share. Their DK sites, are being taken up by Daniel's Donuts and Brooklyn Donuts in places that I know of in the ACT and Sydney, and their competitors' offering is much higher quality and variety. look at the recent compliants on FB about a box of $15 donuts which was a great disappointment. - What are their plant to convert revenue to cash? Their cashflow is barely their to sustain themselves, and if I understand correctly, they are looking to pump more money into the US for the GJ expansion - how much we don't know, and how successful this will be in the world's toughest market, being the US, is a concern because management to date has not shown the sort of calibre that gave you confidence. As I understand, the new CEO is not so bright in my book and how he got the job, you have to ask management if it was handed or was there a genuine competitve process.
Their responses are as usual vague as I expect and did not inspire confidence in me.
Sorry I have more to say but that is probably enough for me as a former holder who exited at 8.2c.
