Burger King Update: $1 DoubleCheeseburger and more

On December 3, Burger King CFO Ben Wells presented to the B of A Credit Conference in New York. There were a few interesting takeaways as follows:

• Company cash flow was steady and growing.
• Noted the business model didn't work if products that cause losses to franchisees are rolled out. Noted they are confident they didnt do that.
• Noted that the dollar doublecheeseburger offer performed well in 12 of 20 DMAs tested, and that they had no reason to believe the offer wouldn't perform than as tested.
• Wells noted anecdotal comments from Jack in the Box (JACK) that their sales were down (associated with the timing of the dollar doublecheeseburger national marketing) and positive comments from BK publicly traded franchisee Carrols Restaurant Group (TAST), that their Burger King sales and traffic were expected to grow.
• On a financial assistance question, noted that the franchisees were"on their own" and that BKC didnt provide capital/lending assistance.
• Noted that the value meal helped out late night performance, and that overnight sales breakeven was $47/sales/hour.