[외식업]크리스피 크림의 예상밖의 재기

Investing

Krispy Kreme's Unlikely Comeback

By Roben Farzad on February 22, 2013  

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-22/krispy-kremes-unlikely-comeback

Apple (AAPL). Hyundai (005380). Neil Patrick Harris.

Add Krispy Kreme Donuts (KKD) to that list of the biggest brand comebacks of recent times. Shares of the near-broke guilty pleasure have gone from a buck and change four years ago to about $13 now (albeit well off their all-time high of just under $50 a decade back). Its latest 12-month free cash flow of $36 million is triple what it was in 2009, according to Bloomberg data.

In the Winston-Salem, N.C., company’s rearview mirror are an accounting scandal, store closures, 14 quarters of losses, and the dreaded biz-mag cover curse. Now, with its groove and balance sheet back, you’d be hard pressed to find another U.S. junk foodie on such an offensive.

Full disclosure: I am partial to this 75-year-old chain. As with the Olive Garden (DRI), I used to take first dates there to gauge their gastronomic self-confidence. My son and I bond over their warm, fresh-off-the-belt vittles, which I once hawked for high school Spanish Honor Society at 50¢ a pop. It was all vindicated by Krispy’s monster initial public offering and newfound celebrity in the early 2000s.

But my fervor for the brand waned when it was later revealed that accounting violations were stewarded by a chief executive officer named—you can’t make this stuff up—Livengood. Plus, Dunkin’ Donuts (DNKN) was taking over whatever bits of the market were spared the wrath of the Atkins craze. And Krispy Kreme was nowhere to be found in the coffee racket, where the real profits were.

Since management narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2009, the chain has vastly improved store productivity, cleanliness, and profitability while mending fences with franchisees (who were understandably not thrilled to see their original glazed offerings sold at just about every gas station and drugstore). It launched tastier coffee in 2011 and hopes to expand from 240 to 400 U.S. outlets in the next four years.

Having cleaned up its domestic operations, the company then focused on expanding abroad—markets such as Singapore and India, where, let’s be frank, any combination of venerable American brand equity and sugar-coated fried dough was bound to catch on. Throw in a chunky investment by a Kuwaiti billionaire holding the chain’s master franchise in the Middle East, and Krispy Kreme was suddenly flexing beaucoup buying power on all that shortening and glaze; recently, the company had to address the high-class problem of having to fend off a possible unsolicited takeout. Last year, it set a target of ramping up franchises abroad, to 900 outlets by 2017, from 506 outlets now.

“Internationally,” says Roth Capital Partners’ Anton Brenner, “they continue to expand rapidly, yet still have hardly any penetration in Latin America and virtually none in Continental Europe—places like Turkey and Russia. The brand is as iconic internationally as it is in the U.S.”

Domestically, there’s still quite a bit of krisp to this story. Compare its 2.1 percent U.S. coffee-sales market share to Starbucks’ (SBUX) 36 percent and Dunkin’s 25 percent, where orders of magnitude more cups of joe sluice down to the bottom line. While beverages now chip in 12 percent of Krispy Kreme’s sales, it is eying upward of 20 percent by pushing more of its rebranded coffee.

The Krispy love affair has come full circle for me. I was just at one on Valentine’s Day, when I had to take my place in a line snaking out the door (which literally bumped up against a drive-thru line that stretched onto the boulevard). Everyone was snapping up heart-shaped, sugar-glazed goodness for their spouses, paramours, and little protégés.

요약

최근 재기를 한 큰 브랜드들에 크리스피 크림이 합류를 했다. 크리스피 크림의 주가가가 4년 전에는 $1에서 현재 $13로 변화했다. 최근 1년 동안 잉여현금흐름의 2009년에 비해 세배가 되었다. 이 기업은 회계 스캔들, 상점 폐쇄, 14분기의 손실들로 장식한 비즈니스 잡지 커버를 두려워했었다.

 크리스피 크림의 CEO의 회계 위반이 드러났고 게다가 던킨 도넛이 시장을 차지하여 크리스피 크림은 실제 이익을 냈던 커피 시장에서 설 곳이 없어졌다. 2009년에 파산을 면했기 때문에 프렌차이즈로 매장의 생산성, 청결성, 수익성을 향상시켰고, 2011년에 테이스터 커피점을 출시했다. 이제는 해외 시장으로 눈을 돌리고 있고, 지난 해 크리스피 크림은 2017년까지 900개의 지점으로 확장할 것을 목표로 설정했다.

 Roth Capital Partners의 Anton Brenner는 말한다. 국제적으로 크리스피 크림은 빠르게 확장하고 있지만, 여전히 라틴 아메리카와 유럽 대륙을 뚫고 가는 데에는 무리가 있다고. 국내에서는 커피 시장에서 스타벅스가 36%, 던킨 도너츠이 25%인 것에 비하면 크리스피는 2.1%에 불과하다. 하지만 크리스피 크림의 매출액의 12%가 음료며, 이는 리브랜딩한 커피를 더 지원함으로써 20%까지 보고 있다.