MINNEAPOLIS Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. reported Tuesday an 11.7-percent drop in fourth-quarter net income to $6 million, or 34 cents per share, mainly because of an additional operating week in the year-ago period that helped inflate those results and because of a year-to-year, 12.5-percent jump in total costs and expenses in the latest period.
The company’s results for the three months ended Dec. 30, however, still beat analyst expectations by 2 cents per share, and its annual net income surged 20.8 percent from a year earlier to $19.7 million, or $1.10 per share. Excluding the extra operating week in fiscal 2006, Buffalo Wild Wings delivered on its annual projections of 20-percent revenue growth and 25-percent net income growth.
On an as reported basis, revenue for the quarter increased 9.7 percent to $91.4 million, and for the year it jumped 18.5 percent to $329.7 million. Quarterly same-store sales increased 3.4 percent at corporate restaurants and 2.3 percent at franchised units, the company reported. Annual same-store sales rose 6.9 percent at corporate locations and 3.9 percent at franchised units.
For the company’s current first quarter of fiscal 2008, same-store sales are trending up 4.1 percent at corporate restaurants and 1.3 percent at franchised restaurants, Buffalo Wild Wings added. The company also said it was committed to its 2008 targets of 15 percent new unit growth and 25 percent net income growth over last year.
“While no one can predict how the consumer will react in a changing economy, and the extent of commodity increases is still unknown,” Sally Smith, president and chief executive, said in a statement, “we are focused on continuing our four-year trend of positive quarterly same-store sales and our eight-year trend of average weekly sales volume growth.”
