Flanigan’s (BDL): A Cheap, Complicated Restaurant Chain Focused on South Florida
Flanigan’s (BDL) is a nano-cap full service restaurant and discount liquor store company. All of its locations are in Florida. And all but one of the locations are in South Florida. The company’s ticker – “BDL” – comes from the name of its liquor stores: Big Daddy’s Liquor. Meanwhile, the company’s name – Flanigan’s – comes from the name of its founding and still controlling family. One family member is directly involved in the business – as the Chairman and CEO for the last 18 years – and his brothers who serve on the board and also own entities connected to the company. There is a family trust as well. Altogether, insiders of some sort own about 50% of the company. Although I referred to this company as being both a full service restaurant chain and a chain of discount liquor stores – the discount liquor stores mean very little in an appraisal of the company. About 90% of the company’s EBIT comes from the restaurants. So, less than 10% of earning power comes from the liquor stores. Also, the returns on capital in the restaurant business are much higher than in the liquor stores. If you don’t adjust for leases – which changes the calculation of ROC with the new accounting rules adopted in the last few years – the restaurant chain’s returns on capital are probably around 25% pre-tax (so, high teens after-tax) while the liquor stores are more like 7% or so pre-tax and maybe 5% or worse after-tax and in cash. Restaurants are often valued on EBITDA or EBITDAR (EBITDA before rent) instead of EBIT. So, if anything, I’ve used a somewhat more conservative measure. Most importantly, though, is that the company says it doesn’t intend to open more liquor stores. It is going to use some space that had been planned for a restaurant expansion to instead do an additional liquor store. But, overall, the company doesn’t intend to put more capital into the liquor store business. Since the liquor store business is less than 10% of earning power here already and the company intends to re-invest free cash flow in additional restaurants, but not additional liquor stores – there’s really no point in an analyst wasting their time worrying about the value of the liquor stores, their competitive position, etc. I will just mention two synergies here. The liquor stores are often co-located with the restaurants. Not always. But, often enough to make it worth mentioning. And then the other synergy would be liquor sales at the restaurant. Flanigan’s restaurants get about 75% of revenue from food sales and about 25% from bar sales. Gross margins at the restaurants are very high (compared to other restaurants) at around 65%. The fact the company is buying so much alcohol so frequently from the same distributors in the same region of the same state suggests that ownership of the liquor stores may help increase buying power, lower costs, and thereby achieve higher margins at the …
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