Wendy’s International, Inc. (NYSE: WEN – News) announced today that its strong sales trends continued in July (Period 7 ended on August 4).
* Same-store sales increased 6% at Wendy’s(R) U.S. company restaurants.
* Same-store sales increased 5.7% at Tim Hortons(R) restaurants in Canada,
and 11.3% at U.S. restaurants.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Schuessler said: “We continue to focus on our long-term operating principles and customer service initiatives. From a product and marketing standpoint, we focused during July on our everyday Super Value Menu(TM) at Wendy’s and our Timbits® promotion at Tim Hortons.”
Wendy’s also announced today that it may repurchase up to $25 million of Wendy’s common shares in the open market during the remainder of 2002. The company has repurchased 33.1 million common shares for $779 million since 1998.
“We believe our shares represent a good value, especially with the strong sales and earnings performance we are demonstrating this year in a challenging economic environment. We are confident about our business going forward and we are committed to proactively managing our balance sheet. At the end of the second quarter our cash position was $140 million.”
Wendy’s recently raised its 2002 EPS growth goal to a range of $1.90 to $1.95, a 15% to 18% increase over $1.65 in 2001. Management’s previous goal for 2002 EPS was in the $1.87 to $1.92 range, which was a 13.5% to 16.5% increase. The Company’s long-term goal for annual EPS growth continues to be in the 12% to 15% range.
