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The profit season in New Zealand rolls on, and by and large things look good company wise considering the sad state of the economy. One company set to announce their profit in October, Restaurant Brands Ltd [RBD.NZ] the operator of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks brands in New Zealand looks set to show an increase in its earnings.
Of course this wouldn't be difficult considering the bad results they have been posting these last 24 months.
RBD's KFC unit has shown another re-growth because of vast sums of shareholder money being thrown at it but it is still off its all-time sales figures way back in the 20th century, still, having said that KFC is still the main and only profit driver for the restaurant group and it is the greasy stuff that will give RBD another shot at breaking its $1 share price barrier again-it listed in 1997 at $2.20 and briefly once touched that price in 2002.
The main problem for RBD though, apart from bad management and poor service, is the competition from its smarter and more motivated rivals.
KFC's position as the number one purveyor of chicken product is being plucked at by several rival chains. Red Rooster and Nandos are picking off KFCs customers piece by piece.
Starbucks has always struggled here and is basically a tax right-off for the company and it has never turned a profit since arriving on these shores in 1999. Operating costs are way too high and revenue hasn't yet matched these expenses.
The biggest threat to RBD though and its Pizza Hut brand, are the inroads that Dominos has made on its sales and profit. In a profit announcement by Dominos today its CEO Don Meij stated:
However, New Zealand EBITDA improved, growing from $1.5 million to $2.7 million. "In New Zealand, Domino's Pizza continues to go from strength to strength, with its EBITDA contribution up 80 per cent during the year."
October's announcement will probably see another big dip in sales for Pizza Hut and everything management have done so far to compete with Dominos has been a dismal failure.
Hopefully shareholders will also find out whether the board have managed to find a new head for the company. Vicki Salmon was pushed out at the beginning of the year and the company dearly need a new direction, any direction really so they can move forward and make some drastically needed changes in operations at head office down all the way down to store level.
In a related matter, Burger Fuel Worldwide [BFW.NZ] the recently listed "gourmet" burger maker, has failed to have its shares traded at all for the last 5 days. We wait in anticipation for a movement soon.
RBD shares closed down 1c to NZ 84c today.
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c Share Investor 2007
Recent bad news about credit squeezes in the sub-prime lending arena overseas and the New Zealand equivalent of sub prime, finance companies, and collapses of them, have got me thinking.
What possesses people to put their money into these "investments" ?
Whether it be ignorance or stupidity I think that what we are talking about is financial education, that is, how much we know about investing, money, finance and economics and all that entails.
There are many ways of learning about the details surrounding financial matters, whether it be at home from parents, at school as a subject, learning from those around you and experiences as one goes through life.
Clearly learning from experience is a good thing but it can also be costly to an individuals back pocket and lifestyle if one doesn't have a basic grasp of the knowledge of how money works as a foundation to build your financial experience on.
Honestly it should be up to parents to teach children how to use money wisely, what saving means, and how compound interest works. The earlier the start the better. Sadly not all parents are created equal so it could be suggested that learning about things financial should be taught in school.
Far be it from me to suggest that state education is the answer to this problem, it usually gives rise to problems rather than fixes them but in the absence of anything better and from personal experience, I think teaching the minimum of basic finances at school in conjunction with teaching at home can give a child a good start in their financial life. This will keep them in good stead for the rest of their lives and help make their working and social lives all that much better.
Its true I tell ya!!
I learnt the basics of money, saving and investing from an early age, from a life crafted by the necessities of making money stretch and saving "for a rainy day" because I was born into a poor family. We cant all have the advantageous start to our financial education that I had though !
Primary school though taught us the basic Mathematics through rote times tables, therefore learning how to count and multiply figures and how basic interest was calculated.
At High School, in economics classes, we learnt supply and demand, the cost of money, the element of risk and the benefits of saving, entrepreneurial skills and the wonders of compounding interest: what compounding meant when you saved and borrowed. These things I remember to this day and I apply them nearly every day in all aspects of my life.
What I would like to know though is what has gone wrong?
Are people these days getting taught the basics and if they are why are some of them ignoring those basics?
Surely our old friend greed must come into play here. When an individual looks at a high interest rate, and doesn't look at the prospectus (not that these always tell the full story) it seems forces other than financial acumen are at play here.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to investing money but many of us choose to ignore the warning signs of a bad investment simply because they can only see the "big returns" promised in the little advert in the Business Herald pages. Reading the details of the investment and assessing the risk of high returns would have most of us use that advert to wipe our bottoms with.
Probably the most irritating part of these collapses in Finance Companies is that many of those investing in them are referred to them by so-called financial experts, who all get very handsome kick-backs for their advice too. Most of these people who advise could write their credentials on a pin head and it appears that many of them function in their positions because they have gregarious and outgoing personalities! A large franchised financial advisor of dubious quality, Money Managers, doesn't even require that its franchisees have a financial background. Excellent stuff !
The lack of basic financial acumen and basic business understanding from our business writers also leaves those that should be run out of Dodge with cutting columns a good escape from Coventry and Dodge. Save a handful of writers like Fran Wilde, Jenny Ruth and others we are left with dirge written by the likes of Rod Oram to line our chicken coups and toilet floors with.
I despair, yes dear readers, despair, the lack of financial education in this country. The lack of it leads to people that you read about in headlines that have lost life savings to these Finance Company collapses. Old women losing 50 years of retirement savings, families losing money saved for education of children. Then there are those that we may not hear about, those that found that losing a lifetimes hard earned savings has changed their lives irreparably and they meet an ultimate end by their own hands. It happens and probably has over the length that these 6 finance companies have gone to the wall.
I have been a little disturbed lately by those in important positions of Government and bureaucracy who should be setting examples with their financial knowledge saying and doing stupid things when it comes to things financial. New Zealand Labour Politicians removing the risk of borrowing money by giving interest free cash to students, the responsibility of saving for a house by gifting taxpayer money to "those in need", making it easier for folks to declare and get out of bankruptcy in order to avoid paying debt and much more financial stupidity too numerous to list here.
Global State banking institutions bailing out private and public companies who lent money to bad borrowers is surely madness and teaches us nothing. It appears nobody is responsible for the risks that they take with money anymore. Our Politically Correct times saves individuals and companies from learning that bad decisions have consequences and that others will bail them out financially when things get tough. Given this whacked out financial theory those that take the risk should clearly share the rewards as well. Yeah right!
Lacking a financial education can have serious effects not just on your back pocket but on your future and life.
It is "just money" that I am talking about but we do know that it makes the world go around. All the cliches are there. There is more to life than money but it takes hard work to earn that money and it doesn't make sense to throw it away because you don't have confidence in what you are doing because you were not taught how to handle your finances.
Being wise with your moola can give you a good lifestyle and help make your life easier and the other parts of life more rewarding. Knowing that your money is working harder (and safely!) for you than you worked earning it in the first place is one of the functions of being educated about the finer details of finances, saving, investing and business and learning this at school along with the basics from home is a bloody good start.
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c Share Investor 2007
It seems global markets have all of a sudden forgotten that they have plunged over the last few weeks. At the best of times share market psychology is difficult to come to grips with but we appear to have a patient with bi-polar disorder here. Mr Market moves in mysterious ways.
Gains have carried over two days now and credit woes, crunches and squeezes seem to be distant memories for investors.
What has changed to give investors enthusiasm and verve to go out and spend cash on equities again?
Nothing.
As a whole, investors are still unclear as to the extent of the credit driven market woes and any reversal of the previous selling of stocks seems premature until the full picture develops.
I don't necessarily think that it is a mistake to buy beaten down stocks but it seems a little odd to me that the market as a whole seems to by discounting the last two weeks all of a sudden like nothing has happened.
It is likely that volatility and downwards pressure will continue on global markets until we know more about the reasons for recent falls.
Watch out for that dead cat bounce.
c Share Investor 2007
