Determining Driver Of The Panera's Assets Price And Value Over The Long Term

As mentioned in the case study, Panera Bread Company is known to be one of the leading bakery/café that offers freshly baked pastries and French inspired entrées across various states in the US. However in the recent years, Panera Bread faced a decrease in their usual high growth rate from 9.1% and 12.0% in the year 2000 to merely 0.2% and 0.5% of comparable sales and annualized unit volumes respectively.

A key aspect of Panera Bread’s business that protects the company from direct competition in the fast food industry is their product niche, artisan fast food. Fast food chains are often criticized for offering unhealthy foods. But, Panera Bread focuses on a higher nutritional value in their products. Dine in restaurants are very susceptible to drops in consumer spending, so Panera Bread’s

At the end of 2007, Panera Bread Company was in an unfamiliar position where taking out debt was a necessary action to gain funding. Raising prices would be an option to help with the deteriorating margins, but there is fear that this move will slow the growth of the company. Other options, such as lowering the quality of food, would go against Panera’s fundamental goal of serving high quality food. At this time, Panera is in a position where it needs to repurchase stock. The $75 million buy-back should help give confidence to their shareholders. However, to accomplish their growth goals and stock repurchase, Panera will require external funding for the first time.

* We calculated liquidity, efficiency, leverage, coverage and profitability ratios for Panera for past years and projected forecasts.

The ROE of Boston Chicken from 1993 to 1994 shows the improvements from 1.7% to 6.2%, which is due to the improvements of Net Income. The increase in the number of stores from which Boston Chicken is the factor contributing to the improvements. The revenue shows the leap from $8.282 million in 1992 to $42.53 million in 1993 to $96.15 million in 1994.The new stores leading to an increase in royalty and franchise fees which is the reason of the increased revenue. NOPAT margin and EBITDA margin shows improvement in proportion to Net Income margin that indicates there is no change in interest. Profit margins indicate that the company’s performance has improved markedly in 1994.The stock value for Boston Chicken for 1994 was about $7 and the actual stock price was about $16 at the end of 1994. This indicates that Boston Chicken has been overvalued due to the optimistic view of market because of the present revenue growth rate and the inclusion of royalties and initial

Expanding the target market of Panera Bread is a good growth opportunity for them. This can be achieved by product line (menu options) extension or by entering international market outside the American continent so as to increase their geographical coverage. In addition, Panera has an opportunity to get additional market and growth by adapting rapidly to changing market and customer preferences. They need to advertise and market themselves as a healthy option for eating out. Health oriented food or food that are low in calories, sugar, cholesterol, etc. is getting very important as people started becoming very health conscious and selective. Their effort to roll out new products with fresher ingredients such as antibiotic-free chicken needs to be further expanded. Recognizing the health risks associated with transfat, Panera had completely removed all transfat from its menu by 2006. Organic food, non GMO, etc. They could increase number of their franchises. A number of markets were still available for franchise development. The have opportunity in front of them to open more outlets, both company-owned and franchises. They could open within North America and mainly in areas where they are not present now, and those areas where the growth potential is good, like some of the suburban markets. Many good locations for fast casual dining options are available in many of the untapped areas. Panera has a good market opportunity outside the small urban niche where greater growth

Panera Bread (NASDAQ: PNRA) is one of the most financially successful quick service restaurant (QSR) chains operating in North America today, having attained a $4.3B market capitalization value as of this writing in July, 2012. Panera is achieving a 7.6% Profit Margin and 12.36% operating margin, both of which are difficult to maintain in an industry known for very rapid product lifecycles and the need to continually invest in the customer experience (Andersson, Mossberg, 2004). In the most recent fiscal quarter ended March 27,2012 the company reported a trailing twelve month revenue rate of $1.9B, earning a gross profit of $636M and a Net Income of $144M for the same trailing twelve month period. Panera is one of the most efficient of QSR chains as well, earning a Return on Assets (ROA of 14.67% and Return on Equity (ROE) of 21.6%. The company has also been able to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility, investing millions of dollars a year in Second Harvest Food Bank and related programs to help the hungry and less fortunate in the markets they compete in (Boss, 2011). The intent of this analysis is to complete a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) analysis of Panera, discussing the attractiveness of the company and an assessment of its core or distinctive competencies. This analysis concludes with a series of recommendations for Panera Bread executives.

Panera has three business segments: Company-owned bakery-café, franchise operations and fresh dough operations. The company’s growth strategy was “to grow their store profits, to increase transactions and gross profits per transaction, use capital wisely and put into place drivers for concept differentiations and competitive advantage” (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p7.). In 2009 while everyone else was experiencing the hard economic times Panera Bread was sticking to their strategic plan. Panera did not lay off employees, or worry about closing underperforming stores. Instead, they continued to add menu items and even increased prices on existing items. This strategy worked for them and they were able to take advantage of clientele that came from fine dining. The company has

The Panera Bread Company is starting 2007 with unfinished goals and missed targets previously set and a review of their strategy is in order to continue their ongoing success. The company has grown substantially since its inception in the competitive restaurant industry; however, an aggressive target of 2,000 Panera Bread bakery-cafes will require a focused strategic plan. The company has a strong base with loyal customers who appreciate Panera’s unique dining atmosphere with a focus on quality products at a reasonable price. Panera will need to continue its market research and focus on environmental issues, which are an important core value. The opportunity for

In fact, franchised operations quadrupled from 1999 to 2003 and outnumbered company-owned Panera locations (Repetti & Vincelette, 2005). Finally, Panera’s fervent focus on their financial strategy gave the company a competitive advantage. The decision to sell Au Bon Pain allowed Panera Bread to entirely eliminate their debt and gain capital for future store openings (Repetti & Vincelette, 2005). Another smart financial decision the company made was their imposed franchise fees and strict requirement that all franchisees purchase dough directly from the company’s fresh dough facility (Repetti & Vincelette, 2005). Therefore, Panera was able to not only generate revenue from company-owned stores, but also had a steady revenue flow from their franchised stores.

The rivalry among competing sellers, often the strongest competitive pressure, is also fairly high for Panera in the restaurant industry. No switching costs, numerous competitors, and an increase in the availability of healthy food

| For every $1 in assets, the company generates 10.8 cents net income-in accounting terms, which gives us a return of 10.8% and is considered highly effective in such business

Net income is total revenues minus total expenses incurred to generate those revenues all within the same reporting period. Net income is calculated by the accrual accounting methodology meaning that the expenses incurred to generate revenues are reported at the same time the related revenues are reported. Both revenue recognition and expenses paid may not coincide with actual cash transactions. Net cash from operating activities, on the other hand, is not determined by accrual but by

Panera Bread has much strength within their business. In the beginning, Panera Bread recognized another company, Saint Louis Bread Company, to aid in strengthening their market standing and competitiveness by purchasing the company. Panera Bread further strengthened their company by redesigning the newly acquired company to have a more appealing dining experience, better quality, customer service, and wider product selection. After redesign was complete, the newly named Panera Bread recognized the new company design has a cash hog and made the wise decision to sell off

The calculation of ratios is the calculation technique for analyzing a company’s financial performance that divides or standardize one accounting measure by another economically relevant measure. Financial ratios can be used as a tool to demonstrate financial statement users for making valid comparisons of firm operating performance, over time for the same firm and between comparable companies. External investors are mostly interested in gaining insights about a firm’s profitability, asset management, liquidity, and solvency.