Today I’m raising my target price for Restaurant Brands International (QSR) because I think the new Popeye’s chicken sandwich has legs.
A social media storm has accompanied the introduction of a new chicken sandwich at Popeye’s to compete with Chick-fil-A that has led to the sandwich selling out after massive sales.
The chicken couldn’t have crossed the road at a better time for Restaurant Brands International, the parent of the Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes fast food food chains.
The parent company has rolled out a master franchise joint venture structure (first for its Burger King chain, acquired by 3G Capital in 2009) that has sold master franchise rights to strong-hand partners to accelerate expansion in Brazil, China, France, India, Russia and South Africa.
And now Restaurant Brands is applying that same structure to expand its Tim Hortons and Popeye’s chains. For example, the Kordoglu family/Cartesian Capital Group consortium in China plans to open 1,500 Tim Hortons in China over the next decade (assuming the U.S.-China trade war ends within that time frame. The more visibility and differentiation that the company can create–the Popeye’s chicken sandwich, the Impossible meatless burger at Burger King) the faster and more successful the expansion of the three chains can be.
As of August 29, I’m raising my target price on Restaurant Brands International to $85 a share from the current $74. The stock is up 1.26% today as of 2 p.m. New York time to $78.62.
The Restaurant Brands position in my Jubak Picks portfolio is up 21.65% since I added it to the portfolio on February 21, 2019.
