Article Excerpt:
TWST: Would you begin with a brief overview of Wendy's International?Mr. Barker: Wendy's today is a system of about 9,700 total restaurants. We have four brands starting with Wendy's International, which is a brand that's been around since 1969. And we have about 6,700 restaurants under the Wendy's brand name, primarily in North America. Most of our restaurants are in the United States. We have about 370 up in Canada. We have about another 380 outside of North America. Our second brand is Tim Hortons, and Tim Hortons is a chain that's been around for over 40 years. Founded in Canada, it is a coffee, baked goods and sandwich chain, and today they have about 2,700 restaurants. They specialize in coffee and doughnuts, but they have an entire line of baked goods. They have soups, they have sandwiches, all this is made to order. And they are the largest coffee and doughnut, sandwich chain in Canada, by far. And we have been expanding into the United States, and at the end of last year, we had 250 Tim Hortons restaurants in the United States, mostly in the Northeast and into the Midwest in Ohio and Michigan. Our third brand is Baja Fresh, and Baja Fresh was founded in 1990. Baja is a fast-casual restaurant chain, and we have about 300 Baja Fresh units. It is concentrated on the West Coast, and now growing on the East Coast. And we acquired Baja Fresh in 2002. It specializes in all made-to-order freshly made Mexican food, everything from grilled chicken to grilled steak to fajitas with grilled peppers and chilis, homemade sauces. We also own 70% of a very small brand called Cafe Express. Founded in 1984, it has about 20 locations, and these are also fast-casual restaurants, with american bistro style food. All the units are in Houston or Dallas and they specialize in all kinds of high-end food like shrimp and avocado salads to rustica chicken to smoked turkey cobb salads to desserts and sauces, and it is just excellent food, and we own 70% of that company. And then we own about 29% of another chain of fast-casual restaurants that specialize in fresh Italian, and this chain is called Pasta Pomodoro, and they have about 50 restaurants, and almost all of those are in the San Francisco Bay area. They are expanding into Southern California, and they do open kitchen type cooking, and they serve seafood and meat, vegetable pastas, grilled fish, rotisserie chicken, salads and sandwiches. They even have homemade desserts and wine. Again, we own about 30% of Pasta Pomodoro. So those are the brands that make up the overall company, altogether again about 9,700 restaurants at the end of 2004. Our system-wide sales are now over $10 billion, and our revenues last year topped out at $3.6 billion.
Tickers included in this excerpt: WEN
TWST Newsletter
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.