Mr. Tsampalieros: Cara is a long established Canadian organization incorporated in 1883. We've been in business for 119 years, we've operated in three different centuries. We started off as a family-owned company and remained private until 1968. The company then became a public corporation. At the time of going public, Cara's focus of activity was airline catering, catering on trains, with limited exposure to non-branded restaurants, coffee shops and bars in office buildings and airport terminals. Total system sales in 1968 were about 30 million. Since 1968, Cara has grown at a cumulative annual growth rate of about 13.5% on the top line and approximately 13% on the bottom line. Current annualized system sales, excluding inter-company activity will be approximately 1.9 billion. Over the years, our mix of business has varied but, now, approximately 88% of our business is made up of sales from our branded restaurants. The balance ' the remaining 12% or so ' is derived from our airline catering operation.
TWST: What are the restaurant brands?
Mr. Tsampalieros: We operate seven different banners. Six are wholly
owned brands belonging to Cara, and one is under franchise. Our most
significant brand is Swiss Chalet, which is a casual, mid-scale, family
restaurant specializing in rotisserie chicken and barbequed ribs. It has
been in existence since 1954. We have approximately 190 restaurants in
operation ' 10 of which are located in the United States ' generating
annualized system sales of approximately 440 million. It is Canada's
leading casual restaurant chain, and it operates through three different
channels: 1) on-premise consumption which makes up about 61% of sales,
2) take-out and 3) delivery and drive-through. The next most significant
brand for us is a QSR brand specializing in grilled, individually
garnished hamburgers called Harvey's. Harvey's began in 1959 and has
approximately 365 units in operation generating about 300 million in
sales.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CAO:TSE
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