Boston, MA 03/25/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Shares of Sonic Corporation (NASDAQ:SONC) are currently trading up and have already touched a new 52-week, thanks to the encouraging second quarter results. The company managed to pull solid earnings and sales growth in key businesses during the second quarter despite the harsh weather.
The results were full of interesting aspects. First and foremost, the management expressed deep satisfaction with the results. The CEO and President of Sonic Mr. Cliff Hudson observed that second quarter results were exciting in many ways, more so considering that the company managed to post solid results in light of the tough weather condition.
We take a look into the results and reveal key takeaways for investors who wish to keep a tab on this stock.
Beating earnings
Sonic Corporation (NASDAQ:SONC) realized adjusted earnings per share of 7 cents, which was 40 percent above the earnings per share reported in the second quarter of 2013. The EPS also surpassed consensus estimate by more than 18 percent. The company has missed EPS estimates once since the second quarter of 2012. In the next quarter, analysts have modeled the company to reported EPS of 29 cents.
It is also worth noting the company missed revenue estimate in the just reported quarter, thus marking the fifth miss of estimate in last six quarters. Revenue was $109.74 million, against expected $110.57 million.
Same-store sale growth
Sonic reported that during the second quarter, same-store sales increased by 1.4 percent, which was encouraging considering the adverse weather condition which impacted the market. For retailers and restaurant chains, same-stores sales are considered important metrics as they give a picture of how the future is likely to model. Like in the case of Sonic, increase in same-store sales leaves no doubt that customer demand is growing.
Returning money to investors
The company announced that it is targeting to buy back its shares worth $80 million in the current fiscal. Through to the second quarter, the company reported that it had already repurchased shares worth $51 million. That represented roughly 5 percent of the company’s outstanding shares as of the beginning of the second quarter.
Moving forward
Sonic Corporation (NASDAQ:SONC) management guided earnings per share in the current fiscal year to grow between 14 and 15 percent over last year’s EPS. Adjusted EPS in 2013 was 72 cents.
