|
John, Hometown Buffet is a subsidiary of a publicly traded company: Buffets, INC., symbol BOCB. It is an interesting story. It was co-founded by a man named C. Dennis Scott, who helped develop the idea of an all you can eat buffet restaurant. This company Buffets (BOCB) did great for many years and the stock went up alot, alot. Then one day C. Dennis Scott got some innovative ideas on how to improve the all you can eat buffet concept by creating small food islands that avoid the traditional in-line wait. However, Buffets management wouldn't give C. Dennis Scott's ideas a try, so he quit and started his own company, call Hometown Buffet. Hometown Buffet is the best value for the money you will ever see! They have over 100 locations, have used C. Dennis Scotts innovative ideas, and grew from 1 location to over 100 in about 5 years! During that time Hometown went public. It first shot up, then corrected downwards several times due to the stock price getting way ahead of itself. As Hometown began to butt heads with its old nemisis, Buffets INC., Hometown started to wipe them out, driving customer counts at Buffets down by 30%. Shockingly, however, Hometown just recently agreed to merge with Buffets, and will be finally using C. Dennis Scott's ideas to straiten out Buffets restaurants (which are called Old Country Buffet). Please try out their restaurant - it will blow your mind. Lunch for $5.60, all you can eat, a wide assortment of food, drinks and desserts included. They have about 22 different desserts to choose from, including soft serve ice cream and frozen yogurt. You won't even need to leave a tip! Anyway, since Hometown Buffet is now a subsidiary of Buffets INC. and will be using C. Dennis Scott to straiten out Buffets' Old Country Buffet (there are 260 Old Country Buffets), and Buffets INC. (symbol BOCB) is a very interesting and probably undervalued stock. Wall Street estimates (Zacks, etc.) estimate BOCB will earn in excess of $1.00 per share in 1997, and since it currently trades and 10 and change, it would have a p/e of around 10 by the end of next year unless the stock goes up. To me, I am determined to hold onto BOCB stock until it goes from 10 to 20. The customer counts at Hometown are unreal - averaging approx. 10,000 per week! Check it out for yourself. Investigate for yourself before investing. Assume your own risk, etc. Anything can happen, but I personally think the stock is definately going to go up in the long run. Let me know what you think of there restaurant. They are not fancy, but what a bargain! |
