“The Little-Known Canadian Stock That’s Made Investors 48 Times Their Money— And Is Just Getting Started”

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | March 13, 2014 2:24 pm

What's this "Motley Fool Canada Top Pick for 2014?"

Usually when you hear “little-known Canadian stock” you think, “hey, that’s probably some miner lying about their assay samples out of a storefront office in Vancouver” … but this one’s a little different.

To start with, it’s not a mining stock, and has nothing to do with gold[1] or tar sands or pipelines or any of the stuff most investors think about with regards to Canadian investments (though yes, there are plenty of big mainstream Canadian companies, that are global competitors in other businesses). This is a pick from the folks at Motley Fool[2] Canada[3], and it’s some kind of restaurant company.

No, it’s not Tim Horton’s (THI) — that would be too convenient after yesterday’s look at Dunkin’ Donuts[4]. But DNKN was pitched as Ian Wyatt[5]’s “Top Stock for March 2014” … so maybe we can set up a little cage match between that pick and whatever one turns out to be teased here by Motley Fool Canada[6].

What’s Motley Fool Canada, you say? Well, like some of the other big newsletter publishers, notably Agora[7] (with their Fleet Street[8] Publications in London and South Africa[9], and Port Philip Publishing in Australia[10]), the Fool is reaching out its tentacles around the globe. They have semi-independent websites in most of the large English-language countries, including fairly new ones in Australia and Canada and a longstanding partnership in the UK, and in recent years they’ve started to launch premium newsletters in those countries as well, sometimes staffed by folks who sound familiar from their time writing for the Fool here in the US (the latest one seems to be Motley Fool Singapore[11], which has just a couple writers and no premium newsletters yet). The letters borrow their marketing chops from the American mothership, with local twists — Motley Fool Canada’s stuff so far seems almost identical in structure and tone to the US Motley Fool teaser ad letters, though Australia and the UK seem to be a little more restrained … teaser pitches must get more regulatory scrutiny (or different scrutiny, at least) in those countries.

The letter they’re pitching today is Stock Advisor[12] Canada, which presumably is expected to follow in the footsteps of David and Tom Gardner[13]’s flagship Stock Advisor newsletter, which has been around for about a dozen years and which we’ve probably covered more than any other single newsletter here at Stock Gumshoe.

(Stock Gumshoe, in case you’re wondering, has just had its seventh birthday… it’s OK, no one else sent a card, either — and the first article I wrote about the Fool was published exactly seven years ago today. Incidentally, of the 15 or 20 stocks I pulled out of the Thinkolator in those first two weeks there have been four that disappeared completely or went bankrupt and several others that are down 90%+ in seven years. Whole Foods Market (WFM), that first Stock Advisor teaser pick I covered, has more than doubled since then — so it’s one of the better ones from those early months, but is well short of the 2,400% gain in Netflix from when the Fool brothers started teasing that rocket a few months later.)

But I’ve gone off the track a bit — what was it we were looking for? Oh, yes, that super secret Canadian stock being teased by Iain Butler[14] for Stock Advisor Canada[15] … let’s jump right into the clues now:

“In just a moment, I’ll discuss what I believe is one of the best opportunities for Canadian investors this year — a rapidly expanding franchise company with the potential to make you a small fortune.

“The Canadian company I’m talking about has outperformed Starbucks by more than 10 times over the past decade! It’s already seen the value of its stock skyrocket from 65 cents a share in 2004… to $5 a share in 2008… to a high of $32 today – an eye-popping 4,800% gain in less than 10 years…

“The company I’m talking about is cashing in on the craze for “Quick Service Restaurants” (QSR) here in Canada—the franchise trend that has already built a $21.7 billion industry just in Canada alone.”

So that gives us a few ideas, but it’s not specific enough for a real answer … yet.

Back we go into the ad, digging for more clues:

“In each decade, North America consumers have latched onto a fast-food craze and made early investors rich as Midas.

“And each time, investors who spotted these trends and took decisive action made a killing….

“Now, a new trend is gripping the QSR industry: The development of quality ethnic restaurants selling delicious Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Jamaican, Indian, and other types of cuisine.

“Each of these new chains are growing into colossal, multi-million dollar micro industries, with early adopters invariably grabbing the biggest gains….

“Not every stock will take off. But smart QSR executives—like the ones that run the company that I’m talking about—could have years of sustained growth ahead of them….

“The company franchises… and, in a few cases, operates, myriad quick-service restaurant brands in nontraditional locations throughout Canada: food courts, shopping malls, gas stations, convenience stores, movie theatres, or amusement parks.

“It franchises more than 2,500 niche restaurants (under a total of some 26 “banners”) with annual revenues of $100 million. The company has grown both through developing original concepts—often “ethnic” cuisines such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian—and through acquisition of chains/brands over time.”

So this is primarily a franchising company, which is generally a good thing if you’re looking for rapid growth without much capital required (though operating controls sometimes become an issue, which is why management and franchisee conformity ends up being very important) … here’s a bit more from the ad:

“Each week/month, the legion of franchised stores (over 2,500 strong) all send their royalty cheques to the company’s headquarters.

“In addition, this rapidly growing conglomerate collects franchise fees from new operators, sells goods and services to franchisees, owns a food processing business that sells to distributors/retailers, and runs a small distribution center business predominantly selling to a couple of the franchisees.”

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Then we get to Butler’s future forecast, which is where we’re supposed to start drooling:

“I believe there are still worlds to conquer for this company within Canada and that we could see 4,000 domestic stores in the next decade (requiring only 5% annual store growth) from a combination of concept build-out and additional acquisitions.

“This growth will add considerably to the firm’s bottom line given the high-margin model under which it operates, thus leading to the sizeable gains that we foresee. Thanks to its unique model, it’s already up 4,800% in the past decade alone.

“This return could pale in comparison to the next 10 years, especially if this firm becomes the target of a buyout….”

So … that should be enough, right? I am, frankly, relieved that regulations do not require me to post the answer in both English and French, but I can tell you that the Thinkolator/Thinkolateur answered quite quickly and firmly … this is MTY Group (MTY in Toronto, MTYFF on the pink sheets — there is almost no trading on the pink sheets for this one).

MTY Group is still a small cap stock, with a market capitalization near $600 million, but they’ve been around for decades as CEO Stanley Ma steadily built an under-the-radar empire of food court brands, starting from a base of a few asian-themed restaurants in Quebec led by Tiki Ming and expanding both geographically (still mostly in Atlantic Canada, where the people are) and thematically, with now 26 brands focused on Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Tex-Mex, Greek, and Indian food as well as coffeeshops, bakeries, and sub, hot dog and frozen yogurt shops. It’s a little hard to get y our head around so many brands spread among so few locations — many of the brands, both those they’ve bought during decades of roll-up acquisition, have only 15-20 locations (about a dozen of their brands were developed in house, the rest were acquisitions of either companies or master franchise agreements for Canada).

I like the model, it’s very appealing to have centralized management and distribution for lots of different brands, and they do have their own food processing plant and distribution company in Quebec that can serve at least the core of the company. It’s also very much mall-reliant, and is also pretty expensive, the shares in the low-$30s are within 10-20% of analyst targets, and they just did their largest acquisition, of Extreme Pita, last year for about $45 million[16], a significant tentpole because it gives them the entree into the US market that they’ve apparently long coveted. So they still have their eye on growth, and it’s still really about continuing to expand the depth and the breadth of their network to keep royalty fees rolling in — these are small stores, on average. If you divide the revenue for the network by the number of stores you’ll see that each location brings in an average of less than $300,000 a year in revenue. Not gross profit or operating income, but actual sales, so these are (as anyone who has ever run a mall kiosk or food court shop knows) stores that operate on thin margins and with heavy competition.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about the company the 2013 Annual Report is here[17] — what you’ll see is that it’s a nice, high margin business because it’s reliant on franchise fees and royalties, the franchise fees roll in with a gross margin of about 50% (meaning, for each dollar of fees and royalties from franchisees the parent spend about 50 cents on promotion or maintaining the restaurant network), but the few company owned stores, the distribution company and the food processing either lose money or generate single-digit profit margins. So growing the network is the name of the game.

Will they keep it up? Well, I had never heard of the company before today but it looks like it’s one of the more respected small cap stocks in Canada and they’ve certainly had a good run over the last decade with the stock rising by some 8,000% since the early 2000s — it’s priced for growth, but it has been growing despite often weak same store sales numbers, so you can make the call for yourself about whether the price is right. Let us know what you think with a comment below.

Endnotes:
  1. gold: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/gold/
  2. Motley Fool: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/motley-fool/
  3. Canada: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/canada/
  4. yesterday’s look at Dunkin’ Donuts: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/top-stock-insights/top-stock-for-march-2014-the-mcempire-is-dying/
  5. Ian Wyatt: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/ian-wyatt/
  6. Motley Fool Canada: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/motley-fool-canada/
  7. Agora: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/agora/
  8. Fleet Street: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/fleet-street/
  9. Africa: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/africa/
  10. Australia: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/australia/
  11. Singapore: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/singapore/
  12. Stock Advisor: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/stock-advisor/
  13. Tom Gardner: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/tom-gardner/
  14. Iain Butler: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/iain-butler/
  15. Stock Advisor Canada: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/stock-advisor-canada/
  16. Extreme Pita, last year for about $45 million: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/28/mty-extreme-brandz/
  17. the 2013 Annual Report is here: http://www.mtygroup.com/ir/annual/2013.pdf

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/stock-advisor-canada/the-little-known-canadian-stock-thats-made-investors-48-times-their-money-and-is-just-getting-started/


22 responses to ““The Little-Known Canadian Stock That’s Made Investors 48 Times Their Money— And Is Just Getting Started””

  1. Carbon Bigfoot says:

    I always worry about Oriental DVA and what I am eating, i.e., dog, cat or rat. I think I’ll pass on this offering!!

  2. Happy Birthday to You!
    Happy Birthday to You!
    Happy Birthday, dear Gumshoe,
    Happy Birthday to you.
    I wouldn’t worry about being given dog or cat or rat… not in Canada. Maybe moose or baby seal, stuff Inuits eat.
    But before buying into this Mighty concept it would help if someone in Atlantic Canada (volunteer, please) would go a try some of the food. If it tastes awful the stock will plummet, right?
    Note also that the CEO’s name, Ma, means horse in Chinese. So it is unlikely that they will be serving his cousins in the eateries, unlike what happened in European branches of Ikea where old worn out Irish nags from the slaughterhouse distributed by a French company had been ground up into Swedish meatballs.

  3. William douglas says:

    Travis, the Canadian Fools Have inundated my inbox with such annoying frequency with their pitches to the point yesterday I canceled my free subscription with them. And yet I was always wildly curious what companies they were talking about. Now lo and behold you write about one of them. I am Canadian but I would never have figured out the stock without your help. For quite sometime I have considered purchasing a subscription from you and now you’re vigilance and sleuthing will be rewarded. I am going to be one of the irregulars in the next week and hope the support counts in some small way. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

  4. Mark says:

    Apparently Canadian Fools have never heard of POET Technologies. As usual, they are fools. Haha

  5. hgpark888 says:

    I see Kimchi, Koryo, Thai express, Mr. Sub, Yogen Fruz, Tacotime, Koya and Jugo Juice around B.C. area quite often. Thai express is present in most major malls in greater Vancouver areas.
    Jugo Juice was quite big as they went into all the major skytrain stations but failed miserably and closed down most shops in skytrain station venues.

    It seems interesting for sure, but the valuation is pretty expensive at this point.

  6. Dennis Boyle says:

    Thai Express is also in Al Wadha Mall in Abu Dhabi. If I were to pick a stock based on if I liked the food then it would be a definite yes as the food is great. However what I did notice about this particular outlet is the fact that it is not very popular. When I look around there may be one or two other people eating but if I look across at KFC Pizza Hut etc I see they are absolutely full. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

  7. zangtang says:

    well then, happy seventh Travis – a magical number!
    An absolute ‘pea-souper’ (fog) outside my window here in sunny Cornwall U.K.

  8. Elliot says:

    For anyone interested in a tiny thinly traded OTC food chain stock, take a look at Meritage Hospitality Group (MHGU). I own a small speculative position as I am familiar with the company since I know someone who worked for them for years and they are based out of my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. P/S on this stock is around .25 and volume has been rising as of late (although it is still ridiculously and scarily low, hence the speculative position). I believe fair value is in the upper teens … currently it sits at $5.25/share. They own Wendy’s franchises in multiple states and are steadily growing. They also own a few of their own local restaurants which are quite good – Twisted Rooster, Crooked Goose, and Freighters (which I have not been to as it is in northern Michigan).

  9. Allan Robinson says:

    Travis: happy seventh, and best wishes for many more.
    Enjoy reading your sleuthing and revelatory reviews.
    Keep it up!
    Caracas, Venezuela

  10. I WORKED FOR AN OP SIMILAR TO THIS IN HOUSTON TEXAS, A BIT OF DIFFERENCE THY WERE SPREAD OVER MANY BUSINESS PLATFORMS, BASIC STARTED AS FURNITURE, NEW / USED / RENTAL, LAND PURCHASES FOR HOME / APARTMENT BUILDING, FINAL PLATFORM, A STRIP CENTER WITH ABOUT TEN BUSINESS, APARTMENTS TO SUPPORT STRIP, GAS STATION, FULLY STOCKED STORE, [FINAL 110], ANY VACANT PARCELS WERE PURCHASED AS WE HAD A COMPLETE BUILDING COMPANY, FLOORING CO., A/C HEATING CO. FINANCE CO THE PLAN WAS EACH TYPE BUSINESS SUPPORTED EACH OTHER, THE REACH AND DIFFERENT BUSINESSES NOT LISTED WAS FAR MORE DETAILED THAN LISTED HERE . STARTED BY TWO BROTHERS, THEN A SON, THEN AN OUTSIDER, THIS TEAM OF FOUR WERE FANTASTIC, DIFFICULT TO LIST THE MANY SKILLS, AMAZING FOUR, AN HONOR FREE FANTASTIC EDUCATION AND TO BE PART OF THE SYSTEM. IF RECALL ACCURATE WE HAD 27 DIFFERENT BUSINESS UNITS BENEATH THE PARENT. MTY SEEMS TO HAVE THE SAME DYNAMICS AND CANADIAN AT THAT, CANADIANS ARE NOT KNOWN TO BE DEDICATED WORKERS. GUMSHOE…YOU ARE TERRIFIC THANK YOU, BE WELL AND SAFE

  11. Frenchy says:

    I belong to MF Canada as I have recently moved there and never saw this pitch or this stock promoted by them! Go figure… Happy Belated Birthday GS!

  12. arch1 says:

    I know of no sector with higher failure rate than restaurant business. That & the fact that franchised chains ,which was new idea for KFC McDonalds etc, are now a mature industry make investing in new startups risky for likely return. IMHO. This one is not for me.

  13. nathanm says:

    There is a thread on this one at the Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax board, so I’ve heard of it before. At a brief glance it looked like a good and profitable company that would probably keep growing, but seemed too expensive. That type of stock always seems to grow and get more expensive. If you can’t find anything ridiculously cheap its probably a good place to park money and watch it grow. To add another somewhat similar company like Eliot did(will check out MHGU), NROM, Noble Romans, is a pizza restaurant that has franchise locations of various types. It has tanked recently pre and post earnings(weather being a big contributing factor), but might show good growth due to a new take and bake franchise concept that is like a papa murphy’s model(who coincidentally just did an IPO). There are a couple good seeking alpha articles pointing out the bull case, check them out. Disclosure: long NROM.

  14. toff says:

    “Yesterday” woulda been a nice time to read this. Oh well!

  15. hendrixnuzzles says:

    Where I am in the southeast Taco Bell (YUM) seems to be gaining popularity with the college crowd. They love the food and are pretty innovative. No position

  16. Krishna says:

    Lately, Motley Fool has been coming off like a Carnival Barker, pitching this snake oil and that, teasing hapless viewers to scroll down one screen after another, endlessly.
    One cannot have ‘golden opportunities’ every week or so, which is what the Fools seem to be promising,

    It is time to burst their bubble, with a serious analysis of all their predictions, promises, payoffs and pitfalls.

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