+++ kitchen sink cookie panera

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Pastries | kitchen sink cookie panera

kitchen sink cookie panera

NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Consolidation is fueling aggrandizement in the U.S. fast-food market. JAB, the abreast captivated client of Krispy Kreme, Peet’s Coffee and added assets, is advantageous $7.5 billion including debt for Panera Bread. That’s a boundless 41 times projected balance for 2017. The client has abysmal pockets and no annoying shareholders to acknowledgment to, and its ambition boasts one of the industry’s arch advance rates. But such a aerial appraisal will accept few rivals in the M&A oven.

The latest in a cord of fast-food mergers, the accord is the better anytime for a U.S. restaurant alternation and not far abaft the $12.6 billion that buyout close 3G’s restaurant agent paid for Tim Hortons in 2014. The action amount is about 17 times this year’s anticipation EBITDA, compared with the 10.4 times celebrated EBITDA that Darden Restaurants paid for Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen aftermost month.

Panera’s appraisal is as affluent as abounding of its card items, like the 800-calorie Kitchen Sink Cookie. But JAB, the advance agent of Germany’s billionaire Reimann family, is not one to let amount get in the way of its appetite. It invests for a decade or added and has already apparent a alertness to pay amply for able brands like Peet’s, European coffee broiler Jacobs Douwe Egberts, cosmetics abode Coty and stiletto-maker Jimmy Choo.

With Panera, JAB is accepting above-average advance as allotment of the recipe. The aggregation is aggressively rolling out agenda acclimation and acquittal kiosks to acceleration barter through its added than 2,000 outlets. It’s additionally introducing commitment account and authoritative a comedy for the health-conscious with a new band of no-sugar-added beverages. Such initiatives helped addition same-store sales by 5.3 percent in the aboriginal three months of 2017. That compares able-bodied to the boilerplate bead beyond the industry of 2.7 percent in the three months to the end of February, according to Black Box Intelligence.

JAB’s move may animate others to move bound while there are still affluence of absence in the burst fast-food industry. But carb-loading at this akin can advance to indigestion.

Reuters Breakingviews is the world's arch antecedent of agenda-setting banking insight. As the Reuters cast for banking commentary, we anatomize the big business and bread-and-butter belief as they breach about the apple every day. A all-around aggregation of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and added above cities provides able assay in absolute time.

Sign up for a chargeless balloon of our abounding account at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and chase us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions bidding are those of the authors.

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