Kura Sushi USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:KRUS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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I’ve asked other departments to really think about how can IT help you. What can we do? We saw really good leverage in the last two quarters, 120 bps in Q2 and 130 this quarter. Very, very happy with that. Quite honestly, exceeded my expectations a little bit and I’m very pleased and very happy with how the team has stepped up in the company in order to make that happen because this is not a single person effort. It’s an effort of the entire company. And so what we did this year for the past nine months has slowed down our hires a little bit in the support center, continuing to hire in the areas where we need to in order to support our growth such as construction, development, recruiting, training and we’re going to continue to do that. But we’ve asked people to really kind of do what they can to keep the hires at a minimum.

So that’s why we saw such good leverage. We are going to continue to see leverage going forward. I haven’t provided any guidance on Wednesday will be in single-digit percentages. We will get there someday, but that’s not necessarily in the next 12 months or 24 months, but we are very happy with the leverage that we’ve seen over the last two quarters.

Todd Brooks: That’s great. And a follow-up question, if I may. Actually, a quick question on the pricing side. So I think the way that I heard you guys talking about the waterfall was 13% during the quarter. We lapped 6% at the start of July, but at the same time, we took another 3%. So kind of the back two months of the quarter, is it what we think about running maybe 10% effective price? Is my math right there.

Jeff Uttz: Well, I was going to say, what you’ll see is, there’s a 6% and the 7% that we’re in there for June. So in Q3, you’ll see the 6% to 7%. And as we mentioned, we took — we rolled off 6% on July 1, but we took 2%, so the pricing for July and August and will be 8% for each of those months. So 13% June, 8% July and August.

Todd Brooks: Perfect. Thanks. And my final one is.

Jeff Uttz: I’m sorry. I’m sorry, 13%, June; 9% July and August.

Todd Brooks: Okay. Thanks.

Jeff Uttz: It’s 7% for December and at 2%, we just took.

Todd Brooks: Fair enough. And then the final one, $70 million of cash on the balance sheet after the offering. I know the team has talked about, listen, we’re building to grow. We’ll make the hires that we need to grow. I guess, between the brand’s performance, landlord appetite to get Kura in two projects and now the magnitude of cash on the balance sheet, do you see any uptick in the opportunities to open or accelerate the unit openings? I think you talked about 11 leases signed already for the coming year. But just would like to know if the incremental capital and the readiness for the organization as you’re thinking of growing any faster into the opportunity that the brand has in the U.S.

Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So this is very similar to what we said in past earnings calls. But the way that we think about our unit growth pace is really in terms of free gating factors. First would be our liquidity. The second would be the availability of high-quality sites. And the third would be our management pipeline. As you mentioned, with our — with the April rates, we’re in the best cash position we’ve ever been in and the sites are great. And so — for the last several years, the focus has really been on making sure the quality and breadth of the management pipeline is to really keep up with our [indiscernible] goals. And so what we’ve said historically is that 20% is what we think — is what we [indiscernible] street when we went public.

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