Are These Restaurant Companies Creating Value?

Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, once said, "I think I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther."

When corporate boards use bad incentives for management's pay, disaster often ensues. (Think Lehman Brothers.) Incentives based on singular metrics such as revenue growth, EBITDA, ROE, or earning per share are easily manipulated and gamed. Fortunately, there is a better way: EVA momentum.

Creator Bennett Stewart of EVA Dimensions, who also co-created EVA (Economic Value Added), calls EVA momentum "the only percent metric where more is always better than less. It always increases when managers do things that make economic sense."

So what does this mean for investors? A positive reading on EVA momentum means a company has created value by increasing its EVA, a negative EVA momentum means that EVA and thus value have decreased, signaling a destruction of value. EVA momentum is one of the few, if not the only, performance measure with such a clear dividing line between good and bad performance.

The best companies, then, create value in excess of their cost of capital, as reflected by positive EVA momentum. The higher the EVA momentum, the more value management's creating.

Let's look at Biglari Holdings (NYSE: BH) and four of its restaurant industry peers to see how effectively they create value. Here are the trailing four quarters' worth of EVA momentum figures for each company over the past three years, and rankings by percentile versus the restaurant industry for the past 12 months' EVA momentum.

Source: EVA Dimensions LLC.

Nearly all of these restaurants have created value this past year, with only Wendy's/Arby's destroying shareholder value. Of the group, only Chipotle consistently created value over the past three years, a remarkable feat. Biglari Holdings, Jamba, and Ruby Tuesday's 95^th-percentile momentum this past year does not make up for their one to two years of value destruction when compared to Chipotle. That said, with any luck, they can keep up their recent strong performance.

Businesses with high EVA momentum are effectively creating value. It will be interesting to see how useful this extremely new metric proves for companies and investors. If it lives up to its promise, EVA momentum will be an essential tool in investors' arsenals.

Another tool for better investing
Most investors don't keep tabs on their companies' fundamental value. That's a mistake. If you take the time to read past the headlines and crack a filing now and then, you're in a much better position to spot potential trouble early. Better yet, you'll improve your odds of finding the underappreciated home-run stocks that provide the market's best returns.

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service.

• Add Biglari Holdings to My Watchlist.
• Add Chipotle Mexican Grill to My Watchlist.
• Add Jamba to My Watchlist.
• Add Ruby Tuesday to My Watchlist.
• Add Wendy's/Arby's Group to My Watchlist.