Logan's Roadhouse is ready to give Wall Street a second chance.
The casual steakhouse chain is filing to go public this morning, just four years after former parent CBRL Group (Nasdaq: CBRL) handed it off to private equity investors.
Logan's Roadhouse originally went public in 1995, on the heels of a healthy investing appetite for casual steakhouses after the initial success of Outback and Lone Star Steakhouse in the early 1990s. CBRL Group eventually acquired Logan's to give its flagship Cracker Barrel concept a younger sibling with a juicy upside based on expansion.
It didn't exactly pan out that way. The past decade hasn't been kind to the niche. All three of the chains went private in 2006 and 2007, leaving Texas Roadhouse (Nasdaq: TXRH) as the lone public face of stand-alone casual steakhouses.
Logan's Roadhouse hopes to change that. It will go public as LRI Holdings, branded with the ticker symbol LGNS if it's able to pull off the offering.
The chain is timing its return perfectly, as consumers return to affordable table service and comfort food with the economy showing a few signs of life.
It's also a good time to fill the growing void in eatery stocks. CKE Restaurants (NYSE: CKR), Rubio's (Nasdaq: RUBO), and Landry's (NYSE: LNY) have all agreed to be taken private this year. Two months ago, California Pizza Kitchen (Nasdaq: CPKI) announced that it's exploring a sale.
There hasn't been much of an IPO pipeline to replenish the departing ones. Online dining reservations specialist OpenTable (Nasdaq: OPEN) has nearly doubled off its lows since last year's debut, but the sandwich board of actual eateries going public is pretty bare.
Logan's Roadhouse posted a meager profit of $6.2 million through the first three quarters of its 2010 fiscal year, but that's a relative victory. It had posted losses in its three previous fiscal years.
Revenue was up 3% to $416 million during the past three quarters, but same-store sales are off by a reasonable 1.3%.
Rival Texas Roadhouse is holding up a little better. It's a bit larger, growing a little faster, and hasn't lost track of its profitability. However, a stagnant private company with an infusion of IPO capital can sometimes get back on track with money to expand and promote its concept.
We'll have to see how Mr. Market prices this offering. Given the shaky IPO market and Logan's Roadhouse's uninspiring financials, investors are likely to get in at a bargain price if this deal actually goes through.
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