Okay, I can see the participants have now populated into the investor Q&A. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. My name is Nathan Scholz. I'm the Chief Communications and Investor Relations Officer for Domino's Pizza Enterprises. Joining us today is our Executive Chair, Jack Cowin, and our incoming Group CFO, George Saoud. We will have some brief introductory comments from both the Executive Chair and the incoming Group CFO, and then we will hand over to a Q&A session in which analysts will have the opportunity—analysts and shareholders will have the opportunity to ask their questions live. As in our previous Q&As, what I will do is I will take those questions in turn. I will ask the participants to unmute and to ask their question and provide an opportunity for a follow-up question.
In fairness, we'll then rotate those questions through so that everyone has an opportunity to have their questions answered. With that, I'm going to hand over to our Executive Chair, Mr. Jack Cowin. Jack, over to you.
Thank you, Nathan. In trying to think what might be an appropriate way to kind of get into this subject, I thought I'd give you a little history lesson as to my exposure to the business. I became a shareholder in a four-store home delivery pizza business in Brisbane by the name of Silvio's Dial-a-Pizza in 1985. We paid AUD 400,000 to buy it, make an investment because I was interested in the home delivery business. That business merged with the U.S. Domino's business in the early 1990s, and it was a joint—we picked up the name Domino's. The business expanded slowly with that merged entity, and in 2005, that company went public at $ 2.20, listed on the stock exchange. Here we are 20 years later. I say that to let you know that I've had a fair exposure to this business during that time.
I continue to invest in the business, and I think at one stage of the game, I was an 85% shareholder when we went public and things like that. I obviously got diluted as we issued more shares, but I have been stalwart in my ownership and maintained the faith that I have in this company. I might also add that I put $5 million U.S. into the U.S. franchisor when that company bought out the founder in the early 2000s. That $5 million grew today. The value of that is $255 million. I sold 400,000 of the 500,000 as time has gone on. I still have 100,000 shares, which is worth $45 million in the U.S. franchisor. So I've had a fair representation and understanding of this industry through a direct personal involvement.
The Domino's business in the U.S., the listed company in the U.S., was—the 2008 recession in the U.S. was $3 a share. Today, it is $450 a share. It shows that the ups and downs of the ownership in a public company can be dramatic. In the case of Domino's, as I say, $3 to $455 today shows that the mothership, the parent where the company started and is still the franchisor, that the basic business is sound and has a good growth posture. Warren Buffett just became a shareholder, as you may have read, in that franchisor company of which DPE is the master franchisee for the business that we run. Don Meij was the CEO of this business for 20-odd years. We replaced—he left last October of 2024. Mark van Dyck had been with us for a year as a consultant to the business.
When Don left, we appointed him as the CEO. He resigned a week ago, and I've taken on the role as the Executive Chairman versus prior being the Chairman. We are actively in search of a replacement to come in as a full-time employee with the company. I have great faith that this business is solid. We've had, in the last 24 hours since we made the announcement, lots of conversations with analysts and investors, some of which described, as you would have read in today's paper, the company as being in disarray. I substantially refute that statement. This business is solid. If we look at the growth, this business earns $100 million after tax.
We're coming out of a period of relatively flat earnings the last couple of years, but I think there is enough momentum that we have a very positive outlook with the future, and this company is not in disarray. The future, in my opinion, is bright. I'm sure you're going to have lots of questions, which I'm anxious to be able to deal with and welcome. Nathan, maybe you could introduce George and come back.
Absolutely. With that, I'll hand over to George. Welcome to Domino's, George, on day two.
Thank you, Nathan. George Saoud, day two. Obviously, day one was a very—lots happened on day one. I'll just make a brief statement of what I've seen to date. We have some amazing, fantastic people in the business. All the people that I've met are very much committed, and the spirit that I've seen is top quality, and they're committed to take the business forward. At the heart of what we have and what we're working through and what I've seen in the couple of days, it's really all about driving customer value both through product quality and service. That's a large part of what they're talking about internally in the organization.
What you'll hear in a moment from Jack and the background to the business and the changes around, we've sort of had flat sales over a period of time, but we've had an inflationary environment with costs. It is all about driving productivity across Domino's and also the franchisees, driving value back to franchisees. Day two, as I said, not much more to add. Hopefully, I'll get to meet a lot of you in due course. Thank you, Nathan.
Thanks, George. Now I'm going to hand over the first question to Tom Kierath from Barrenjoey. Tom, if you're able to unmute and go ahead with your question.
Thanks. Thanks all. Hi, Jack. I just really want to understand why Mark is leaving. He was your guy. You knew him before. He became CEO, and it's quite sudden to have left so quickly. It might just be helpful for you to explain, was he not performing? Maybe in particular, what was he not doing that you wanted to see or the board wanted to see? It is, I guess, a pretty surprising announcement. I'd just, yeah, like some more color on that, please.
First of all, this was Mark's decision to resign. He was not pushed or asked to leave. He made the decision to leave. I think the reality is he put together a strategy which has been accepted. Secondly, we've closed a number of lot-making stores, particularly in Japan. The requirement of the business now, now that that has been put into place, is to act and try and get this business into a form that requires traction in the field of restructuring the business in a manner that is profitable. The manner in which we hope that will happen will be through increased sales. We got no guarantee, even though there are some positive results that are starting to emerge in the business. We've got no guarantee that we can have a sales-driven recovery. We hope we can.
If that is not able to be done, the second alternative that we do have control over is the cost structure of the business. That will be something that is under examination, and we are taking active steps on to make sure that we can deliver the results that this company needs in order to be financially viable to the shareholders, but also to the franchisee community that they have. If we are overstaffed and got too much expense, that means that money cannot—it's got to be redirected back into advertising and things like this to be more competitive in the marketplace. I think to answer your question, there's probably a question that you have to direct to Mark, but my view is that we're in 11 different countries, travel time away. He's committed to the company through till December.
There is a lot of work that has to—putting the plan together is one thing. Getting the traction in the field is the other. There is a lot of work that has to be done. I think he made an assessment that the cost reduction program, the travel in these different markets is not easy. He decided to resign. That is where we stand.
Can I just clarify? This is not a performance issue. I think you said yesterday that you're happy with where the market consensus is for 2025, I presume 2026 as well. There is no performance issue, something that we're not aware of.
Yeah. There are performance issues in that we've had flat results for this is going into the fourth year, which is unacceptable. What we require is change in where we have been. As I say, the best way to get there is if we can successfully get the sales growth going, which will obviously impact the profitability for franchisees and for the company. There's no guarantee. We don't have any God-given right to think that we're going to get that. If you look at our kind of performance and you compare it with Collins, for example, which has been flat, McDonald's in Australia, which is negative, McDonald's around the world, if you look at to have a business which has same-store sales, which are relatively flat, that's okay if you look at it. We've been there now for—this will be year four.
If you say performance-wise, the business has got to do better. We are custodians of other people's money, and we have to get a better return as this goes along. There have been decent dividends paid, but to make this business successful, we have to have growth. We have to do it now rather than on a long-term basis. If there is any issue, it is how quickly can we get this done? To get, as I said, when I say that, get the cost in line with regard to what we need to make this business profitable. If we get the sales results, that is a much easier road to go down, but we have no guarantee of that.
Understood. Thanks, Jack.
Thank you, Tom.
The next question is from Sean Cousins. Sean, if I can ask you to unmute.
Great. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you, Jack and George, for being available. Maybe just a question on the pace of cost savings. It seems to be what you're alluding to that you want to go faster on cost savings, and Mark did not. Did Mark believe that accelerating the pace of cost savings was not possible, or would it damage the business? Or did Mark have enough sort of leeway to execute the strategy that he wanted? I'm just curious, just digging into Tom's question a bit more, just the reason that Mark has gone, and it appears to be the pace of cost savings. Why would he not want to agree with that? Because it seems rather sensible, but he's saying no for some reason.
I mean, his plan, which he put together, was a five-year plan. There was nothing wrong with it. We agreed with the plan. If there was an area of where the board wanted to do it differently, it was the pace. If there's a difference, that's where it lay. I think Mark would have taken the position that this is a lot of hard work to do today. As I say, I think we had a common philosophy as to what had to be done. The difference is how do we do it quickly?
Maybe just on cost. Sorry, pardon me, Jack.
Yeah. That answer your question?
Somewhat. I mean, sorry, I would have thought he would have been okay with that, and he knew what he signed up for. Again, goes to the broader idea, this is a surprise. Maybe what are the costs that can be cut that you would like to see being cut quicker? Is it IT? Is it marketing? Is it people? To be fair, why have—okay.
Only if.
Why have they not been cut before? You've had flat sales for a period of time, as you've highlighted. Your performance has been, I think, disappointing to many. Why has the company only now chosen to accelerate cost savings where arguably there would have been some urgency and some necessity previously?
Yeah. There have been costs taken out. For example, Japan, as probably the most vivid example, the earnings in Japan went down, which more than compensated for the costs that were taken out. What we are looking at is the net cost to run this business. If you look at what the net cost of running DPE is versus the comparable companies in this interest, we're right up at the top. We are well-staffed, and the G&A in our business, as a percentage of sales, is high. I think it's a very good question to say, "Why has this not happened faster?" I do not think anybody planned on the demise of the Japanese business coming back as it did. As I say, the loss of profitability more than offset.
If you looked, if you were running this business, you'd say, "Yeah, we have made some cost reductions," but the cost reductions were offset and more than offset by some of the decreases in the other markets. Now, what we're saying today is, and the question is, take IT, for example. IT is probably the biggest cost in our cost structure. We have tried to develop our own cost IT systems. There is another way of doing that if you use outside suppliers to be able to do it. That's a lot cheaper to do. If you go back in the history of Domino's, if you go back 10 years ago, the question was, "Is this a tech company?" Because we're at the forefront of some of the technology that was evolving in the takeaway business. We built up a pretty sizable IT staff and business.
As the business has changed and things like that, these are some of the things that we have to modify in order to take the overall net cost down. When you say there have been reductions in various places, we set up a system of trying to have—we have offices in Malaysia and Poland, which are support systems to try and consolidate things. The net result is, what is the total cost around the business? Now, if that is too high, that means you have that expense, which we are trying to refilter back down into the field to the franchisee community and making them more profitable. If they are profitable, they will open more stores rather than building this cost-heavy head office well-manned business. That is the oath. No one has been asleep at the switch here, but everybody has been trying to do the right thing.
That's the way this thing has evolved. We still have a business which is, if you look at the industry, as a percentage of sales, what we put into G&A, which then things like the IT business is high. That's why we got to bring it back down to get more money out of the sales. We got to go back into the field supporting franchisees and to support our earnings structure, which also we're going to take up as shareholders.
Fantastic. Thanks, Jack.
Yeah.
Thank you, Sean. The next question is from Michael Simotas from Jefferies.
Hi, everyone. Thank you, Jack, George, and Nathan for your time. First question from me, ultimately, it looks like the biggest issue in this business is the franchisees do not make enough money because the unit economics are not good enough. Can you get the unit economics to where they need to be through cost reduction alone, or do you need average sales per store to increase to get you there?
Hi, Michael. The answer is the average franchisee in the system makes $95,000 per store. That is, on an average, probably of the existing business, about a $400,000 investment, which continues to grow the cost to open a new store. The plan was to, how do we get that to $130,000 which was set back by the no profit in France and a decrease in profit in Asia. If you look at the individual markets, you got different results in different countries, obviously. We can go a long way. In my opinion, there are significant costs that can be redirected into other areas of this business, which will benefit and enhance the ability to take the sales up.
If the sales don't go up, which I said earlier, we don't have control over, we can still make a significant difference in the results that the company and the franchisee get. We are trying to do both. If we don't get the sales results, then the cost will still take us into a better ground than where we sit today.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. The second one for me is you sort of talked about Mark's five-year plan that was broadly accepted by the board. Presumably, there was some sort of growth algorithm in that plan. If you can get this business to where it needs to be, what does that growth look like?
Yeah. We hope in this next 12 months to be able to run in the range of a 3% sales growth. And that's not mission impossible. In today's market, as I said, there is a very mixed sort of bag of results taking place in the business. I think the Collins numbers they just released was flat or 1% kind of idea. McDonald's are negative. GYG is positive. Hungry Jack's is positive. So you got a mixed bag. And so to try and predict what the sales are, we can't do it. I think we're looking at the possible—we hope to be able to have a sales growth of 3%. If we do that, we will show some substantial results going forward.
Yeah. I guess I'm sort of thinking a little bit longer term. How do you think about same-store sales growth, potential for a little bit of unit growth and operating leverage and margin expansion over a five-year period?
Unit growth, Michael, will come from profitability of the franchisees. If they're not making the money that they hope to be able to make or make a return, then the sales growth will be very modest. If we can get a number in the range of 3% of sales growth, then I think there's a lot of expansion potential in this business if you get the profitability right from a franchisee point of view. If you said, "What's the one kind of priority that we've got?" it is how do we get these franchisees in a position whereby they are profitable, which means they will want to open more stores. If we can get a number in that range of 3% as a sales growth number, that will flow through to the bottom line as for DPE, our company, as well as them. That's the plan.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael. Now, before I move on to Bryan Raymond, just to clarify, I've had some people asking me. The 3% that the Executive Chair has referred to is like-for-like or same-store sales growth, not a network number. So that's same-store sales growth, just to clarify for those asking. If I can now hand over—so I'm doing two things at once—hand over to Bryan Raymond from JPMorgan.
Thanks. Thank you, Jack, George, and Nathan. Just on the path forward from here, you talked to cost out the fund that's reinvestment, which makes total sense. Do you think you need to—given the pace you're trying to move at—do you think you need to reset earnings lower in, say, 2026, 2027, that sort of time period in order to drive that sales momentum and get that 3% plus type sales level that you need? The second part of it is, are more store closures in a larger wave of store closures required to do that, or is that not really possible given DPZ and all the other sort of considerations you might have?
Yeah. I do not think DPZ comes into this. They obviously like more stores to open. I do not think they are a factor in this discussion. I guess your question is, you say, "Take a lower—do not reduce the cost quite as fat." We think the cost can come down at a more reasonable rate without impacting on the sales growth number. That is yet to be achieved. Our challenge is we got to be able to do this, and we got to be able to have—if this does not work, if we are not getting the sales growth, we obviously got to play a different—we are giving you a buy play as we sit here today. We are hopeful that there is no reason why this business cannot—we have some out in the greater metropolis of this pizza world. We have got some very successful franchisees.
We have a franchisee. I think the average is around $30,000 a week in the business. We have a franchisee doing $100,000 a week, and there are a number of—they're in that category. How do we get that same sort of—and they have no exclusive territory. There's nothing magic other than the fact that they execute this business really well. We think in front of us, the major challenge is make sure we execute right. The response at the franchisee level, then, what's the most efficient manner that DPE can supply services, marketing to the broader field so that everything will grow? The real challenge here is making these franchisees—and this is during a period of flat, as I say, you've got some real exceptional people. You got some down at the bottom that aren't making any money.
You say, "Could there be more store closures?" We hope there's not, but there could. If some of these guys run out of money and fail and can't get the sales increase, then there will. We're hopeful that we can lead a renaissance of this business at an execution level by—how do you make somebody go from $100,000 a week down to probably less than $15,000-$20,000 down there? There's a big, big variance in the store results, which have the same product, the same people, the same name, the same everything. How can you get that widespread of results? To me, that's where the focus is down at the field. That's where this thing will be won or lost. From a company point of view, how do we efficiently supply services to those?
I think I can tell you that I think we've provided lots of service at an expensive cost, which we should be revisiting. That is the intent of what we're doing. That is the new plan of how do we make this strategy plan that we're on? How do we make it happen faster?
Appreciate that. I agree. Certainly, execution by the franchisee is critical. Just to reframe that question slightly, what I was referring to is there's a bucket of cost out that you can generate from head office and other areas. Then there's a bucket of reinvestment that you need to make in advertising and product design and other things that you need to do to drive sales momentum. Is the bucket of reinvestment bigger than the bucket of cost out in the next few years, which will drive the DPE earnings level down year on year from here in order—i.e., do you need to go backwards before you move forwards?
No. As I think I said earlier, this business produces $100 million of after-tax earnings. So the earnings are there. The money's there. We don't have to raise any more money. The balance sheet is solid. So we don't have to go backwards. It's a matter of how do we better do what we're required to do in a more efficient and cost-effective way, which impacts on the business. I don't know if that's a question answered properly or not, but that's kind of how I see it.
Yep. Just my second question was just around the balance sheet, but I think you've addressed that in terms of you don't see any need for an equity raising here. You think your capital position is solid. Is that a fair statement?
Yeah. No, no. I think the EBITDA, the debt ratio is like 2.5 today. The projection is by the end of the year, if the budget is met, it'll be considerably lower than that. That is yet to be determined. There's no plan or need to raise money externally and have a fundraiser.
Okay. Great. Best of luck with it. Thanks for the availability, guys.
Thank you.
Thanks, Bryan. Now, the next question is from Sam Teeger from Citi. Sam, you can go ahead.
Sam, I read your report today. I thought you took a different sort of approach to us than you did Collins, whose sales results were not a whole lot different than ours.
We can discuss Collins Foods and Domino's in more detail after, if you would like. My question, Jack, is you mentioned before that Domino's sales have been flat for some time, and you called out Collins Foods and McDonald's also for having similar subdued results. It is sounding like there is a broader category issue at play here. I am keen for your thoughts as to, is this a sign that consumption frequency for old-school QSR is under pressure, potentially due to competition from newer players, younger consumers eating healthier, GLP-1s, or the operators just no longer able to offer a product where the value proposition resonates with consumers after an inflationary period?
No. On the latter bit, no. There is a fundamental change, however, in the industry. Pre-COVID, COVID, we got a free kick because up until COVID, if you wanted food delivered at home, pizza was kind of the default. You phone up and you order pizza to be delivered. COVID came in, we got a free kick because it was one of the few. The advent and growth of Uber and Uber lookalikes have made some dramatic changes in this industry in that now the little corner pizza shop can also have a delivery service. He does not have to employ those people. He pays a percentage of his bottom line to Uber. That has made a dramatic change.
McDonald's, KFC, Hungry Jack's, all who previously were really not in the home delivery business, these businesses now are doing upwards to 10-20% of their volume now in home delivery. There has been a fairly dramatic change in the overall kind of industry where home delivery of food comes into this. That has had some impact. I think we're—and in particular, we look at Australia, which is the biggest part of the largest part. The fact that we have flat business, all these other people got into the home delivery business, the fact that we are relatively flat in Australia, we're going to have positive results in our same-store sales. The fact that with all this other, the home delivery business is something that's not going to go away. It's going to continue to grow. There are more players in it.
The fact that the Ubers and the lookalikes have been able to supply that service has definitely been a factor over the last couple of years. We just have to continue to find a better way, be more competitive, and run this business better. Got to do it on a more cost-effective way than what we may have done in the past. Domino's went through a very interesting stage in which they said, "We're not going to use the Ubers because they're going to be our competitor. We're going to do it all ourselves." I think the customer then said, "I like this broader menu of items where I can go and pick and choose what I'm going to have delivered rather than just one single app that I'll go to and order on." That's reality.
There's been a change in that the Domino's business now also uses the outside services of Uber. There's been a state of change. I'm relatively comfortable that we've been through that. Where we sit today is a good platform to be able to continue to grow on. As I say, if we're flat, we have been for a number of years, I think the potential is we got growth possibility.
Thanks, Jack. That kind of leads into my second question. Given technology has historically been the key part of Domino's competitive advantage, if you replace your own proprietary systems with third-party systems to save on costs, what competitive advantage do you see the business having going forward?
Yes. I think your question is correct. At one stage of the game, we were a leader in the technology. I think as we sit here today, I do not think we are necessarily—our technology is not any better than the Ubers and the other people that we have to deal with. If we do not have a competitive advantage, I think part of the previous management spent a lot of money on trying to come up with better ways to do the IT side of the business. What can we come up with, which is a better way of doing it? That costs a lot of money to do that. Here we are in 2025. I think the competition is largely a much more level playing field today.
We don't think we have a competitive advantage today in the technological side of the business compared with the Ubers and some of these other people who spent a lot of money to get up there. If you don't have a competitive advantage, let's stop trying to recreate the wheel or coming up. Let's do what we can do in the most cost-effective manner rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Thank you.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, yeah. That's helpful. I'm still just trying to think, if it's not technology, what will your competitive advantage be over the next five years?
Competitive advantage is being the, which we are today, the biggest, strongest pizza company in this marketplace. We hold that position very strongly. As the sales increase and as we get more units into the market, we have the advertising power to be able to, that will be our competitive advantage. To get there, we also have to be able to execute as a market leader. We can have lots of stores, but if they do not run right and they do not produce the right product and the right service times and things like that, that will be our, the execution at store level will be our competitive advantage with distribution into the marketplace of the most advertising, the most stores, the most convenient locations. That is our competitive advantage. I do not think the technological area will be the answer.
As I say, you got other players in this now who are doing the same thing.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Sam. The next question is from Caleb Wheatley from Macquarie. Caleb.
Good afternoon, Jack, George, and Nathan. Thanks for taking our questions. This may be to dig into the prior question a little bit in a bit of a different way. Jack, I'm keen to get your thoughts on the trajectory of the Domino's brand and the offering in Australia and in some of those offshore markets, perhaps over the last five years. We're starting to hear from sort of customer surveys that there's maybe permanent loss of some of those customers. Clearly, you call out a few of the brands that are growing in sort of GYG or Fresh part of the market does seem to be winning share.
Yeah, just really keen to get your thoughts on how you think the business has changed from a reputational and branding perspective and how consumer preferences have changed perhaps since that COVID period outside of some of those issues around Uber Eats, etc.
Yeah. I think your question is, is the customer preference changed? I don't think it has. People talk about health, foods, and this and that. I don't think that has been attributable to what we're talking about. McDonald's are the big gorilla. We focus on Australia. McDonald's are the big gorilla in this market. They have been negative sales. We're flat. We are at least—we're doing better with the companies that even are many times bigger than us from an advertising point of view. Why haven't we grown more? As I said, we just had this discussion about the advent of the competition into the delivery market. I think that has been much more of a factor than the change in eating habits of the general public and customers. We measure customer satisfaction.
I don't think that is the issue as much as the competitive influx of other people that are in the home delivery. I think that's been the major play. We watch this. We watch this. I can tell you in the other business that I'm involved in, there's a particular market for people. We tried to sell plant-based meat in our Hungry Jack's business. It had a bit of a rough. But some of these basics of—you say, what determines where the customer is going to go? And taste is the number one sort of thing. Then convenience. Where's the nearest store? What's the delivery time? I don't think there's been a dramatic change in kind of the factors that determine whether you're going to go to Domino's or to a competitor. The competition level, I think, has probably been much more significant.
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe to use the other business that I'm quite familiar with, like Hungry Jack's, probably closer to what we'd call one of those traditional businesses. Yeah, I appreciate there is a cyclical and competitive component, and maybe pizza's more at risk from Uber Eats, but it is still possible to obviously have some positive growth in one of those more kind of legacy brands. How should we think about sort of the sales upside that isn't driven by cyclical components? How do you think about the delta that may come through just on execution outside of kind of a change in the consumer environment?
Is your question, where do we see sales growth coming from?
Yeah. I mean, more just around sort of from a Domino's specific perspective as opposed to sort of market-wide comments about where the consumer's at.
I mean, I don't know whether I know the answer to that. My personal view is that this company has kind of been flat. I think from an investment way, I think it's significantly undervalued to where it has been. I think if we can get the—I'm talking about now from a shareholder point of view. If we can get the franchisees making more money, they will open more stores. We will have more advertising money. We'll have more income into the business, into their hands, into our hands. That will make us the strongest player in the market. My comment, if you look at Domino's around the world, they're the largest pizza company in the world. We're not talking about a little backyard sort of business. They're the strongest pizza business in the world.
Pizza Hut in Australia once held that, and they have shrunk significantly. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with this base business. I think that with the proper execution at store level, getting the profits into the hands of the franchisees so that they can grow and make more profit at their level, this business has a bright future.
Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Caleb. The next question is from Phil Kimber from E&P. Phil, go ahead.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, we can.
Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for taking my question. Jack, just on the sales comment that you talked about, this sort of 3% target for same-store sales, if nothing else changed in terms of what Domino's provided the franchisees, I would have thought that just holds their profit. They do not go backwards anything at a 3% same-store sales growth, but they do not grow either. I am just wondering, for their franchise profits to get up, are you going to have to dip into your pockets? Hopefully, you can pay for that out of cost savings and basically supplement their profitability in the near term to get them closer from $95,000-$ 130,000 odd. Is that sort of the plan? You are hoping to pay for that out of cost savings, or did I misread what you were saying?
No, you have not misread. We're already doing that. We have made a commitment to the franchisees that with the growth that we're getting, that we have given an undertaking that there will be a significant amount of money flow back to them. We understand. First of all, you got some that are doing really well. That's not a factor. We also have stores, as I said, I'd say the average is 95. We have stores that we want to keep in business. We do not want them failing. We have given an undertaking to be able to provide money back to franchisees to make sure that they have a stronger financial position where required.
In the very short term, I mean, is that going to be the majority of those cost savings that are going to have to flow back?
No. No, it's not. It will, I think the number of if we have a total cost savings, it will be a substantial number, but it will not be the majority. That is something which time will tell as to how much and where. One of the issues that we have to wrestle with is how do you give money to one party and not to another? In France, last year, we gave $6 million to the franchisees. We gave it to everyone. Some were, it was a gift. They did not need it. You got others that are struggling. The problem is, how do you do something in a business like this whereby you handle things fairly for everyone? That is one of the challenges we have got to deal with.
Thank you. Maybe if I was just to ask, all the markets that you're in at the moment, is your intention at this stage to stay in them? Is that the plan? I mean, I saw some articles in the paper where you were suggesting that.
There are some which are under review. Cambodia, as an example. We've got 20 stores. Luxembourg, I think we've got four. Neither of those make money. I think there's a review. I think on an overall basis, my personal view, there's a school of thought that says maybe we should be focusing on the stores in the countries that make money and sell off or get out of the countries that are marginal or don't make money so we can have a stronger focus. There's a school of thought within the company that deals with that. My personal view is that management and getting this business structured right so that we run the thing in the most efficient manner that these markets—France is one of the ones I've had something to do with in the last 12 months—there's been mismanagement. We have to correct that.
That is our fault. If we get some—France, Germany, those are thousand-store markets. They have 400 stores each today. You can only advertise if you get one message that goes over the whole country. A significant thing is getting the numbers up so that you have the money to be able to advertise effectively. My view is the potential of this company is making sure we have everything running right, that you do not have mismanagement. We will go from there. That is kind of the—I do not think there is any silver bullet here that is going to solve all the problems or lead us to heaven. I do think that if we can get the formula right, get the management structures right, moving—and part of the plan that we have going forward is moving some of the—this business has basically been run out of stride.
What we have to do—and that's suited to the Australian business as well. When you get into Japan and the European countries and things like this, we have to move some of the strength back to those markets rather than trying to think you're going to make all those decisions out of head office. The center will probably become not the dominant kind of force that it's been in the past. We've got to move some of the financial strength, the decision-making strength back into the field. That's kind of the direction where we're headed as far as the strategy goes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Phil. We've got two more people who haven't asked a question yet. I'm just going to hand over to Ben Gilbert from Jarden. Ben, you can unmute.
Good afternoon, Jack and George. Thanks for taking the time. Jack, obviously, Domino's is a great business, but one of the criticisms has been it's been dealt by a thousand cuts in terms of strategy updates over the last couple of years. There seems to be another iteration of the strategy every quarter or every few months. I suppose if we're now looking into—you're going to look to appoint a new CEO in time—what's to say that what actions you take over the next three, six months, we don't then have to start again in six to twelve months' time? It just feels like we just keep kicking the can down the road and wonder if the business needs to be more fundamentally broken near term. Do you stop doing delivery yourself? Do you go to Uber Eats, lean on those guys more? Do you exit France?
Do you potentially look at selling Japan? It just feels that we're going to have another six to twelve months of uncertainty.
Yeah. I do not think that is correct. I think we have had—you talked about strategy. I mean, the Don Meij era was growth and into new markets, new countries, and things like that. I think the realization we came to was that we did not need to have any new country anymore, and that had to stop. We had to consolidate and do what we already have better rather than kind of continue to expand.
I think Mark's kind of tenure was, how do we come up with what are some of the things that we require to do in the business, i.e., dealt with things like make it simpler, shrink the menu, put as much—get some of the costs that's impacting the average, and get more money for advertising so that we can have a stronger voice, particularly some of these markets, some of these foreign markets where we need the units in the market in order to get the advertising money. I don't think there's been any kind of—you said a cut, but a thousand cuts. I don't think there's been—there hasn't been any, as I said, we had the growth strategy, and now we're into, how do we execute better?
I think where we sit today, I threw in mismanagement on some of these markets that I do not think we handled properly. I think if we get on top of some of these things, there is not a thousand cuts here. It is how do we run this business better? There is nothing wrong with the base business. This is a profitable business. The potential is there if we can get it right. I think we are positioned in a position where there is significant growth from what I think is an undervalued company today.
Thanks. Just follow up from maybe to you, George, just around the balance sheet. Appreciate your comments, Jack, that you do not need to raise money, but you still got the DRP underwrite on, which is effectively a raise by stove. Why not just rip the band-aid around that and just raise what you need to stop the DRP underwrite, put the balance sheet out of the question, out of the debate, and then just sort of move forward?
Yeah, Ben, definitely a consideration. I won't talk to that today. It won't be appropriate to talk to that today. Definitely looking at all of those options and scenarios is in the plan over the next three to four weeks.
Fantastic. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Ben. Thanks, George. I'm just going to hand over to Michael Toner from RBC for the last questions.
Thanks. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Great. Thanks, Jack and Jordan. Thanks for your time. Thanks for taking my question. Look, I'm just trying to understand, Jack, sort of what were you looking for from a new CEO? I mean, the business has experienced quite significant exec turnover in the past 12 months. It sounds like Mark was sort of perhaps mostly, but not completely aligned on that cost-out trajectory. Are you effectively kind of looking for, I guess, kind of complete strategic alignment? If so, how do you balance that against kind of relying on the judgment of sort of experienced and professional leadership?
As I say, I think the board's position was we want to increase sales. We're going to do our best to be able to do that. In order to do that, we have to execute properly. In order to do that, we have to have motivated franchisees in the field who are running this business right. We get those things happening. I don't think there's any kind of strategic difference between where we were and Mark as being the recent departed, other than the fact that we want it to happen faster. We think that taking cost out, as I said earlier, can be done without impacting the business and the funds that are being spent now in overheads, put that back into the field, put that back into reinvest back out into the field, not necessarily into franchisees' hands.
If we've got more money that goes into advertising, promotion, and things like that, that will assist on the objective of getting sales up. I don't think there's been any kind of dramatic change in what the direction that the business is going in. It's a matter of wanting to see the results improve faster. I think as a shareholder, as most of you probably are, we're looking for that. In order to get there, this is a business which is somewhat dependent on franchisee success. It's a shared success that we have to get so that both parties got to win on this. We're looking for a win-win for the franchisees and the company.
Okay. Thanks. Sorry, just a quick follow-up, if I may. I guess I'm sort of curious as to how you get that alignment piece right as well to kind of attract talent. Would you need to provide perhaps sort of like an outsized incentive package? Maybe you could link it to that 3% same-store sales target that you've just outlined, linking it to franchise profitability, linking it to cost out. Fundamentally, the things that investors pretty much care about for the long-term success.
Are you talking about how do we attract the right CEOs? Is that the question?
How do you align their incentives with the business as well? I mean, you've talked to same-store sales, franchise profitability, cost out. I mean, these are probably the things that investors fundamentally care about for the business at the moment on a long-term view.
Yeah. One of the things that I think we are blessed with right now is an undervalued stock. I think there's an opportunity which we're going to deal with in can we come up with incentive systems in which there's an auto dealer here who has a system in which the employees buy shares in the company on a company loan. Parts of that go back to offset that loan. If the share value goes down, then they get the shares back. That has produced some great results. How do we incentivize? I think an important part of making this business go ahead is incentivizing and coming up with the right incentive plans for people within the company. Secondly, for the franchisees and their employees. I've been in this industry long enough to know that incentivization is a really key factor to get results.
That is something that we are going to be working on going forward to make sure that we can do that to the best of our ability. We have had dramatic improvements in the unreject business by being able to provide significant incentives, which people—and I remain amazed at some of the results that happen when people are given the opportunity to make more money if they get the results and do the right thing. I think we can apply those same factors in this business. I will be surprised if that does not give us a significant lift and kick.
Great. Much appreciated. Thanks again for your time.
Okay. Thank you, Michael. With that, we are now out of time. I want to thank our Executive Chairman, Jack Cowin, and our incoming Group CFO, George Saoud, for joining us this afternoon and for all of the questions. We've given an opportunity for all of those to have a first round of questions and gone through that time. We'll obviously be updating the market. We're going into a blackout period now. We'll be updating the market in the last week of August with our full year results. The login details of those will be provided on the investor website. Thank you all for your time today. None.
Thank you.