TAMPA Fla. Outback Steakhouse parent OSI Restaurant Partners LLC reported Monday a fourth-quarter net loss of $506.4 million on a 10-percent drop in corporate revenue and millions in asset impairment charges for reduced goodwill and closed restaurants.
OSI, which operates or franchises 1,491 restaurants, booked a net loss of $23.5 million in the fourth quarter a year earlier.
The casual-dining company, which operates the 978-unit Outback Steakhouse brand, along with Carrabba’s Italian Grill and others, has had a difficult fiscal 2008 filled with negative same-store sales, increased costs and a heavy debt burden.
For the full year ended Dec. 31, the company posted a net loss of $739.4 million, compared with a loss of $22.6 million in fiscal 2007. Corporate revenues for the full year fell 4.9 percent to $3.96 billion. Asset impairment and restaurant closure provisions in 2008 totaled $716.5 million, and the company’s interest expense totaled $159.1 million.
OSI, which went private in a buyout in 2007, filed its quarterly results with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, as the company holds publicly traded debt.
The company’s systemwide sales, which include corporate-store and franchised-restaurant sales, fell 9.9 for the quarter to $1.04 billion and by 4.5 percent for the year to $4.44 billion.
As reported last week, same-store sales for the fourth quarter fell 9.5 percent at Outback Steakhouse, 7.4 percent at Carrabba’s Italian Grill, 14.0 percent at Bonefish Grill and 19.6 percent at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar.
Contact Sarah E. Lockyer at [email protected].
