Fast-food stock has a bright future

Article Excerpt

RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC. $82 is a buy for aggressive investors. The company (Toronto symbol QSR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 465.5 million; Market cap: $38.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.7; Dividend yield: 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.rbi.com) has 27,025 fast-food outlets in over 100 countries: 18,625 Burger King, 4,949 Tim Hortons (coffee and donuts), and 3,451 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (fried chicken). The Popeyes chain aims to capitalize on the huge success of its chicken sandwich by adding Chicken Nuggets to its menu in Canada, the U.S. and Puerto Rico. To ensure it has sufficient supplies of chicken, Popeyes has been building its frozen-chicken inventory for more than six months. That should let it avoid the shortages it experienced in 2019 due to the unexpected popularity of its chicken sandwich. The stock has gained 11% in the past year. It now trades at 23.2 times the company’s projected 2021 earnings of $2.79 U.S. a share. That’s an acceptable p/e as…