A two-hour, 60-slide presentation about why pizza is great – By Jason Karaian (Quartz) / Feb 3 2019
Everybody likes pizza, right?
Selling it should be easy as, er, pie?
If only. The pizza business is complicated.
Domino’s Pizza Group runs the chain’s franchises in the UK, Ireland, and a few other European countries. This week, its executives invited analysts to Goldman Sachs’ office in London for a seminar about the “main elements of the Domino’s investment case.”
The company’s London-listed shares are up 50% over the past five years, but future growth is not assured, as it faces saturated markets and stiff competition. Good thing, then, that everybody likes pizza.
Like any kind of company pitching to investors, Domino’s execs discussed dividend growth, like-for-like sales, capex forecasts, and so forth. But their presentation, which ran to 64 slides (pdf) and took just over two hours, also regularly broke into tributes to the power of pizza.
This is not a company selling enterprise software solutions or risk management advisory services. This is a company selling pizza.
“Our pizzas are engineered to travel well,” said CEO David Wild. “The doughy base means that the pizza arrives at the home in excellent condition. It is also universally enjoyed. You never see a picture of people eating pizza without the person smiling. Pizza is a food that brings smiles to everybody’s face.”
If you prefer to consider the merits of pizza in PowerPoint form, here’s slide 40:
The Domino’s execs also discussed the finer points of cheese prices (down this month), dough volumes (“if we do not get the dough to the stores, we have no pizza”), and preparations for Brexit (which Wild introduced as “that dreaded word”).
But enough about that. This is about pizza, and pizza is fun. It should put a smile on your face.
As the presentation approached the two-hour mark, investor relations chief Peregrine Riviere said there was only time for a few more questions: “I do not want the pizza to get cold.”
https://qz.com/1540637/a-two-hour-60-slide-presentation-about-why-pizza-is-great/
