Dine Equity to Cut 100 Jobs

The name Dine Equity is not one that you may have heard that often, or at all, though you may have heard about one of the brands that they own, and you are probably going to know some of the brands that they own. As a matter of fact you have probably eaten in one of them. For those of you who are not familiar with the brands here is a look at how the company chooses to describe itself, “The largest full-service dining company in the world. In the past, the world knew us as IHOP, an American icon to our guests and a franchising company that was focused on providing strategic leadership and vision for our franchisees and on enhancing value for our shareholders. With this dedicated focus, we cultivated a core expertise in brand revitalization and franchising know-how which became the basis for the winning formula that has defined the financial success of our business in recent years. With the addition of Applebee’s to the IHOP family of restaurants in November 2007, we made a bold new commitment to our brand revitalization abilities and to the power of franchising. DineEquity promises to make our two businesses more powerful and more successful than either brand could have been apart.”

Well it looks like in order to set things to right with their money situation the company is getting ready to cut back on about 100 jobs from its offices. The job cuts, which will be enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines, do not have a set date or location by the company as of yet. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

How bad is the fiscal situation for the company? Well, when it all come down to it they don’t seem that bad at all. You can see for yourself in this excerpt from their most recent quarterly report, “On November 29, 2007, DineEquity successfully completed the acquisition of Applebee’s International, Inc. for $25.50 per share in cash, representing a total transaction value of approximately $2.1 billion. With more than 3,500 restaurants presently, the combination brings together two leading restaurant brands and creates the largest full-service restaurant company in the world. DineEquity believes the acquisition of Applebee’s, which now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, represents an opportunity to create significant long-term value for DineEquity’s stockholders over and above what the Company could have achieved on a standalone basis. Additionally, the Company believes that its core competencies of re-energizing restaurant brands, franchising and expense management are ideally suited to improve Applebee’s overall brand and financial health.”