Another decent day in the markets.
Thursday should be interesting as a some of our companies will report earnings. I believe Canadian Tire and Melcor will report, although Melcor will likely be after the close.
I have not looked at Tim Hortons in quite some time. They announced today that they have a new CEO coming from outside the company. To me, that is not a great sign. Tim Hortons is a unique and highly successful Canadian company that has built itself up remarkable over almost 50 years now. There should be someone in-house capable of being the CEO. An outside CEO could be some kind of prima donna (aren’t they all?) who will look to do things differently. Also it announced earnings today and everyone is disappointed same store sales are down a bit. Same Store Sales gets a bit too much attention for restaurants and retail. Imagine you own a golden goose. Do you complain because the size of the egg does not grow each year? Or do you contrate on getting the goose to reproduce itself. Tim Hortons can still grow by opening new locations. Obviously the gallons of coffee or pounds of food that can be served at one location cannot increase forever. And if same store sales are flat due to no inflation, what is the problem with that? All that Tim Horton’s needs to do is study its own history and if it has gotten off-track of historic methods then fix that. It certainly does not need any new ides form the Nestle executive that they are bringing in. That is my opinion. I would send this new CEO guy on a road trip across Canada to visit at least a 100 Tim Hortons locations and get him to read the several books that have been written about Tim Hortons and do that before he is allowed to step foot in head office. And he should seek out the advice of Ron Joyce who is the former owner who largely built the comapny.