Pizza Pizza Royalty Income Fund Announces Strong Fourth Quarter Sales Growth and January Distribution

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[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\nTORONTO, Jan. 21 /CNW/ - Pizza Pizza Royalty Income Fund (the "Fund")\n(TSX: PZA.UN) today announced a cash distribution of $0.076 per unit for the\nmonth of January, 2008. The distribution will be payable to unitholders of\nrecord at the close of business on January 31, 2008, and will be paid on\nFebruary 15, 2008.\n\n\nSales Growth\n\n\nSame store sales growth ("SSSG") is the key driver of yield growth for\nFund unitholders. Pizza Pizza Limited reported SSSG of 4.9% for the fourth\nquarter and 4.6% for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2007.\n\n\n"Our western Canada restaurants continue their exceptional sales growth\nand in spite of the year-over-year decline in tourism and loss of\nmanufacturing jobs, especially in Ontario, Pizza Pizza is very pleased with\nnational sales and restaurant growth", said Pat Finelli, Chief Marketing\nOfficer.\n\n\nSystem Sales of the restaurants in the Royalty Pool for the fourth\nquarter were $118.9 million compared to $93.9 million for the same quarter in\n2006. Fourth quarter sales from the 531 Pizza Pizza restaurants were\n$99.7 million and sales from the 41 Pizza 73 restaurants were $19.2 million.\nFor the year 2007, sales from restaurants in the Royalty Pool were $409.5\nmillion compared to $353.1 million for 2006. Sales from the 531 Pizza Pizza\nrestaurants were $376.4 million for the year and sales from the 41 Pizza 73\nrestaurants were $33.1 million for the period from July 24 to December 31,\n2007. Sales for the year benefited from the addition of 30 net new restaurants\nto the Royalty Pool on January 1, 2007, positive same store sales growth, and\nthe addition of 41 Pizza 73 restaurants in July 2007.\n\n\nThe 2007 distributions received by unitholders have been determined to be\n65% taxable and 35% tax-deferred return of capital.\n\n\nRestaurants\n\n\nDuring the quarter, Pizza Pizza opened 7 traditional and 10\nnon-traditional locations and closed 1 non-traditional location; year-to-date\n12 traditional and 24 non-traditional locations have opened and 8\nnon-traditional locations have closed. This brings the total number of Pizza\nPizza locations to 559 of which 531 are in the Fund's 2007 Royalty Pool. The\n559 restaurants are comprised of 367 traditional restaurants and 192\nnon-traditional restaurants.\n\n\nSeven traditional Pizza 73 locations ...

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