Sizzler Changes Corporate Name to Reflect Reach

Sizzler International Inc., in a marketing gambit that hopes to deliver more steak than sizzle, said Thursday that it plans to change its name to Worldwide Restaurant Concepts Inc., effective Tuesday.

The Culver City-based company, which has long struggled to lift its profit and stock price, said the name change would better reflect its international presence and its restaurants that aren’t part of the Sizzler chain.

The 344 Sizzler restaurants worldwide--both company-owned and franchised--offer moderately priced steaks and other dishes that are ordered in a buffet line and then brought to the customer’s table. The average check at a domestic Sizzler last year was $9.46.

The company also is a franchisee that operates 105 KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) restaurants in Australia. And last year, Sizzler bought Pat & Oscar’s, a chain of 11 casual restaurants in Southern California and Arizona.

Those eateries “take us well beyond the Sizzler name and operations,� Charles Boppell, Sizzler’s chief executive and president, said in a statement after Sizzler adopted the change at its annual meeting Wednesday. The new name, he added, “captures the brand and geographic diversity of the company.�

Sizzler needs something to elevate its status on Wall Street while it’s striving to boost the Sizzler chain’s performance and image on Main Street.

The company has gone through a series of formats to jump-start its sluggish growth, both before and after it reorganized in 1996-98 under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.

More recently, Sizzler has been overhauling its menu, adding premium wines to its beverage list and updating the decor of its restaurants.

Its Australian KFC group has been fairly strong, but the effort hasn’t been enough. In its fiscal year ended April 30, Sizzler earnings were $2.7 million, or 10 cents a diluted share--less than half the $7.4 million, or 26 cents in fiscal 1999.

Revenue during those two years grew a modest 8% to $245 million, from $226 million. Sizzler’s systemwide sales last year, including those of its franchisees, were $575 million.

In response, investors have given the cold shoulder to Sizzler’s stock, and few Wall Street analysts bother following the company. After peaking at about $4.50 a share in mid-1997, the stock has steadily declined. It closed Thursday at a paltry $1.20 a share, unchanged for the day, in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Matters are only getting worse, due to the U.S. economic slowdown that is causing trouble for restaurants nationwide.

Americans aren’t dining out as much, from fast-food outlets to upscale restaurants. Sales at U.S. restaurants and bars this year will increase a meager 0.7% on an inflation-adjusted basis, the lowest growth rate since the recession year of 1991, when sales fell 0.6%, according to Technomic Inc., an industry consulting group in Chicago.

Sizzler says it’s also getting hurt by rising energy prices in California--where nearly 80% of its company-owned restaurants are located--both in terms of its costs and because it has made Californians more stingy about dining out. Finally, Sizzler said its KFC operations are suffering from the Australian dollar’s weakness against the U.S. dollar.

The result: Sizzler last week said its profit in the quarter ended July 22, the first quarter of its current fiscal year, dropped to $1.7 million, from $2.9 million a year earlier.

The company’s same-store sales at its Sizzler U.S. restaurants--sales of restaurants open at least a year--fell 3.2% from a year earlier. However, same-store sales at its Australian KFC division rose 1.3%.

More than one-quarter of the Sizzler restaurants are outside the U.S., concentrated in Australia, Japan, Thailand and Latin America.