Wednesday Apr.08, 2020

🍝 Olive Garden's light at the end of the breadstick

_Trying to turn the economic engine back on_

Hey Snackers,

If you're not scrubbing your hands as thoroughly as this orangutan, you're doing it wrong.

US markets rallied big to start the day, but lost their gains by market close. NY deaths hit a high, but there's evidence that the outbreak is there plateauing. It's gotta get (really) bad before it gets good.

Pick-Up

Olive Garden finds a light at the end of an empty breadstick basket

When you're here, you're family... Olive Garden should probably update its slogan, since all of its dining rooms are closed: When you're here, you shouldn't be — or When you're not here, you're home (aka, no unlimited breadsticks). Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants has seen its same-store sales plunge 39% so far this quarter (and the quarter's not over). Why the long breadstick?

100% of its 1.5K eating spaces have been closed since mid-March — that includes Olive Gardens, Capital Grilles, and LongHorn Steakhouses.
Olive Garden sales progressively plummeted 60%, 65%, and 71% for the last three weeks in March. Darden stock is now worth half its January value.

A light at the end of the basket... 99% of Olive Gardens are open for takeout — and its takeout sales have jumped 142%. LongHorn Steakhouse's have more than 3X'd. Couple that with news that Darden slashed executives' pay in half and that it has $1B in cash on hand — the stock jumped 12% Tuesday.

We're living in an omnichannel world... And Darden is an omnichannel girl. The ability to nimbly service customers both on and offline is critical in the corona-conomy and beyond. If diners can get a satisfactory Olive Garden experience at home, they'll keep shelling out the $$$ even if all the dining rooms are closed. Flexibility to seamlessly jump from in-person to takeout to online-delivery is key — and retailers like Target and J. Crew already do it.

Return

Lear plans for how to (safely) turn the economic car back on — it's one of the firsts

If the economy is like a car stuck in the garage... Lear is the leather seat in that car — as in $20B/year in car seat sales (or as Lear likes to call them, "your personal docking station"). But car companies aren't making cars right now, so Lear's not making seats. Now it wants to start the engine before the economic car battery dies:

Enter Lear's Safe Work Playbook: a 51-page "interactive" PDF that guides companies on how to resume operations when it's safe to open up shop again. It includes recommendations based on CDC guidelines combined with Lear's global operations experience.
The TLDR: Topics include social distance strategies like staggered shifts and lunch breaks, on-site health screenings for employees, disinfection procedures, and factory opening guidelines (like disinfecting it 100% before it opens).

How to slowly (and safely) get people back to work... Lear thinks we needed to start planning this yesterday, and it wants to be the influencer leading this shift. Not only would it get to start making car seats again, but also it would be responsible for influencing operations in an economic recovery. That "first-mover" title might not be too hard to snag — most companies have refrained from speaking publicly about a need to return to work.

Planning for a return to normalcy is key... In private conversations, top CEOs reportedly pleaded with President Trump to start planning a phased return to work (as soon as May). They fear a catastrophic amount of large and small businesses will fail if we don't slowly re-open (aka, point of no recovery). But critical health concerns and a rise in cases make people reluctant to think that far ahead. Still, planning now is crucial as outbreaks begin to peak across the US and the world.

Hire

Uber becomes the unofficial job board for the whole gig economy

Like LinkedIn, but for gigs... The largest segment of Uber's business — rides — has grinded to a near-total halt. Riders and drivers fear catching germs (plus there's not many places to Uber to anyway). Drivers have lost as much as 80% of their income, and many have stopped working entirely. But Uber found a way to work what it's got:

People: Uber’s got an army of millions of workers who already have the app downloaded on their phones. They're just not using it right now.
Tech: Over the years, Uber has slowly worked toward a 1-stop app where users can access all its services on one platform.
Opportunity: Enter Work Hub. Uber is listing gig opportunities that aren't just for itself — Domino's, FedEx, Target, and Walgreens opportunities right in Uber's app. It's also offering easy access and visibility for gigs on Uber Eats, Uber Works, and Uber Freight (all in one hub).

Getting a job has never seemed harder... Uber's dream is to be the ultimate connector of the gig economy. In October it launched Uber Works, which connects people to shift jobs and helps companies fill staffing gaps. Now, with a massive unemployment rate and surging delivery demand, Uber's odds of success in this space have increased.

It's a win-win-win situation... Cash-strapped drivers get easy access to jobs, worker-needy companies get access to workers, and Uber gets a major adoption boost for its gig-connecting platform. Uber will not receive payment from companies for posting jobs — but it can monetize in the future after users get hooked. For now, it'll retain drivers while rides are down, and potentially attract new workers on a diversity of gigs. One day, WorkHub might even be Uber's profit puppy.

What else we’re Snackin’

Raise: Airbnb snags $1B in new funding and is now valued at $26B, down from $31B at its last fundraise in 2017 — IPO still TBD.
Clout: Carnival stock jumps over 20% after Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund revealed that it owns an 8.2% in the cruise operator (FYI it's still down almost 80% since January).
Help: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asks for $250B in additional aid to small businesses, on top of the $350B loan program approved in the stimulus last month.
Unshare: Facebook limits the number of forwards possible for highly-shared Whatsapp messages from 5 to 1 — it's trying to stop the spread of virus-related misinformation.
Grounded: Lufthansa is shutting down its low-cost airline Germanwings as part of a broader effort to slash costs — it's idled over 90% of its fleet since the outbreak.
Splurge: SoFi, last valued at $4.8B, is buying payment processor Galileo for a hearty $1.2B.

Wednesday

'Minutes' from the Fed's last meeting
Earnings expected from Delta

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Uber, Amazon, and Carnival

ID: 1143279

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