Burger King profit up, outlook within Wall St view

Burger King Holdings Inc, the world's second-largest hamburger chain, posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday and issued a fiscal 2009 forecast within Wall Street's expectations.
The Miami-based company, best known for its Whopper hamburgers, said net income rose to $51 million, or 37 cents per share, in its fourth quarter, ended on June 30, from $36 million, or 26 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts, on average, had been expecting it to earn 34 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Total revenue rose 9% to $646 million.
Sales at stores open at least 12 months rose 5.3% worldwide, marking the 18th consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales, Burger King said.
Same-store sales rose 5.5% in the United States and Canada.
Burger King has been sprucing up old outlets, adding value menu items and expanding business hours in a bid to catch up with rivals.
Those efforts have helped the chain post stronger same-store sales growth than big rivals such as McDonald's Corp and Yum Brands Inc.
Burger King's total restaurant margins decreased to 13.1% in the quarter, hurt by higher commodity costs and expenses tied to remodeling outlets.
It had warned previously that the renovation work and resulting lost sales from temporarily closed units would reduce margins.
The company said it expects fiscal 2009 earnings in a range of $1.54 to $1.59 per share.
On average, analysts expected $1.56 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.