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Last summer, a repairman with brown curly hair, high cheekbones and a bright smile could be found screaming while driving.
Through the window, Burger King bath in Miami.
His name is Daniel Schwartz.
He learned to do a huge thing in less than 35 seconds and blend well with his colleagues, except that Schwartz had a person with a camera to follow him.
"I 've cleaned about 15 toilets in the last two days," he once boasted as if he had just finished a marathon.
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Behind this week's cover for Bloomberg Businessweek Schwartz, Boru O'Brien O'Connell, there's reason to be excited.
In June, he was named Burger King's chief executive, earning $700,000 a year, possibly twice as much in cash.
Another reason for Schwartz's energy: he is only 32 years old and is on his way to becoming a star quickly --food industry.
Making sure the lights in the Burger King restroom are just one of the challenges Schwartz faces.
Since the company was founded in 1954, he has been the 21 CEO of Burger King.
The chain, which has six owners, has been neglected for many years and has a inconsistent strategy.
Unlike his predecessor, Schwartz not only competes with McDonald's and Wendy.
He must prevent customers from straying into fashionable newcomers such as the Mexican Grill and Panera Bread.
Their sales in the United StatesS.
According to the food industry consultant alimmic, growth was 17% and 12% respectively last year.
Burger King and his two main competitors have basically flat sales.
Schwartz looked like his students on Cornell's dean's list and went back to Olette all the way.
Before going to Burger King, he had no experience in eating fast food;
After graduating from college, he spent nearly ten years on Wall Street.
His surroundings are also full of longing and freshness.
Circle inside the face.
Chief Financial Officer Josh Kobza is 28 years old.
He and Schwartz usually attend a conference call at Burger King's 36-year-old Alexander Macedo. year-
Former President of the North American business and 29-year-old head of investor relations Sami Sidiki.
Only one of the four saw a day in their seventies.
Schwartz is an outsider in the corporate world.
Matteo Tonello, managing director of the conference committee, a non-profit research organization that studies such things, said CEOs believe young people are rare outside tech enclave such as Silicon Valley.
He said the average age of the new CEO of the S & P 500
The stock index was 53 last year.
Schwartz is the second.
The youngest CEO of Fortune 1000
Behind Mark Zuckerberg)
According to BoardEx, If Burger King is on the list, BoardEx is a company that analyzes the company's executive and director data.
"The traditional view is that you need an experienced candidate," Tonello said . ".
"There are still a lot of doubts about the younger generation.
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Today, however, Burger King acts more like a start-up than a typical hamburger chain.
In 2010, the company was acquired by Brazilian private equity firm 3g Capital for $4 billion. J.
Heinz works with Berkshire Hathaway, whose main shareholder is the controlling shareholder of anhays --Busch InBev.
Jorge Paul Lehmann, 74year-
Old billionaire
Founders, like to recruit young executives and have them hold senior positions in the company's company.
"Who said you want to be old?
William Ackman, a hedge fund manager in New York, said he runs panxing Plaza Capital Management, the largest investor behind 3g in Burger King.
Schwartz and his colleagues
The workers are 3g apostles of fierce practices in reducing costs.
They talked about the need to instill a "ownership mindset" into everyone at Burger King, which mainly means that employees should husband the company's money like their own money.
This ends some precious benefits.
After InBev swallowed Anheuser
On 2008, executives at the American brewery were told that they would no longer receive free beer.
On September, Bloomberg News reported that executives of Heinz, which was acquired by 3g and Berkshire Hathaway three months ago, were ordered to hand over their mini-fridges.
Schwartz did not cooperate in this article and he supervised a lot of chisels.
In 2013, McDonald's had a 19% stake in 35,429 restaurants around the world.
Wendy has 18% of 6,557 stores.
Historically, Burger King operates the same way: in 2010, 3g bought the chain, which owns 11% of the world's 12,174 restaurants.
Since then, Burger King has sold only 52;
It retains the last few to train executives and test products.
This is very different from the way competitors operate, so some people question the company's strategy.
"Unless you keep a certain percentage of the stores, you really don't know how the industry works," says Malcolm Knapp, a New York catering consultant . ".
He believes that Burger King's management mainly wants to withdraw cash from the business.
Howard Penney, general manager of risk management at Hedgeye, a research firm in Stamford, Connecticut.
Also skeptical about Schwartz's approach.
"This is financial engineering," he said . "
Burger King disagrees, but the suspicion is reasonable.
After unloading more than 1,200 restaurants, the company's number of business leaders dropped from 38,884 in 2013 to 2,425.
Now its revenue is almost entirely from the royalties of the franchisees, with an average of 4% of the monthly revenue.
Overall, this is a lot less money than before, but Burger King has become a cash machine.
3g is not shy about helping yourself get some money.
At the same time, Burger King's business is growing.
Schwartz negotiated an agreement with restaurant operators and financiers in Brazil, China and Russia, where Hamburg is still a novelty.
Not only did they buy restaurants from Burger King, they also built new ones.
As a result, the number of Burger King Worldwide increased by 1,493 in 2013 to 13,667.
The company does not have to spend too much money;
Its partners are investing most of their cash.
Wall Street was very responsive.
Burger King went on sale again in june2016 for $4.
The company is worth 6 billion.
By the beginning of July, its market value had risen to more than $9.
There are a few people who are skeptical now, and many in the investment community want McDonald's and Wendy to imitate the children at Burger King.
"These things seem to work at Burger King and raise questions about other people's strategy in fast food," said David Palmer . " Reporting for RBC Capital Markets analysts in the catering industry.
"Why don't you do what they're doing, for example?
Schwartz grew up in Albertsen. Y. , an upper-middle-
Located on the outskirts of Long Island near the Queens border.
He went to Whitley School, where he played basketball and was a top student.
Carol Vogel, his history teacher, thinks he will achieve something soon.
CEO of food company
"If he were like he was when he was young, he would have done a good job," she said . ".
"He works very hard.
Schwartz made no secret of his dream.
He summed them up with a sentence from Shakespeare's twelve nights, and he chose to go with his senior photos in the school's 1998 yearbook: "Some lives come great, some people have great thrust on some people.
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He majored in management and applied economics at Cornell University.
Friends say that he is a smart, if a little colorless guy, take the time to study and exercise.
After graduating from college, he worked as an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston and worked in a hedge fund at Stanford for a while.
According to a spokeswoman for Burger King, when he learned that 3g would open an office in New York in 2005, he applied for a job and thought it would be a good job.
It's a 24-year-old.
Schwartz, who was initially an analyst, was soon promoted to a private equity group.
He took part in a campaign to win a seat on the board of CSX, a US railway company, and, along with the Children's Investment Fund, a British hedge fund that is willing to invest.
3g made a profit, but the intruder also had a long and bad court battle with CSX.
Documents appearing in the case show how much responsibility 3g is willing to give him, despite Schwartz's youth.
In 2010, Schwartz planned a 3g takeover of Burger King, offering a 46% premium to the chain's share price.
It inspired some minds. scratching.
Burger King is a mess for decades.
James mcleo and David Edgerton opened the first Burger King in Miami.
It wasn't until they noticed the crowd rushing to other people's burger shops in Jacksonville, Jacksonville that they barely got.
The other place is dirty;
The men's toilet door is hung with a hinge.
But the burger was delicious-and huge.
McLamore will write in his surprisingly good autobiography Burger King that later that afternoon, when he was pleasantly welcomed on his way back to Miami, he thought
"I put a small bottle of bourbon in the glove box, so I poured a little of it into a 7-
"I just bought it at the gas station," he wrote . ".
All he could think of was the sandwich he had just eaten and how he cloned it.
1957, wh debut.
Burger King was immediately hit and became McDonald's doppelganger and its closest competitor.
McLamore dreams of becoming No. 1.
Nothing happened.
Under pressure from investors, he agreed to sell the company to Pierce Bury in 1967.
He soon regretted it.
Pierce Bury has little interest in opening restaurants as quickly as McDonald's.
Burger King is falling behind.
In 1988, Grand Metropole, a British conglomerate interested in alcohol, tobacco and gambling, bought Pillsbury, and Burger King is no longer a priority.
Nine years later, Metropolitan merged with Guinness to create Diageo.
The new company wants to focus its attention on Johnny Walker, not on the Broom.
In 2002, it sold Burger King to Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs for $1. 5billion.
Franchisees welcomed TPG and its partners.
They were not happy to escape Diageo.
"This is the first day of the new era of Burger King," Julian Josephine, president of the chain Franchise Association, announced in a statement 2002.
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Good feelings don't last.
Burger King added $1 double cheese burger to the menu on 2009.
The project increased sales, which meant more royalties were charged by Burger King.
But the franchisees are so bad: selling a big cheese burger at a low price won't make any money.
The Burger King franchisee association sued the company for removing the burger from the menu.
"It's toxic," said Knapp, an adviser to the chain's relationship with the then franchisee.
This is the moment that Schwartz and the other 3g teams have offered to buy Burger King for $4 billion --$1.
6 billion of the equity, the rest is debt.
TPG and its partners took it away.
3G made a blueprint for Burger King.
Once the October2010 deal was closed, the new owner raised the price of the double cheese burger and settled the franchisee's lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Burger King's new CEO, Bernardo hails, 41year-
According to the documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the former head of the railway company removed 375 people from Miami headquarters and 275 people worldwide.
In October, Schwartz, then Burger King's new deputy chief financial officer, appeared in Miami for more Symphony clips.
"Bernardo is the conductor," said Burger King board member Martin Franklin . ".
"Daniel is the first violin.
According to Franklin, Schwartz played an integral role in eradicating what management saw as uncontrolled spending.
Burger King's plane was sold soon.
The 3g company canceled the comfortable office that executives and secretaries liked, and the Burger King called the Redwood row.
Executives are now sitting in the amphitheater of Sparta. plan office.
3g found that the company's Europe, Middle East and Africa division held a $1 million carnival every year at a castle near the Italian lake.
The party is over.
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Some cuts seem to be more about creating an oppressive bargain than looking for huge savings.
Employees are instructed to use Skype for long-term training
Call instead of making phone bills.
They were asked to scan files and emails
Not by FedEx but by mail.
They were ordered to hand over a personal printer and use a large public printer.
Compared to Burger King's restaurant disposal plan, it all pales.
The reason is simple: who is more qualified to run Burger King than an experienced franchisee?
The plan will also make it unnecessary for 3g to spend more than $0. 4 billion to renovate restaurants, many of which still have old restaurants
Metal chairs and bright blue stalls in style.
The new owner will save the money. (
Burger King says it has contributed some cash to cover the cost of remodeling even though it does not provide figures. )
Early results under new management are promising.
Net income increased by 34% per cent in 2012 to US dollars. Same-
Store sales fell from 0.
The income from the previous year of 5% was 3. 2percent.
Part of the reason is that Burger King has launched the largest number of new menu items in history.
There are salads, burritos, chicken strips, smoothies and fried foods.
At the same time, Schwartz's deal with foreign restaurant owners generated hamburger chains around the world and brought in more royalties.
Everything went so well that 3g was able to sell Burger King shares to the public.
As part of the deal, 3g sold 30% of its shares to a group of investors led by Ackerman for $1.
5 billion, keep the other 70.
The money is about the 3g equity invested to buy Burger King.
"They ended up owning the company with basically nothing," Knapp said . ".
In june, Hees left Heinz in 2015 and Schwartz became CEO of Burger King.
He spent his first month at Burger King and found out what the chain's chefs and dishwashers look like.
Burger King global learning senior director Brendan Berg is a guide for Schwartz during the training period.
He remembers that his boss had a hard time keeping up with the project orders in the extended menu.
"There's nothing better than standing behind the house, the lunch rush is on you, you have complex sandwiches," Berg said . ".
"We have three different BBQ sauces.
Some hamburgers are made of raw onions.
Some are red onions.
We had sweet potato chips.
We stood there side by side, and he said, Brendan, it seems to be very common here.
After several midday runs, Schwartz believes it's time to simplify the menu with new products that are easier to assemble and do not require multiple ingredients, such as Satisfries, which was launched in last September, less calories and less fat than Burger King's traditional fries (
These are still available, of course).
For customers who need more fillings, here are bacon cheddar cheese burgers.
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Schwartz has also shaken the management team to raise people closer to his age to the highest position.
As a result, the average age of the Burger King Executive team dropped from the already young age of 41 to 39.
"This is a young, dynamic team," said board member Franklin . ".
"These people are really smart.
"After a few overwhelming lunches, it's not surprising that Schwartz is looking for simpler products.
But for other reasons, he needs to re-invent the menu.
By 2013, Burger King has completed almost all the costscutting.
That means it has to sell more burgers and chips to keep its number from falling. The U. S.
In particular, the threat is to pull these numbers down.
Annual sales at Burger King restaurants in the United States fell 1% to $8.
5 billion in 2013, according to dommic.
Schwartz must also come up with a new menu item-
Unlike the $1 double cheese burger, which needs to make a profit for his franchisees.
Burger King did not break through their profits, but its largest franchisee, the Carrols Restaurant Group in Syracuse (N. Y. )-
The company, which is headquartered in 538 outlets last year, did so.
In may 2016, Carrols purchased 278 restaurants from Burger King and received $16 million in cash, a 29% stake in Carrols and two seats on the board, one by Schwartz
Last year, Carrols lost $13 million because, as part of a deal with Burger King, it borrowed a lot of money to fund the remodeling plan it agreed.
Paul Flanders, chief financial officer at Carrols, said the company wanted to refinance junk food --
Bonds will be issued next year and losses will be reduced.
He praised Schwartz and said satisfaction was helpful to him.
"We are gradually selling more chips," said Flanders . ".
"But it did not replace the existing chips.
People say one thing and eat another.
In July, Carrols bought 21 more Burger Kings.
At the same time, Burger King has 140 people who spend all their time in areas where they can improve their profitability.
The most recent morning, raving Burger King coach Leslye Johnson and restaurant manager Kishana Scotchman sat in a Burger King upstairs restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.
Johnson produced an iPad and showed the Scots dozens of charts, from hamburger sales, cleaning and service to harmony of employees, and her company was ranked first in all aspects.
A 29-year-old Scotyear-
The old man with long eyelashes listened intently and recorded things on the pink notebook.
Some nights have had bad results.
The Scots thought she knew why: She said one of her night shift managers was lazy.
"I tried to look at the camera more and see what happened at night," she said . ".
"Very good, very good," Johnson said with a smile . "
"What did you notice at night?
"He stayed in the office.
"I will come back here and see what's going on," Johnson said . ".
"Tell him he made an appointment with me.
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Burger King's intervention was effective.
According to RBC, the company's
In the first quarter of this year, store sales grew by 2%, while McDonald's grew by only 0. 5percent.
In the past, when franchisees were dissatisfied with the management of Burger King, they made a lot of noise and they were also satisfied with Schwartz.
"I don't pay attention to how much experience they have," said Tom garlitt, CEO of the GPS hotel that bought 61 Burger Kings from the company since 2012.
"They are very smart, which makes them learn very, very fast.
Burger King shares rose 15% in July.
McDonald's fell 2%.
At the same time, Wendy's share price fell by 6%, although it released a lot
The bacon cheeseburger with pretzels was discussed.
Even skeptics like Hedgeye's Penney are impressed.
"Stocks are doing better than I thought," he said . "
However, Burger King's stock performance may not be based entirely on burger sales.
The company has been talking publicly about debt refinancing in the coming months.
This may allow the chain to do something good for shareholders.
Although RBC's Palmer expects the company to pay a special dividend, Burger King will not reveal what that might be.
"There is no doubt," he said, which has driven the recent stock appreciation.
Of course, the biggest beneficiary will be 3g, Burger King's biggest shareholder.
In June, Schwartz spent most of his time overseas communicating with foreign franchisees and investors.
He did not attend the Piper Jaffray Annual Consumer Conference at the New York Palace on Madison Avenue.
There are many in the middle --
Old age restaurant that runs Steak House, noodle shop and Cheesecake Factory, people wearing coats and ties.
They face a room of analysts who want to know the menu and the expansion plan.
Kobza, chief financial officer, was present. In his slim-
Cut suit, open
The collar shirt, he looks like a Wall Street guy, gives the impression that he is taught to smile as much as possible.
He talked about refinancing: "It could make a significant amount of cash available for us and make it possible for us to return to shareholders.
He pointed out that Burger King was going through 15-
"They still remember this big lie," he said . "
"We walked through the airport with the Burger King logo on our shirt.
The security guard asked us, where is Burger King?