How Pizza Stocks Have Done Since The Infamous Urban Outfitters Pizza Acquisition?

Urban Outfitters, Inc. URBN was responsible for one of the more puzzling buyouts in recent history last year when the clothing retailer decided to venture into the pizza business. In November, Urban Outfitters acquired The Vetri Family group of restaurants, which includes Pizzeria Vetri.

,P>Urban Outfitters is one of the many retailers struggling to compete with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, and management apparently isn’t afraid to expand outside its comfort zone.

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How have Urban Outfitters and Vetri’s pizza stock rivals traded since the deal was announced last November?

In short, the pizza business has been booming. The stocks of Casey’s General Stores Inc CASY, Yum! Brands, Inc. YUM, Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. PZZA and Domino’s Pizza, Inc. DPZ are all up between 20 and 50 percent in less than a year of trading since the Urban Outfitters deal. Urban Outfitters stock has also been on the rise. The stock is up 49.8 percent since the deal was announced.

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The only investors not enjoying the pizza party are shareholders of Papa Murphy’s Holdings Inc FRSH. The stock is down 49.6 percent since November on comparable-store sales and disappointing earnings.

In Q2, Papa Murphy’s comparable-store sales fell 4.0 percent year-over-year, while Domino’s and Papa John’s delivered +10 percent and +5 percent growth, respectively.

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