Rick's Cabaret Rises 13.95% After Q4 Earnings Beat

Rick's Cabaret International RICK is up more than 13 percent in after hours trading after the company announced its fourth quarter results. The company reported a Q4 EPS of $0.17 versus the Street estimate of $0.15. Earnings per share were up 13 percent from the year-ago period. Rick's Cabaret also announced an adjusted Q4 EPS of $0.27. "Fiscal 2013 was in many ways a transitional year for us as we moved from a recessionary model in many clubs to our more typical formats," Eric Langan, President and CEO of Rick's Cabaret, said in a company release. "This shift means that some lower margin customers are visiting the clubs less frequently, but higher margin guests are returning, which helps improve our income picture. "The year was also notable for the launch of our restaurant division, which we believe will become a solid growth catalyst in the future. Going forward, we are looking at a strong 2014. We have over 40 locations open at the present time, with six more in various stages of development or construction. We continue to examine acquisition possibilities and ways to unlock the value of our real estate." As of Friday, December 13, shares of Rick's Cabaret were up more than 30 percent year-to-date. But the stock was much higher earlier in the year, rising 55 percent from January 2 through October 3. On the latter day, Rick's Cabaret announced that it had purchased a 49 percent stake in the corporation that operates PT's Platinum in Dallas. Overall, the stock has taken a dive over the past few months, falling more than 10 percent since September 16. Looking ahead, Rick's Cabaret expects to report a FY2014 EPS between $1.44 and $1.76. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.