World Franchising
March 2007 Newsletter
 
Earnings Claim Hall of Fame: Great Clips
 
 

Item 19

Earnings Claims

Great Clips provides prospective franchisees with information regarding the average sales, expenses and cash flows of certain franchised GREAT CLIPS® units. Great Clips will substantiate the information set forth in this Item 19, upon reasonable request, provided, however, that such substantiation shall not disclose the sales, expenses or cash flows of any specific franchised unit without the written authorization of the franchisee, except as required by any applicable state or federal registration authorities.

OTHER THAN AS SPECIFICALLY DISCLOSED IN THIS ITEM 19, GREAT CLIPS DOES NOT MAKE ACTUAL, AVERAGE, PROJECTED OR FORECASTED SALES, EXPENSES, PROFITS, CASH FLOW OR EARNINGS INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO PROSPECTIVE FRANCHISEES. THERE IS NO GUARANTY THAT ANY NEW FRANCHISEE WILL ATTAIN THE AVERAGE SALES, EXPENSES, PROFITS, CASH FLOW OR EARNINGS LEVELS ATTAINED BY ANY EXISTING FRANCHISEES.

GREAT CLIPS HAS COMPILED THESE AVERAGE SALES, EXPENSES, PROFITS, CASH FLOW OR EARNINGS FIGURES FROM INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY GREAT CLIPS® FRANCHISEES AND THEY SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS THE ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SALES, EXPENSES, PROFITS, CASH FLOW, OR EARNINGS THAT WILL BE REALIZED BY ANY OTHER FRANCHISEE. GREAT CLIPS DOES NOT REPRESENT THAT ANY FRANCHISEE CAN EXPECT TO ATTAIN THESE SALES, EXPENSES, PROFITS, CASH FLOW OR EARNINGS. A NEW FRANCHISEE'S INDIVIDUAL FINANCIAL RESULTS ARE LIKELY TO DIFFER FROM THE AVERAGE FIGURES PRESENTED BELOW. IF GREAT CLIPS INCLUDED SALONS THAT WERE ONLY OPEN FOR ONE YEAR, THESE NUMBERS WOULD BE SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT.

The average sales, expenses and cash flows of the GREAT CLIPS® units were obtained from operating statements submitted to Great Clips by its franchisees. Most franchisees use a cash versus accrual system for producing their financial statements, which may produce slight differences between the actual date of occurrence of expenses and the date such expenses are reported on the franchisee's financial statements. Neither Great Clips nor its independent certified public accountants have independently audited or verified these franchisee statements. The information received in these statements, to the best of Great Clips' knowledge, is accurate and complete.

All GREAT CLIPS® units offer substantially the same services and products to the public. The actual sales, expenses, and cash flow results of any franchised GREAT CLIPS® unit may vary substantially from these averages. Sales, expenses and cash flow results depend upon many independently variable factors including, but by no means limited to, the location and visibility of the unit, local traffic patterns, the demographic composition, age of the market and trends of the market area served by the unit, the competitive environment, public awareness of and goodwill associated with the name "GREAT CLIPS®", the region and market area in which the unit is located, the length of time the unit has been in operation, the quality of the management and service at the unit, the individual skills of the franchisee and other factors. This information is therefore limited in its usefulness and should only be utilized as a reference for you to use in conducting your own independent analysis of the business.

THE FOLLOWING TABLE CONTAINS INFORMATION RELATING SOLELY TO HISTORICAL SALES, EXPENSE AND CASH FLOW DATA COMPILED FROM EXISTING FRANCHISED GREAT CLIPS® UNITS. THE TABLE IS QUALIFIED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY ALL THE INFORMATION, NOTES, CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS CONTAINED IN THIS ITEM 19.

AVERAGE OPERATING CASH FLOW OF CERTAIN GREAT CLIPS® UNITS
GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND METHODOLOGY

The following statement (hereinafter referred to as the "Average Operating Cash Flow Statement") consists of the average sales, expenses and operating cash flow of certain GREAT CLIPS® units. The statement is based on a sample of 722 units that were open two years or longer as of January 1, 2005, and operating as of the date of this offering circular.

The total eligible sample of units opened for two years or longer, as of January 1, 2005, consisted of 1513 salons. The sample was reduced by eliminating any unit for which Great Clips had insufficient data to be reasonably assured of having accurate and complete expense information (791 units).

The 791 units eliminated due to insufficient data were not distributed evenly over the entire database, based on total sales. Of the missing salons, 330 had total sales at or above the median for the total sample and 461 had total sales below the median for the total sample. If all 791 of these salons had been included in the sample, it would have reduced the median total sales in the sample by 5.8% and the net operating cash flow by a somewhat larger percent.

The sales and expense data used in the preparation of this table was taken from actual unit operating statements, provided by the franchisee, for each unit in the sample. The time frame or accounting period of these operating statements was the most current available to Great Clips, but, in some cases, did not match the exact time frame from which sales figures were drawn. Therefore some information was annualized to extract a full year worth of data.

The methodology used was to calculate each unit's reported expenses as a percentage of total sales, then to apply this expense percentage to the total sales for 2005 to compute the operating cash flow figure. Great Clips feels that this is the method that produces the fairest representation of the current operating averages for these sample units.

The 722 units included in this sample are located in the following states/provinces:

Alberta 4 New Jersey 1
Arizona 59 New Mexico 4
British Columbia 11 North Carolina 30
California 49 North Dakota 4
Colorado 42 Ohio 38
Florida 47 Oregon 23
Georgia 57 Pennsylvania 2
Idaho 6 South Carolina 7
Illinois 35 South Dakota 5
Indiana 35 Tennessee 9
Iowa 16 Texas 6
Kansas 11 Utah 3
Kentucky 10 Virginia 2
Minnesota 96 Washington 33
Missouri 40 Wisconsin 19
Nebraska 12 Wyoming 2
Nevada 4    
The average annualized total sales for this group of 722 units is $291,550. A total of 308 units, or 42.7%, exceed this average. The average total of all expenses for this group of 722 units is $242,053. A total of 426 units, or 59.0%, have total expenses lower than the average figure of $242,053. The average operating cash flow for this group of 722 units is $49,497. A total of 327 units, or 45.3%, had total average operating cash flow in excess of the average of $49,497.
THE FOLLOWING AVERAGE OPERATING CASH FLOW INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS ACTUAL OR PROBABLE RESULTS THAT WILL BE REALIZED BY A FRANCHISEE. IT IS BASED ON OPERATING RESULTS OF UNITS IN OPERATION SINCE AT LEAST JANUARY 1, 2003.
AVERAGE OPERATING CASH FLOW STATEMENT
Revenues (1)
 
  Service Sales
$270,592
92.81%
  Product Sales
20,958
7.19%
  Total Revenues
$291,550
100.00%
Expenses
  Labor (2)
 
$142,751
48.96%
  Occupancy (3)
 
28,647
9.83%
  Products (4)
 
11,619
3.99%
  Royalties (5)
 
17,504
6.00%
  Advertising (6)
 
16,330
5.60%
  Other (7)
 
25,202
8.64%
  Total Expenses
$242,053
83.02%
  Operating Cash Flow (8)
 
$49,497
16.98%
Many GREAT CLIPS® franchisees operate more than one salon. The average number of salons per franchisee who has operated GREAT CLIPS® salons for over five years is 5.7.
AVERAGES BASED ON SALES RANGE
Salons
 
Sales Range
($000)
Number
%
Average
Sales in
Range
<$150 8 1.1% $132,688
$150 - $199 89 12.3% $182,988
$200 - $249 162 22.5% $225,523
$250 - $299 183 25.3% $273,320
$300 - $349 122 16.9% $321,956
$350 - $399 71 9.8% $371,230
$400 - $449 46 6.4% $425,474
$450+ 41 5.7% $521,749
All Salons in Sample
722 100% $291,550
Expenses as a % of Sales
 
Labor Occupancy All
Other
Total Cash
Flow (%)

Cash
Flow ($)
-

56.3% 15.5% 23.7% 95.5% 4.5% $6,030
54.3% 14.0% 26.4% 94.7% 5.3% $9,636
51.3% 12.3% 25.4% 89.0% 11.0% $24,734
48.4% 10.5% 24.5% 83.4% 16.6% $45,455
47.8% 8.8% 23.9% 80.5% 19.5% $62,834
47.7% 8.3% 23.3% 79.3% 20.7% $76,699
47.0% 7.3% 23.1% 77.4% 22.6% $96,069
47.4% 6.5% 22.8% 76.7% 23.3% $121,344
48.96%

9.83% 24.23% 83.02% 16.98% $49,497
Notes:

1. Revenues. Average sales based on actual operating results as reported by franchisees to Great Clips.

2. Labor. Includes all employee-related expenses including: wages, salary, bonus, commission, payroll taxes, insurance benefits, other benefits, and workers' compensation expenses. Includes the cost of salon manager but excludes, if identifiable, any labor expense related to general manager or franchisee.

3. Occupancy. Includes all rent, common area maintenance, real estate taxes plus percentage rent paid, if any. Also includes any other lease-related charges such as maintenance, security, trash removal, merchant association dues or charges or shopping center promotional expenses.

4. Products. Includes the cost of all product purchased for resale or for back bar customer service usage plus all freight or delivery costs associated with this product.

5. Royalties. All units in the System pay identical Continuing Franchise Fees of 6%. The model is not exactly 6% due to the fact that the franchisees predominately use a cash rather than accrual basis for accounting purposes.

6. Advertising. All units in the System pay identical amounts of 5% of gross sales into the North American Advertising Fund. In addition, virtually all franchisees participate in other discretionary advertising on a local or regional basis.

7. Other. This category includes all other cash expense items and categories not included elsewhere. These would include: travel and entertainment, supplies, dues and subscriptions, telephone, utilities, non-real estate repairs and maintenance, insurance, postage, freight, bad debts, taxes and fees, cash over/short, recruitment expense, laundry, meals, equipment purchase, credit card charges, accounting and legal, employee theft/losses, deposits, bank charges, uniforms, licenses, contributions, meeting expenses, janitorial, bad checks, printing, inventory differences, computer charges, and convention expenses.

8. Operating Cash Flow. This figure does not include any provision for income taxes or for non-cash expenses such as depreciation or amortization. It also does not include any reserve for future capital expenditures.

Newly opened units tend to have average sales and cash flow significantly below the average for the units included in the earnings claim sample above. This is especially true of new units opened by new franchisees in markets that have few existing units. Certain markets have substantially higher real estate costs than others and any prospective franchisee is urged to verify this along with all other expense factors in relation to local market conditions. Markets with many units and correspondingly larger cooperative advertising budgets tend to have units with higher revenues and cash flows than markets with few existing units.

You are responsible for developing your own business plan for your proposed GREAT CLIPS® unit, including capital budgets, pro forma financial statements, sales and expense projections and other elements appropriate to the particular circumstances of the proposed unit. In developing the business plan, you are cautioned to make necessary allowance for changes in financial results that may occur due to any of the factors listed above, for any and all ranges of general economic conditions that may exist now or in the future, or for any other circumstances that may impact the operation and performance of the business.

No representations or statements of actual, average or projected sales profits or earnings are made to applicants for GREAT CLIPS® franchises, except as stated in this Item 19. Neither Great Clips' sales personnel nor any employee or officer of Great Clips is authorized to make any claims or statements as to the earnings, sales, expenses, cash flows, or profits or prospects or chances of success that any franchisee can expect or that present or past franchisees have had, other than as stated in this Item 19. Great Clips specifically instructs its sales personnel, agents, employees and officers that they are not permitted to make any such claims or statements, nor are they authorized to represent or estimate dollar figures as to existing or future GREAT CLIPS salon operations, other than as stated in this Item 19. Great Clips recommends that applicants for GREAT CLIPS® franchises make their own investigation and determine whether or not existing salons are profitable and whether their Salon is likely to be profitable. Great Clips will not be bound by allegations of any unauthorized representations as to earnings, sales, profits, prospects, or chances of success.

YOU ARE URGED TO CONSULT WITH APPROPRIATE FINANCIAL, BUSINESS AND LEGAL ADVISORS AND EXISTING GREAT CLIPS® FRANCHISEES IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF ANY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS SECTION.