Peer performance suggests signs of life for Ardent

Last week we saw Ardent’s US Main Event peer Dave & Buster’s (D&B) report a very strong third quarter same store growth of 8.8% pcp - despite cycling a strong comparable and the Halloween interruption. D&B’s citing a big pick-up in “walk-ins” which suggests the operating environment is strong for offerings such as D&B and Main Event. D&B is ultimately expecting to be a 200 site operation in the US, suggesting more growth available in this category. AAD currently have 20 Main Event centres and we have them getting to 30 over the next 2yrs. The stock is down 16.5% this month, however it has started showing signs of life/recovery. At current levels the stock looks cheap, trading on a PE of ~15x & a yield of 6%. The Chart below demonstrates the Short sellers have started to cover/ buy back their short positions (evident in the red line on the graph declining). Latest research here: (VIEW LINK)