Last week, Darden’s board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.75 per share on its outstanding common stock, payable on Feb. 1, 2019 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Jan. 10, 2019.
US same-store restaurant sales grew just 3.5% for Olive Garden and 2.9% for LongHorn Steakhouse, as corresponding traffic fell — something that translated to the lower-than-expected top line.
During the quarter, Darden repurchased about 0.6 million shares for a total of $61 million. At quarter-end, the company had about $419 million remaining under the current $500-million repurchase authorization.
The Olive Garden-operator also updated its fiscal 2019 forecast for same-restaurant sales growth to about 2.5% and its outlook for diluted net earnings from continuing operations to $5.60-$5.70 per share.
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