Geoff Daily created FiberCorps and helped launch the Lafayette General Foundation. He now works as a launch strategist.
Author: Geoff Daily
Tracking the Lafayette Stock Index reveals a changing of the guard
We’re witnessing a changing of the guard, and Waitr’s splash on the NYSE is the latest indicator in the trend.
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7 min read
The sheriff’s tax shoots the moon. His ambition could cost him.
How Sheriff Mark Garber’s sales tax attempts to solve all his financial troubles in one fell swoop, at the risk of failure.
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7 min read
Waitr goes public Friday. Technically, you can get in on that stock now.
The gist - If you want to buy stock in Waitr before it goes public, today is your last chance. Waitr is scheduled to complete its agreement for a business combination with Landcadia Holdings tomorrow and go public Nov. 16 on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker WTRH.
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1 min read
What’s Landcadia Holdings? Landcadia Holdings is a special purpose acquisition company formed two years ago by American billionaire Tilman Fertitta to raise $300 million through an IPO to invest in acquiring companies. Over the summer the company announced its intent to acquire Waitr for $308 million ($50 million in cash and $258 million in stock) and rebrand itself as Waitr Holdings.
How can I buy Waitr stock before it goes public? Simple: by buying stock in Landcadia Holdings, which is listed under the ticker LCA on the NASDAQ. While you’ll be buying stock in Landcadia Holdings this week, once the vote is approved by its stockholders at a special meeting tomorrow, Landcadia Holdings will become Waitr Holdings with Waitr as its subsidiary.
But should I want to buy stock in Waitr? We don’t provide investment tips at The Current, (you wouldn't want us to) but it's worth noting that Waitr is experiencing incredible growth. In the 3rd quarter alone of this year, it grossed $77.7 million in food sales, which represents a 230 percent year-over-year increase. It now serves 235 cities and 7,700 restaurant partners. Also, once this deal is finalized, Waitr will have about $200 million on its balance sheet to invest in additional growth. This growth could come in existing markets, expansion into new markets, or in considering acquiring competitors or complementary companies.
How big of a deal is this to Lafayette? Regardless of whether you decide to invest in Waitr, there’s no denying this is a potentially huge deal for Lafayette. Our market isn’t home to very many publicly traded companies of any sort, let alone those with the growth potential of Waitr. Ideally what will happen next is that there will be incredible demand for Waitr stock, which will increase the price of shares and thereby increase the wealth Waitr’s creating in our community. From there Waitr could leverage its capital infusion to continue its exceptional growth, so that it evolves from a company worth hundreds of millions to one worth billions. These kind of wins are crucial for a still sluggish local economy. — Geoff Daily
What’s next after NextGEN
On Monday, NextGen withdrew their offer to manage LUS hours before the Council voted against considering any deal like it. So now what?
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6 min read
Why we need to fix the status quo for funding our courthouse and jail
On Nov. 6th we vote on whether to increase taxes for our parish courthouse and jail or instead to maintain the status quo. But the status quo is broken. Here’s why.
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7 min read
What would Maurice Heymann do to build a brighter future for Lafayette?
Given that he fostered an industry that generates billions of dollars in GDP, it’d be great to ask him what he would do to get us out of the $10 billion hole our economy’s in.
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8 min read
NextGEN’s offer by the numbers
What’s Jim Bernhard’s bid to run LUS really worth?
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11 min read
The dangers of Loren Scott’s economic optimism
While one economist may be projecting the end of Lafayette’s recession, more context is needed to understand the situation our economy is in
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6 min read
Aug. 30, 2018, marked the fall of oil and (hopefully) the rise of tech in Lafayette
The day started with the news that LAGCOE was leaving for New Orleans and ended with a pitch competition that’s a symbol for a future where Lafayette is a hub for healthtech startups.
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7 min read
Lafayette’s economy loses more than half a billion dollars in movable property in two years
The gist: Lafayette Parish Tax Assessor Conrad Comeaux has just finished up the latest tax roll, confirming that Lafayette lost hundreds of millions of dollars in movable property since 2015.
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1 min read
$559 million: That’s the total decrease in movable property in Lafayette from 2015 to 2017.
What does “movable property” mean? Movable property refers to the property owned by businesses other than real estate, things like equipment and inventory.
How big of a deal is this? Compared to the overall value of real and movable property in Lafayette Parish of more than $20 billion, we’re only talking about a loss of a couple of percentage points. But when you look at movable property on its own, the decrease is more like 10 percent. What this means is 10 percent less tax revenue generated by movable property, which adds up to millions of dollars of lost income for Lafayette Consolidated Government, the Lafayette Parish School System, the Lafayette Parish Courthouse, and every other organization that relies on property tax millages to fund their operations.
$10 million: That’s the amount the total assessable value of the property tax roll increased from 2016-2017. The reason for this is that real estate values have continued to hold steady or go up, which has offset the losses in movable property. But even here the numbers don’t look great as the total value of real estate in the parish rose more than $400 million to about $18 billion in total. That means the total residential and commercial real estate values in Lafayette Parish only increased a bit more than 2 percent. On average nationally, commercial property values increased more than 7 percent and residential property values more than 5 percent. Put another way, if real estate values in Lafayette Parish had increased 5 percent instead of 2 percent and if movable property values had just held even, the market value of our property tax roll would be about a billion dollars higher and generating more than $10 million in additional tax revenue for the aforementioned entities.
But this is all just about oil and gas, right? While these trends may have started in oil and gas, they’ve spread throughout Lafayette’s economy as retailers are stocking less inventory and banks are seeing deposits go down. And while the value of real estate has been keeping our heads above water, we’re likely to start seeing that area get hit as well, as vacancy rates are higher in apartment buildings and occupancy rates are lower in hotels, both of which can negatively impact the value of those buildings and therefore put downward pressure on property tax revenues for LCG.
How tolerance is essential to growing Lafayette’s innovation economy
The Drag Queen Story Time episode’s impact is bigger than drag queens and literacy.
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4 min read
Waitr gobbles Bite Squad and doubles in size
The gist: Waitr announced this morning that it acquired Bite Squad, an online ordering and on-demand food delivery platform for restaurants, for $321.3 million.
Wasn’t Waitr just bought for $308 million? Yep, that was announced back in May and the deal was only finalized on Nov. 16. So less than a month into being a publicly traded company, Waitr has effectively doubled in size. Bite Squad has more than 11,000 active restaurants, compared with Waitr’s 7,700 restaurant partners as of Sept. 30 of this year.
Waitr gets swoll. With this deal, Waitr’s operations will expand to cover a total footprint of 500 cities in 22 states.
Where’d they get all that cash? Landcadia Holdings acquired Waitr for $308 million, but only $50 million of that was guaranteed cash. At that time, Landcadia Holdings was a special purpose acquisition company — a type of entity set for the sole purpose of buying another company — that had raised $300 million. So when Landcadia Holdings became Waitr Holdings, it still had about $250 million left to fund growth. While this deal for Bite Squad was for $328 million, only $202.1 million of that was in cash with the rest paid with 10.6 million shares of Waitr stock. Plus, to help finance a portion of this deal, Waitr has taken on $42.1 million in debt.
This may only be the beginning. Tilman Fertitta — the billionaire co-owner of Landcadia Holdings, the Houston Rockets and Landry’s Inc. — has a track record of growing his businesses through acquisitions. And Chris Meaux — the CEO and cofounder of Waitr — wants to build Waitr into a billion dollar business. So if I were a betting man, I’d say that this won’t be the last major acquisition they make. And that’s potentially great news for Lafayette.
Am I rich yet? Not unless you were one of the original shareholders. The news hasn’t had much of a net impact on the stock price yet, for those of us who have only been able to buy in more recently. (Disclosure, I own some stock in Waitr.) Yesterday, Waitr Holdings' stock (listed as WTRH on the Nasdaq) ended the day at $11.44. While shares spiked to $12 first thing this morning, they settled back down to $11.48 as of 2 p.m. So I’d hold off on buying that ticket to the moon.