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Morton's Restaurant Group Inc Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-03-17 10:49:08.0

Tags: Morton's Restaurant Group Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions). The first question comes from the line of Nicole Miller with Piper Jaffray. Please proceed.

Nicole Miller - Piper Jaffray

Good afternoon.

Ron DiNella

Good afternoon. Hi Nicole.

Tom Baldwin

Hi Nicole

Nicole Miller - Piper Jaffrey

I'm traveling so I hope you can hear me okay.

Tom Baldwin

Yes.

Nicole Miller - Piper Jaffrey

Just thinking back to the 2001 and 2003 tax-rebate period, can you just speak to any benefit you would have seen, that you did see, and if you factored anything for the 2008 rebate?

Tom Baldwin

It's hard to really determine that in good faith we received any direct benefit from the issuances of those checks to individuals. We believe obviously there was some bump-in, stimulus in economy but hard to determine exactly benefits Morton's might have derived. And based on that experience, we have not included any additional benefit from stimulus package.

Nicole Miller - Piper Jaffrey

Okay, and it was just kind of a difficult question, I mean we struggle with that as well. So thank you for just providing that color, and actually I have no other questions this afternoon. So thank you.

Tom Baldwin

Thank you Nicole.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Omohundro from Wachovia. Please proceed sir.

Jeff Omohundro - Wachovia

Thanks. Yeah I got a couple of questions. May be starting with the impairment charge in the quarter, may be some details around the unit, how old is it, and any other units similarly situated.

Tom Baldwin

Let's see. I'll let Ron talk about the accounting. For competitive reasons we will not release the individual name of the unit. It is the unit that's several years older, and if and when we take any further action of closing it, we will obviously address that head-on and it is - Ron I guess it's in conjunction with your annual view of impairment?

Ron DiNella

Yes.

Tom Baldwin

Yes. Yeah.

Ron DiNella

It's a normal course Jeff that we have to do, most businesses have to do it, and there was one restaurant that we needed to take a write off for.

Jeff Omohundro - Wachovia

Okay. And then moving on to some of the sales trends. First domestically, are you seeing any patterns, metro versus you suburban units? And then secondly, how are your Asian units performing?

Tom Baldwin

The international markets have been and very strong, essentially across the board where we've seen patterns of some of the states that I understand some of the other companies reported softness in Arizona, Nevada, we've seen off late California and Florida to be soft. And I understand that many of the higher-end, the many of the casual dining guys have reported similar experiences.

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