Bloomin' Brands names Delta's Michael Spanos as next CEO

Bloomin' Brands (BLMN) — the parent company of restaurant chains like Outback Steakhouse and Bonefish Grill — has named Delta Air Lines (DAL) COO Michael Spanos as its new chief executive effective this September. Current CEO David Deno will stay on and serve in a transitional role until the end of this year.

Catalysts anchors Seana Smith and Madison Mills report on the story and check on Bloomin' Brands' falling stock price in response to this news.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

We're also watching to see Sweet shake up playing out Blue and Brands, the company behind Outback Steakhouse and several other restaurant chains, has named Delta Airlines executive Michael Spo as its new CEO.

Now Mike was the CEO O over at Delta.

He does have some prior experience in a little bit more service facing brands that are outside of the aerospace that he was six flag entertainment.

CEO also had roles over at Pepsi, so that is a potential area of overlap.

Here you can see little brands down over 3.5%.

And that is perhaps, given the fact that, uh, Mike does not have any sort of restaurant experience or casual dining industry experience on his resume, which could be a question mark for markets as to how he's going to play into the future of the company moving forward.

I think that is the exact question for markets right now as we are seeing this type of reaction.

Remember, Bloom and Brands is a company that has been struggling as well as, uh, I mean not exactly, uh, disassociated with some of the more broader struggles with inside, uh, inside the restaurant industry.

here over the last several quarters, but again, this year to date is off 37%.

You can see it up there on the screen, lots of questions about what it's going to take in order to get more diners back through the doors in order to boost traffic number that has been struggling for quite some time.

The most recent earnings report that the company did have their earnings missed.

They lowered their guidance lots of questions about the future of casual dining industry and especially at a time now with sense.

And and this was a few weeks ago.

But since then, we talk about the fact that we are continuing to see this weakening narrative play out.

Not something to be maybe overly concerned with at this point, but obviously something that is impacting the consumer.

We're getting more and more reads this week when it comes to the retailers that are reporting consumers pulling back on their spending.

So all of this to say that it is a very tough set up for the casual dining industry more broadly so I think that paired with the fact that Spino doesn't necessarily have the experience within the industry specifically is causing at least a bit of a concern, at least initially.

But we'll see whether or not he turns things around.

Yeah, really good point in the context, Shana, though.