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American steakhouses are pointing their fingers at sterling.
On Friday, Del Frisco's Restaurant Group, a Texas-based operator of steakhouses across America, attributed some of its weakness in its third quarter results to the collapse of the British currency.
"Sales choppiness during our seasonally weak third quarter yielded results that fell short of our expectations and have caused us to revise our annual guidance," they wrote in the statement.
"In addition to continued weakness at our locations most impacted by the continued downturn in the energy sector, we saw weakness at several East Coast locations from reduced tourism spending, specifically from the fallout over the British pound devaluation."
The pound has had a rough couple of months, ever since Britons voted to leave the European Union on June 23 in the so-called Brexit vote.
The currency plunged by as much as 11% to a 30-year-low on the morning after the vote, and sort of floated around that level over the summer.
Then, sterling started tumbling again in early October following:
- Comments from Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday indicating that Article 50 would be triggered by the end of March 2017, which would begin the official process of Britain leaving the European Union,
- And statements from UK and EU officials suggesting that Britain was heading for a "Hard Brexit."
For the third quarter, Del Frisco's Restaurant Group missed on botth the top and bottom lines. Earnings came in at $0.04, compared with expectations of $0.05, while revenue of $71.4 million, missed the $72.7 million that was expected.
For what it's worth, Del Frisco's previously noted during a previous earnings call that sales at individual restaurants with exposure to the energy sector declined.
The pound is down by 0.3% at 1.2218 against the dollar as of 9:21 a.m. ET after dipping below $1.22 earlier in the day.
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