Butch Coolidge, a prizefighter played by Bruce Willis, has made a deal with the boss, Marsellus Wallace. He's supposed to go down in the 5th round, take a huge payout and live the rest of his life in the Caribbean. Butch had other plans though, and kills the other boxer in the ring. Literally.

Since Butch bet on himself, he takes an even larger payout than was promised by Marselles Wallace. He spends a large part of the rest of the film hiding with his girlfriend, who insists on talking about her endless desire for blueberry pancakes. I'm pretty sure Butch would invest in International House of Pancakes (IHP) with part of his winnings from the fight.

IHOP has its ups and downs but is relatively flat. Investors didn't bat an eye in May when they increased their share repurchase program another 600,000 shares, bringing the total authorization to 5.2 million shares. According to the latest earnings release on October 25th, revenues declined to $88.04 million from $91.30 million in the year-ago quarter. On the other hand, they have cut their administrative expenses and raised their eps for 2007 by $0.10. It appears IHOP has discovered the recipe for Zero stock growth.

Tune in next Saturday for the Companies of Pulp Fiction Part III

Article written by: Eric Cheshier
Article posted on: November 4th, 2006