Reference no: EM132855547

Question - Ruth's Chris Steak House is a chain of restaurants that began 43 years ago as a single location in New Orleans and has grown to more than 90 restaurants. RCSH went public, with an initial public offering of stock (IPO) in August 2005. A question at the time of the IPO was how to value the company, given available information. Ruth's had sales of $192.2 million in 2004, earnings of $23.3 million, and net debt less cash of $117 million. One analyst chose to use the enterprise value of comparable companies, noting that Smith and Wollensky Restaurant Group (another chain of steak restaurants) had a ratio of enterprise value to sales of 70 percent. Another restaurant chain, Morton's, had recently gone private and, in the last year as a public company, had an enterprise ratio to sales of 80 percent.

Required - Develop an estimate of the market capitalization (market value of equity) of RCSH in August 2005 and explain your reasoning.