Eatzy's, an SLC-based upscale sandwich restaurant, has recently released financial information relating to franchise store opportunities. The estimated fixed acquisition cost of the franchise would be $300,000.

A new franchise store is estimated to sell 150,000 products (units) per year. The annual revenue and expense estimates for a new franchise store, in addition to the one-time acquisition cost, would be:

Sales	$1,500,000
Product Discounts (variable in proportion to Sales)	$60,000
Ingredients (variable in proportion to Sales)	$375,000
Crew Labor (variable in proportion to Sales)	$345,000
Management and Other Store Overhead Costs (fixed)	$195,000
Selling, General, and Administrative Costs (fixed)	$255,000

Eatzy's also charges a franchise royalty fee (which represents a cost in addition to the costs discussed above). The fee is 5% of sales over and above the breakeven sales (breakeven sales are the sales at the break-even point).

A typical Eatzy's store has 55 employees on average and about 3,700 square feet of floor space. In the most recent SLC Chronicle readers' poll, Eatzy's was named by loyal customers as "Best Lunch Hour Spot" for its swift service and good group accommodations, and "Best Restaurant for Kids" for its nutritious food.

A potential franchisee, Neo Inc., manufactures supply packages used for integrating consumer home theater, audio, computer, and security systems. The company wants to diversify its business and is considering, as the first step in a larger plan, the acquisition of an Eatzy's franchise store. Neo is a publicly-traded firm and is sensitive to signaling profitable operations to its shareholders. Neo currently has an ROI of 10% and a cost of capital of 13%.

You should make the following assumptions, where applicable, in preparing any quantitative analyses:

• The franchise acquisition cost should be depreciated on a straight-line basis over ten years.
• Income taxes should be ignored.

You should justify clearly any further assumptions that you believe you need to make to answer the following questions.

Q3. Should Neo invest in the Eatzy's franchise considering the residual income and the return on investment of an Eatzy's franchise store? Explain your answer.