Franchise Labor

In today's global environment, with the increasing emphasis on knowledge-based resources and information dissemination through high-tech channels, key employees play a crucial role in a company's profitability. Such key employees can represent an important component of a company's overall business franchise. At the same time, competitive compensation policies have begun to treat (explicitly and/or implicitly) these “franchise labor” employees as a special class of super-shareholders. The claims on profits put forward by this cadre of franchise labor can have a major impact on firm valuation. In today's global environment, with the increasing emphasis on knowledge-based resources and information dissemination through high-tech channels, a cadre of key technical and managerial employees can play a crucial role in determining a company's profitability. This highly skilled human capital thus represents an important component of the company's business franchise, and the term “franchise labor” is an apt description of this group.A large body of literature exists on the apportionment of current earnings between labor and capital, but relatively little attention has been given at the micro level to the effect of franchise labor claims on incremental future profits from new initiatives.As might be expected, the nature of the rewards for franchise labor have undergone a material evolution in recent years. Competitive compensation policies—bonuses, stock, stock options, and so on—have bestowed a kind of super-shareholder status on franchise laborers. This status often allows them, individually and as a class, to participate in the current and future earnings of the company on a priority basis ahead of traditional investors.These franchise labor claims can have a critical impact on a company's valuation. For high-growth companies with high P/Es—the companies most likely to depend on high-performance employees—claims on gross profits from future growth can have a significant valuation effect, especially when the claims have de facto preferential status relative to other stakeholders. For example, for a company with a P/E of 25, a 10 percent claim on future earnings can erode the company's present value by more than 20 percent.Ordinary shareholders should not resent the reasonable claims of franchise labor. The critical employees who are essential to a company's success deserve to be rewarded accordingly. The challenge for the company is to strike the right balance between compensating these individuals in a manner that is consistent with their true contributions and maintaining shareholder value.For the analyst, no matter how the claims arise (and whether they are considered “fair” or not), franchise labor claims must be taken seriously and properly incorporated in the valuation process.