Darden Restaurants profit up

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Darden Restaurants Inc (DRI.N: Quote, Profile, Research), parent of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurant chains, posted a higher net profit on Tuesday, boosted by its recently acquired LongHorn Steakhouse and Capital Grille chains.

The company reported a mixed bag of sales figures. U.S. same-store sales, a key gauge of restaurant performance, rose 5.7 percent at Olive Garden but fell 2 percent and 3.3 percent at Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse, respectively.

Severe weather reduced each of those results by approximately 1 percentage point, Darden said.

Net income in the third quarter rose 18 percent to $126 million, or 88 cents per share, from $106.4 million, or 72 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding estimated integration costs and purchase accounting adjustments, earnings were 85 cents, a penny above what analysts on average were expecting, according to Reuters Estimates.

Net results included a benefit of 8 cents per share related to discontinued operations, namely a gain on the sale of its Smokey Bones Barbeque & Grill chain to an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners Inc, for about $80 million. That sale closed in January.

Total sales from continuing operations rose 25 percent to $1.81 billion, including $292.0 million from LongHorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille. Wall Street, on average, was expecting sales of $1.80 billion.

Olive Garden sales rose 11 percent to $802.8 million while sales at Red Lobster fell 1.8 percent to $671.7 million.

Darden completed its roughly $1.2 billion acquisition of RARE Hospitality International Inc, owner of LongHorn Steakhouse and Capital Grille, during the fiscal second quarter.