NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Panera Bread Co. are rising by 10.69% to $181.44 on heavy volume in mid-morning trading on Thursday, after the restaurant chain announced on Wednesday its plan to increase the company's current share repurchase program and its intent to sell and refranchise 73 cafes. Panera Bread is expecting to purchase $500 million of shares within the next 12 months. In June, the company announced a three-year share buyback program of up to $600 million. The company said it is making "significant progress" on its previously announced refranchise plan that included between 50 and 150 cafes in 2015. As of Wednesday, Panera Bread said it has entered into letters of intent to sell and refranchise 73 cafes and is on track to meet its 2015 refranchising goal. "Recently, Panera has been implementing a series of structural enhancements to improve our competitive position and expand growth opportunities. Panera is focused on building competitive advantage by reducing customer friction in its cafes through its Panera 2.0 initiative, which includes digital access and improved operational processes, and driving customer desire through innovation in food, marketing and store design," company CEO Ron Shaich said in a statement. "Panera has also been focused on driving continued traditional cafe expansion, while working to enhance capabilities necessary to generate expanded growth in several large adjacent businesses, including large-order delivery (catering), small-order delivery and consumer packaged goods. The increase to our share repurchase program reflects our confidence in the business and our ability to continue driving shareholder value in the medium- and long-term," Shaich added. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates PANERA BREAD CO as a Buy with a ratings score of B. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate PANERA BREAD CO (PNRA) a BUY. This is driven by several positive factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, reasonable valuation levels, good cash flow from operations and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat weak growth in earnings per share." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: PNRA's revenue growth has slightly outpaced the industry average of 8.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 1.6%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share. Net operating cash flow has slightly increased to $140.44 million or 2.58% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, PANERA BREAD CO has also modestly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 0.13%. PNRA's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.14 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. Although the company had a strong debt-to-equity ratio, its quick ratio of 0.86 is somewhat weak and could be cause for future problems. The change in net income from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure industry average. The net income has decreased by 10.6% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, dropping from $54.25 million to $48.49 million. You can view the full analysis from the report here: PNRA Ratings Report Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 25 Stocks for 2015
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