Chipotle -- the McDonald's of 2007

Posted Feb 16th 2007 7:45AM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Earnings Reports, McDonald's (MCD), Chipotle Mexican Grill'A' (CMG)

What Ray Kroc was to hamburgers, Steve Ells is to Mexican food. Ells, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc's (NYSE: CMG) founder, has created a stock to buy and put away. This company is too early in its growth phase to be ignored. There is a long way to go with this stock.

Highlights for full year 2006 as compared to full year 2005 include:

Revenue increased 31.1% to $822.9 million
Comparable restaurant sales increased 13.7%, compared to 10.2% in 2005
Restaurant level operating margins increased 240 basis points to 20.9%
Income from operations approximately doubled to $62.0 million
Diluted earnings per share were $1.28, compared to $0.66 in 2005

There could be some negatives. Chipotle needs to invest heavily to get employees. Growing rapidly in a tight labor environment is extremely difficult. It will also have to deal with higher food costs and higher costs to open up new stores as it enters more expensive markets.

Tags: chipotle, cmg, earnings, fast food, FastFood, mcd, mcdonald's, mexican

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-16-2007 @ 7:50PM

vern goyette said...

I just purchased stock in cmg. I believe in this one. san joaquin valley is ripe for these stores. we all love mexican food and this is the bread basket of the world. Many hard working latinos live and work here.who doesn't like mexican food?????