Fast food chain El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ: LOCO) will be reporting earnings this Thursday after market close. Here’s what to look for.
El Pollo Loco beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 0.6% last quarter, reporting revenues of $119.2 million, up 2.6% year on year. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with a decent beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates but a slight miss of analysts’ same-store sales estimates.
Is El Pollo Loco a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting El Pollo Loco’s revenue to grow 2.4% year on year to $125.1 million, improving from its flat revenue in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.24 per share.
The majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. El Pollo Loco has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates three times over the last two years.
Looking at El Pollo Loco’s peers in the restaurants segment, some have already reported their Q2 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Domino's delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 4.3%, meeting analysts’ expectations, and Starbucks reported revenues up 3.8%, topping estimates by 1.7%. Domino's traded up 3% following the results.
Read our full analysis of Domino’s results here and Starbucks’s results here.
Investors in the restaurants segment have had fairly steady hands going into earnings, with share prices down 1.2% on average over the last month. El Pollo Loco is down 1.8% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $14 (compared to the current share price of $10.81).
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