DCG Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 Curious of people's thoughts on NDLS. I have a hard time valuing the company, but I like eating there, and think it's a real-scalable concept where they have a lot of room to grow. At this point, I'm looking at the market cap more than the 399 P/E. The stock quickly more than doubled from their IPO, but has come back down a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 All these fast casual chains have lots of potential but I can't discern which will be the next Chipotle...they are priced so richly.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 I've heard good things about their food and look forward to eating at one of their locations when I am traveling in a couple of weeks. They certainly seem to be an up & coming company. HOWEVER, their market cap is about $1.3B. By any valuation metric they are incredibly expensive. The Price/Sales ratio is about 4. The restaurant business is a low margin business. Most publicly traded restaurants are lucky to make 4% net on their sales. Some make a LOT less. Noodles is currently making LESS than 1%. I would concede that Noodles will probably grow their sales by opening more locations. I also will admit that Noodles will probably also increase their earnings in the near future. The question is where will it go to? Will they be able to double their sales? Triple their sales? Even more? How long will it take? How high will their net margin go? 1%, 2%, 4%, maybe higher? So assume they double their sales in the next 3 years...That gives them sales of about $650MM. Then they radically increase margin to 3% net on sales. That would give them NET earnings of about $20MM. That would equate to earnings of $.70/share. So the stock is maybe trading for 60X earnings 3 years from now? I would have to say that if they can get DOUBLE the sales, and margins up to 3%, that is pretty darn good! I would think that is just too much risk for my tastes, and I love restaurants. There are some restaurants that are growing earnings at 10%+ a year that are trading for mid single digit P/E's. Meritage Hospitality (MHGU), for example. That is the type of restaurant that I'm looking at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsAValueTrap Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 MTY Food Group looks a little cheaper with similar/higher growth?? http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/mty-mty-food-group/msg138213/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palantir Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 CHUY seems to be growing faster....in case you're looking broadly in this space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsAValueTrap Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 CHUY's D&A looks suspiciously low. I haven't research them at all, so I don't know if they are inappropriately capitalizing expenses to inflate the books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsAValueTrap Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Wow, it costs 30.875% to borrow this stock to short it. Maybe some short sellers out there think that Noodles is engaging in Worldcom-style accounting (i.e. improperly capitalize expenses to inflate the books). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Looks like Noodles has let the street down. Stock is down 10% in after hours trading. Looks like they are guiding lower for next year too. Awfully risky these momentum stocks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted September 15, 2014 Author Share Posted September 15, 2014 This has dropped by over 50% from the IPO, and is starting to look more interesting to me. They've had a hard time meeting earnings estimates. I like their food/restaurants though, and think they (currently) own the niche they are (fast casual pasta/noodles) in in most of their markets. Everyone seems to hate the stock at the moment and has lowered their expectations, which can be a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palantir Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Good bump, still doesn't look that cheap though, I have the EY coming around 2%....for such a difficult industry makes me hesitant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berkshire101 Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Does the stock look cheap now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Does the stock look cheap now? Not to be argumentative....but by what metrics does this stock look cheap at $12.50/share? It has a 55 P/E, 3x book, return on equity of 5%....I am hard pressed to find anything appealing about this stock... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Hey all: Anybody still following this stock? It fell off my radar scope until today. I see they are going to close 16 under performing locations. Stock went up on Friday, just over $11/share. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 I struggle with this, because as I consumer, I really like eating at their restaurants. They're probably my favorite fast-casual chain out there. There is still a ton of room for them to grow by adding new locations. On the other hand, they're having a hard time growing same-store sales. This will likely discourage potential franchisees. They also require franchisees to open 15-20 restaurants within 5-7 years, which seems like it could cut down on the amount of franchisees as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted January 18, 2017 Author Share Posted January 18, 2017 Stock is currently at $4.30. I like eating there quite a bit, but don't have a great understanding on why they haven't figured out how to become profitable. Anyone still follow this company? It seems like there is still a ton of room to expand, but they don't seem very aggressive with opening new locations. Their revenue is pretty low, considering the amount of locations they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG2008 Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 What is Noodle's 4 wall economics? I've learned the hard way that SSS in the restaurant business is oftentimes the most important metric. Restaurant concepts work great when you have a small footprint and SSS is on a multi-year uptrend. Think Chipotle before that big food crisis. You open more restaurants and SSS goes up. When SSS goes up, your gross profit largely flows down to the bottom line. When SSS is on a down trend, it's very scary. There's inherently a ton of fixed cost in restaurants in the rent, heating and cooling, lighting, garbage pickup, permits, etc. Small drops or increases dramatically magnifies your cashflow. I would pay a lot of attention to NDLS balance sheet at this point. Joel Greenblatt taught a class at Columbia where his sister talked about retail trends (mostly clothing) that I think can be applied to restaurants. You have to think long term trends about the concept. Is it impaired? Is it on a steady decline etc? Did they just get a season wrong and will be back next year? She makes it sound easier than it really is. I often find that your like/dislike of a restaurant/retail concept makes no difference. My wife and I like (not love) Noodles. It's one of our most visited stores at the mall. The foods seems like a higher quality/made from scratch. But we only eat it at the Mall. Peter Lynch had examples where he loved a certain sandwhich concept in Boston and he bought it. But the concept never took off elsewhere in the country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thepupil Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 from a completely non-expert view 1) too many ingredients 2) good but not great, does not inspire a craving like other fast casual concepts, jack of all trades master of none (which feeds into the too many ingredients) 3) people still hate carbs 4) very competitive space it just strikes me as a marginal concept that a lot of people think is "pretty good", myself included and that translates to a somewhat low AUV of about $1mm which combinged with that looks to be a relatively complex and labor intensive menu makes it really hard to make great margins. that is my theory which is purely anecdotal and not overly analytical, but if i was looking to buy the stock, I'd try to disprove that theory. EDIT: For example, Chipotle sales per employee on bloomberg (2009 - 2015): $68K --> $76K Noodles is about flat at $43K from 2013 - 2015. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awindenberger Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 Noodles needs to stop focusing on growth and start focusing on improving SSS and margins. It does seem like the company has plans to do this, as they are cutting their new store development to only 10-15 in 2017, with most of those openings front-loaded. I'm interested in starting a position, but if the company is doing this poorly now, what happens when a recession hits? I'd love to see Biglari take a significant position here and impose some discipline, but I don't think he would consider Noodles a strong enough brand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atbed Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 It does look "cheap" on a normalized or adjusted FCF basis, but their debt makes things less exciting. I would get more interested if they cut new unit development further, paid down debt / bought back shares, and focused on figuring out how to improve sales + profitability. Once they get on more solid footing, then they can turn growth back on. Just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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