Have We Finally Reached Restaurant Saturation?

I have been an avid long-term investor in the restaurant space for nearly two decades. I think my first food investment was Panera Bread Company (PNRA), which I was very familiar with due to my undergraduate years in St. Louis. St. Louis Bread Co was acquired by Au Bon Pain in 1993 and about five years later they decided to divest all of their other restaurant concepts in order to focus on rebranding the local favorite "Bread Co" into a dominant national chain called Panera. To this day the company's St. Louis locations retain the original name.

So why do I favor solid investment stories in this sector? Here are some of the most important reasons:

1. The business model is easy to understand and analyze.

2. The secular trend of less cooking at home and more dining out (or carry-out) is well established

3. It is very easy for investors to research how the units operate and sample the product

4. Smaller chains have a large runway for growth if they decide to expand from regional to national players

5. Private equity type transactions are common in the industry, which gives investors comparable terms to use for valuation

In recent years, however, the space has gotten very crowded. Many companies have gone public and in order to attract growth investors have promised impressive annual unit growth (10%+ per year in many cases). And there are a slew of smaller, private companies that have major growth plans. Consider two examples that I have encountered in recent years in the Pacific Northwest; MOD Pizza and Little Big Burger.

MOD was founded here in Seattle in 2008 and by 2014 had over 30 locations. After opening up the chain to franchisees, growth accelerated and there are more than 150 units today.

Little Big Burger was founded in Portland in 2010 and after only five years and 10 locations was sold to a largest restaurant operator for $6 million. The company now has plans to open at least 10 units in the Seattle area. Just what we need... another burger place!

We are seeing this all across the country. Rapid expansion of fast casual restaurants in the sandwich, pizza, burger, taco, and burrito spaces, among others. And it's not just the larger players, but smaller concepts too that seem to yearn to play with the big boys. And so now we are facing what appears to be a restaurant buildout unlike anything we have ever seen. But with a population growing at less than 1% annually, and income growth relatively muted, how on earth can we support all of these places? It should certainly be a concern for investors.

And we have seen Wall Street adjust their willingness to assign premium values to publicly traded restaurant stocks. Fast growing concepts used to trade for 10-15x EV/EBITDA on the public markets, versus about 8x for more well known, mature brands (a crummy brand would fetch just 6x). We seem to now have a situation where most stocks in the industry are shifting down to that 8x number. The market is basically saying "we have too many units already, so either you won't open at the rate you are planning, or if you do your profits per unit will go down." Higher minimum wages across the country don't help either.

So what are investors to do? I don't think the restaurant space is "uninvestable" by any means, but we need to be more selective about the chains we allocate capital to, and also more strict in our valuation criteria. For instance, I am an investor in Kona Grill (KONA). The full service, sit-down chain will end 2016 with 45 locations across the country. For the third year in a row they are growing their unit base by 20%, which has traditionally afforded it a premium valuation. But recently sentiment has shifted. Below is a 2-year chart for KONA shares:

Fortunately, KONA has a lot of good things going for it. First, the CEO is the largest shareholder. Second, their concept is relatively unique and their units are doing well. Third, they are small enough to grow quickly if they want to (the company recently conducted a third party analysis which found a market opportunity of nearly 300 units in the U.S. alone, though give the content of this post, perhaps that number should be taken with a grain of salt).

As a result, management has publicly indicated that since Wall Street is no longer rewarding 20% annual unit growth, they are going to scale back their expansion plans. Since the CEO owns so much stock, he will likely turn his capital allocation attention to share repurchases. While growth-focused investors likely soured on the stock upon hearing this news (and sold, contributing to recent price declines), I actually applaud the move. With the stock trading at roughly 70% of projected 2016 revenue, retiring existing shares is an excellent use of capital. Coupled with unit growth of, say, 5%, shareholder value creation should follow.

And that is an important point. Since valuations have come down across the board for public restaurant stocks, future gains will be predicated on not only existing unit performance but also on capital allocation. Those companies that opt for share repurchases when their stocks are cheap (and debt repayment if they are not) and tweak their expansion plans based on competitive conditions (as opposed to the rigid plans they have laid out to investors in the past) are likely to be much better performers.

All in all, a lot is changing in the sector, both on the ground and in the financial markets. Recent months have not been kind to stock prices as valuations have dropped considerably, but there definitely attractive investment opportunities if you find proven concepts with management teams that are nimble and change course if conditions warrant. Count KONA as one of those that I believe fits that mold, despite poor recent stock action.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of KONA at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

An Inside Look at the New Whole Foods Market Concept: 365 By Whole Foods

As more and more people have adopted a healthier diet, natural and organic specialty grocery stores like Whole Foods Market (WFM) are finding that competition is catching on to the trend. What was once labeled a small, hippie niche of the food market is now going mainstream. Products from companies like Annie's, once able to set stores like Whole Foods apart, can now be found almost anywhere. As a result, WFM is finding that it can retain its loyal customer base that is willing to pay a little more for higher quality ingredient standards, locally sourced products, and a wonderful in-store experience, but it is getting harder to find new customers. Many people are perfectly happy with their traditional stores and not very eager to pay any more than they have to for groceries. The result is that WFM remains a profit-generating machine, but sales per store have plateaued. The stock has also reversed course, currently trading for $28 per share, down about 50% over the last 18 months.

The company continues to open new flagship stores across the country, as there continues to be a significant amount of demand for the original concept. But in order to try and expand their reach across even more customer types, WFM has created the "365 By Whole Foods" store to grow alongside the core store brand. The country's third "365" store recently opened in Bellevue, WA, not too far from my home in Seattle and I decided to go check it out. The company has said the goal was a smaller store with fewer SKUs, focusing on cheaper items (lots of generic store branded items) and lots of automation in order to keep development and operating costs low (which further allows them to be more aggressive on price). Here are some photos of what I found:

This location actually an anchor store in Bellevue Square mall, occupying what used to be a JC Penney. During mall hours, you can access the store directly via escalator.

Modern design interior but not a lot of fancy fixtures. Probably costs a lot less to build out than a flagship WFM store.

Rather than run their own in-store restaurant, 365 locations will partner with local chefs to bring in fast casual dining options.

Same goes for the coffee counter... outsourced to a local Seattle company.

With the goal of lowering costs, digital signage was very prevalent, including all of the pricing labels. You need less staff if you don't need humans updating prices all the time.

Automation is a trend. Here is a do-it-yourself tea kiosk.

Weigh your own produce. Saves time at checkout and you don't get any surprises on cost.

Whole Foods is known for their prepared foods and it is a huge money-maker for them (more than 10% of sales). Again, rather than not knowing how much your container will cost (priced by weight at regular WFM stores), now there is flat rate pricing.

WFM will sell some fast casual meals itself. Order and pay at the kiosk and it is sent to the kitchen for preparation.

I picked up my tacos at the back of the store when they were ready (computer monitors show your order's progress).

Craft beer is as hot in the Pacific Northwest as anywhere. No shortage of local brews to choose form.

Interesting idea here; digital signage promoting the products on the aisles of the end caps. WFM makes money on advertising as well as actual sales. Smart.

Overall, I was very impressed with the 365 store. Will it cannibalize regular WFM stores? Probably some, if they are close by. Will some people be attracted to the prices which skew to the lower end and are competitive with places like Target or Safeway? I think so. Will WFM see a strong return on investment on this store format? I certainly think so. The big question is how many stores like this the market can support and what others do in response. I am not sure anyone can pinpoint those answers at this point, but good for them for trying to address a clear hole in their store offering.

In the meantime, WFM stock is extremely attractive at $28 per share, in my view. At 7x EV/EBITDA and a history of opening stores that trounce the competition in terms of sales per square foot and profitability, I suspect WFM's future remains bright and that the business will continue to be a cash cow. The stock price today does not really reflect such a viewpoint, hence my optimism.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of WFM at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.

Ackman Investment in Chipotle At 3x Sales Is Far From A Bargain

I have written previously about how I do not find shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) very compelling in the 400's and recently we learned that Pershing Square's Bill Ackman has taken a near 10% stake in the company. This move seems odd to me for a couple of reasons. First, the restaurant business is pretty straightforward, so it is unlikely Ackman engaging with CMG's board is going to result in a dramatic strategic shift or business model pivot. I guess they could start franchising units, but that's hardly a bombshell idea.

Second, and even more importantly from an investing standpoint, is the price Ackman is paying for a restaurant chain. At roughly 3 times this year's projected sales of $4 billion, investors in CMG at current prices are not getting a very good deal. Before the company's health-related issues, CMG was earnings a very impressive 21% EBITDA margin. The owned unit restaurant industry (as opposed to franchising-based) typically fetch about 8 times EBITDA in the public markets. Some quick math tells us CMG should trade around 1.7 times annual revenue. And that is before operating expenses increase due to new food safety procedures that CMG has now implemented. As a result, it is quite possible that the "new normal" for CMG is an EBITDA margin of less than 20%.

Many fans of Chipotle would likely argue that the company should trade at a premium valuation to the industry due to below-average build-out costs, above-average unit economics, and a reasonably loyal customer base. Okay, fine. Let's give CMG a 50% premium and say it is worth 12 times EBITDA instead of 8 times (too high in my mind, but at least the case can be made). Even at the company's old margin levels, investors would value CMG stock at 2.5 times annual sales, or about 15% below current levels.

It is really hard to see how Ackman sees this investment playing out, or how he thinks he can really move the needle by speaking with management. Customers are going to have to come back in droves to justify CMG shares trading at $500 or $600 per share. I love their food, but color me skeptical.

Full Disclosure: No position in CMG at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Chipotle Identifies The Next Big Thing in Fast Casual Food: Burgers, Fries, & Shakes?

Is there a bubble in fast casual restaurants in the United States? More specifically, is the burger chain craze starting to look a little frothy? Chipotle (CMG) announced this week that it is launching Tasty Made in Ohio, a new chain focused on burgers, fries, and shakes. They must see burgers as being an underpenetrated market that they can exploit with their simplified, customizable fast casual concept (he writes sarcastically). In reality, the burger space is getting very crowded, very quickly. For those chains with grand expansion plans I would be careful. For the commercial real estate developers who continue to build higher end, mixed use buildings with the expectation that they can quickly secure leases with fast casual chains due to their ever-growing desire to blanket the country, I would be careful. I don't know when we will reach oversaturation in the fast food/fast casual restaurant segment, but we will. The population is simply not growing fast enough (less than 1% per year) to support high sales volumes and profit margins at all of these locations.

This move by Chipotle is a bit odd considering the competition. In contrast, the company's ShopHouse Kitchen Asian concept has far less competition (Noodles & Company and that's about it in terms of national chains) and only 15 locations nationwide. Given that Chipotle has over 2,000 U.S. burrito restaurants, coupled with the insane growth in the burger space right now, it is bizarre that they feel this is the ideal time to launch the Tasty Made brand. Not to mention that the company also has a pizza concept called Pizzeria Locale with less than 10 locations open or under construction.

Ironically, Chipotle's relentless focus on simplicity in its restaurant operations does not seem to be spilling over to the company's growth plans at the corporate level. With average unit volumes down 20% at the namesake brand, the company has a lot of work to do. The competition is intense already and adding new concepts in crowded sectors of the market seems like a questionable decision at this point in time. The high valuation on the stock right now is already a red flag, but now investors might start to question management's game plan.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. So what do you think? Is fast casual growing too fast? Are we approaching "peak burger?"

Full Disclosure: No position in CMG at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Consumer Trust Far From Only Issue Hampering Recovery At Chipotle Mexican Grill

The "we can do no wrong since we already got people sick" trading patterns in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) are continuing unabated after the company reported second quarter earnings that showed a tepid traffic recovery. As you can see from the chart below, Chipotle stock has been hanging in the 400's this year despite a slower than expected return of the company's loyal customer base. It seems like the stock only treads water or rises even as the business is clearly struggling. Today is no exception, with shares jumping to 5% to $440 each despite a 23.6% decline in same store sales for the second quarter.

Despite the headwinds facing the company, investors continue to assign the stock a premium earnings multiple. The stock currently trades for roughly 3 times peak sales ($4.5 billion of revenue was booked in 2015), 30 times peak earnings ($15 per share in 2015) and over 13 times peak EBITDA (2015 EBITDA was ~$925M). Essentially, investors are willing to pretend that nothing has happened and recouping all of the sales and profit losses is a foregone conclusion.

I would not be so quick to discount Chipotle's challenges. There are factors that could easily result in the company never reaching its former level of annual sales per unit ($2.5 million). First, consider that CMG continues to open new units at an aggressive pace (about 225 new locations per year). With more than 2,100 locations nationwide, continuing to open a new one every 39 hours will surely result in store cannibalization. In fact, during the second quarter same-store sales improved versus the first quarter (-23.6% vs -29.7%) but sales per unit actually declined further ($2.07 million vs $2.23 million). As more and more locations are opened, it will be harder for CMG to get that metric back up to $2.5 million.

Second, the sheer volume of new fast casual restaurants being opened (both new concepts as well as the expansion of existing ones) means that Chipotle faces more competition than it ever has. Customers who stopped eating there during the safety scare may have simply found other nearby options that they enjoy just as much. Humans are creatures of habit and if you give them a reason to break their habits (by getting people sick), it is entirely possible that their dining frequency will never return to the previous level, even after they feel safe to eat Chipotle's food again.

All of this could spell trouble for Chipotle investors. The company's simple business model and astounding unit economics allowed it to generate store-level profit margins of 27%, an nearly unheard-of level in the industry. The stock's sky-high multiple reflected an expectation that CMG could see its units average $2.5 million of sales annually along with 27% margins ($675,000 of store-level profit per year). If they can not get back to those levels in 2017 or 2018, investors could very well be overpaying for the stock today. For comparison, right now store-level margins are running at 15.5% due largely to expense deleveraging from lower sales.

So what happens if the "new normal" for Chipotle is $2.25 million of annual sales per store and 20% store margins? Well, the math comes out to per-unit profit of $450,000 per year, or a decline of 33% from last year. That would mean that CMG would need 3,000 locations to get back to its prior peak level of profitability. At the current rate of new store openings, they would reach that size sometime in mid-2020. Paying three times revenue for a restaurant stock is high enough already, but without regaining their former financial glory investors might very well be left with a bad taste in their mouths.

Full Disclosure: No position in CMG at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Despite Strong Fundamentals, Restaurant Stocks Struggle To Deliver

There is a long list of things to like about the restaurant sector from an investment perspective. Secular trends such as dual-income households have led many families away from frequent home-cooked meals around the dinner table. The busier we are, the more likely we will rely on restaurants of all shapes and sizes. Add in low gas prices and one would think restaurant stocks would be among the stock market's best performing groups. And yet it has been quite the opposite lately.

I have always liked to invest in the sector, not only for the reasons above but also because it is relatively easy to understand and analyze. Chains often try to differentiate themselves, but the general recipe is the same for most. Suffice it to say I am finding so many bargains in the sector lately it is difficult to choose which ones should make the cut in a portfolio. Valuations are about as low as I have seen them since I began investing more than 20 years ago.

So why are these stocks having so much trouble with both secular and cyclical tailwinds? I think a big issue has been a very strong market appetite for well-known restaurant IPOs. Consider that there are more than 50 publicly traded restaurant stocks in the United States, and more than 20 of them have IPO'd since 2010. Just as these companies are having to compete for customers, they are also competing for investors' capital. Given that restaurants are a small subset of the consumer sector, there is a finite amount of investment dollars being allocated to the group. With more and more options boarding the public market train, many are simply being discarded.

And despite low gas prices and a propensity to eat out or carry out meals, there are operational challenges all of these chains are facing. The biggest in my view is simply the sheer number of new locations being opened by restaurant chains generally. The number of food options these days can often be overwhelming. At some point it is reasonable to assume the U.S. is going to be facing an overbuilt restaurant sector, at which point many will start to see material declines foot traffic, sales, and profits.

That said, I firmly believe that there are many attractive investment opportunities within the restaurant space. Within the small cap arena there are many companies that offer a compelling business model and meager valuation. A great example is Kona Grill (KONA), a sit-down concept that will deliver over 20% unit growth in 2016 and end the year with 45 locations across the country. The company averages $4.5 million in annual unit revenue and 17-18% unit level profit margins, with a build-out cost of $3 million per location.

At the current $11 share price, which is down a stunning 50% from its 52-week high, the stock trades at a total market value ($127 million) below its $135 million replacement cost (note: replacement cost is how much money it would take to replicate the company's assets if you started from scratch today). Throw in a long runway of future expansion potential and you have a very attractive long-term investment that Wall Street is completely ignoring. And there are many other bargains out there to be found if you look closely.

Kona Grill (KONA) - 2-Year Chart

Full Disclosure: Long shares of Kona Grill at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Even With New E. Coli Cases, Chipotle Shares Not Yet Cheap

Shares of casual dining chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) have been hammered since reports of E. coli outbreaks across the country have caused a material decrease in customer traffic during the fourth quarter (double-digit same store sales declines have been confirmed by the company). After peaking at more than $750 in August, the stock now fetches a little more than $500 per share.

This is definitely the kind of short-term sell-off I pay close attention to as a long-term, contrarian investor. History tells us that restaurants dealing with outbreaks like this see a drop in customer visits but eventually recover. Within a year or two, after the headline news has abated and the health issues rectified, people revert to their previous dining habits. With a perennially high valuation stock like Chipotle, a negative event like this can often be one of the only ways investors can get a bargain for their portfolio. So am I loading up on the shares at the current ~$520 price?

Not yet. Simply put, I don't find the price extremely compelling, even after a 30% decline. Before the E. coli cases came about, Chipotle was having quite the year from a financial standpoint. Revenue was tracking at about $4.7 billion for 2015 (+15%) with operating cash flow approaching $800 million (about as high a profit margin as you will find in the industry). I estimate maintenance capital expenses for the company's existing restaurants to be quite low (less than $100 million annually), so CMG's existing units were on pace to produce free cash flow of $700 million per year before the outbreaks.

The problem for value investors like myself is that the stock's valuation has gone from insanely high ($24 billion at the peak, or about 34 times free cash flow) to a lower level today (23.5 times free cash flow) which is still fairly high. Despite CMG's growth outlook, I would have valued CMG at 20 times free cash flow before the recent drop (~$450 per share). Now that customer traffic has dropped more than 10% and will likely take at least a year to recover, I would want a discounted price to reflect the time it will take for the company to fix the problem once and for all and see visitors return to their normal habits. A 25% discount would mean a stock price in the 330's. Accordingly, I do not think I will be bottom-fishing in CMG shares anytime soon. There are just too many other restaurant chains that I think are meaningfully more attractive from a valuation perspective.

Full Disclosure: No position at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Whole Foods Market: 2015 Update

It has now been about 18 months since I began accumulating shares of Whole Foods Market (WFM) in the high 30's. Since that time the stock briefly had a huge move back into the 50's before losing steam again. Same-store sales have decelerated but my investment thesis remains unchanged; just because competitors are copying WFM's model and seeing success does not mean that the company cannot continue to be the leader in the healthy food space. Investors were not pleased with WFM's quarterly earnings report last night, but the stock is finding some support around $30 and might be forming a bottom.

So how bad are things really? Well, if you only look at the stock you might conclude the company is all but dead. For instance, traditional supermarket chain Kroger (KR) now fetches a higher relative valuation (cash flow multiple) than WFM, despite the fact that they have more than 2,600 stores nationwide compared with 431 for Whole Foods. Yes, investors think Kroger will deliver better financial results going forward. I don't suggest taking that bet.

The financial media has concluded that WFM's troubles are due to people shunning their stores for the likes of Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and smaller, regional WFM copycats since all of those places now sell organic food. While this may be true to some extent (especially with local WFM wannabe stores --- not many Whole Foods shoppers frequent their neighborhood Wal-Mart), there are other explanations that are ignored because they are not as obvious and do not make for interesting headlines.

A big one is the fact that Whole Foods is cannibalizing itself by continuing to open new stores at a rapid pace (32 in the just-completed fiscal year). In Seattle, where I live, there are now 7 Whole Foods stores, with several more in development. Over the last 6 years WFM has increased their store count by 50%. As soon as a new store opens that is 10 minutes away, people are going to stop traveling to the one that is 20 or 30 minutes away.

Interestingly, the company provides information about its store performance based on the age of the store. If the media was 100% right and people were simply switching from Whole Foods to Target or Kroger, sales at all WFM stores would suffer equally. But look at the data for fiscal year 2015:

Store Age       SSS

<5 years         +7.6%

5-11 years       +1.5%

>11 years        +1.1%

ALL                 +2.5%

The older the store, the worse the sales growth. This makes sense, right? If there has been a store in your neighborhood for a decade, chances are you will already be shopping there if you are at all interested in doing so. It's very hard to boost sales at older stores, especially considering that Whole Foods stores already sell far more food per square foot of space than any other grocer.

And when they open new stores those stores do well for many years, at the expense of the older stores. Existing WFM shoppers will migrate to the closer location (hurting older store sales) and shoppers that had no interest in driving longer distances just to shop there might check it out now that it is more convenient to do so.

Notice that none of this has anything to do with the fact that Safeway now sells Annie's fruit snacks.

Accordingly, the investment thesis for WFM must incorporate the fact that growing same store sales for the company's existing base of 431 stores is going to be very hard. In fact, I am assuming that they cannot post sales gains above inflation, which implies flat traffic growth for all stores after they have been open for a few years. So why invest?

First of all, the company has 431 stores vs over 2,600 for Kroger, so it is entirely plausible that Whole Foods ultimately reaches their 1,200 store goal in the U.S. And secondly, the company's stores are massively profitable even if sales do not grow. For all of the heat the company has gotten lately, fiscal 2015 same store sales actually grew 2.5% and operating cash flow totaled more than $1.1 billion. That's more than $2.6 million of cash flow per store. For comparison, Kroger does about $1.6 million per store, and their stores are bigger.

At $30 per share, Whole Foods stock trades at less than 8 times EBITDA and less than 14 times existing store free cash flow, both below their less impressive competitors. Such a price would only be justified if the company had minimal growth ahead of it.

Lastly, I cannot conclude without commenting on some of the odd analyst questions from last night's quarterly conference call. More specifically, the investment community is criticizing the company's decision to borrow money (they have never had any debt before) to buy back stock aggressively over the next few quarters.

Normally, companies are mocked for buying back stock as it hits all-time highs and then halting the purchases when things turn sour. Despite the fact that WFM did not start buying back any stock until last year (after it dropped dramatically) and now is accelerating those purchases (as it is hitting levels not seen since 2011), everyone just seems to want to pile on. Here is the first question from the conference call:

"Thanks for taking my question. So my one question has to do with share buybacks. I just wanted to understand the rationale for taking on debt and buying back shares right now maybe instead of waiting until maybe comp trends stabilized. So if you could maybe help us with your thought process."

I was shocked at this question. Whole Foods has no debt, more than a half a billion of cash in the bank and stores that generate over $1 billion of cash flow per year, so they are in pristine financial shape. The stock is hitting 4-year lows and trades at a discount to traditional supermarkets despite being far better in terms of sales and profits. And the analyst wants them to wait until business gets better before buying back stock?

It should be obvious why they are doing this. Because they know if they can improve the business at all going forward the stock is going to go up a lot. Buy low, sell high, right? In fact, if they took Oppenheimer's advice and waited until the stock was $50 before doing any repurchases, they would probably get mocked for doing so. This just tells me how negative the sentiment is for Whole Foods Market right now.

I may have been early last year with the stock in the $37 area, but since I invest with a five year horizon I am happy to average down and wait for the water to warm up. Right now the company is getting absolutely no credit for what they have built, how successful it continues to be even today, or any future growth opportunities that exist. It is the epitomy of a contrarian, long-term investment.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of WFM at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.

As Expected, Anheuser-Busch InBev Makes A Big Move Targeting SABMiller

The timing of my last post in June about the odds of Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) making a big splash in the M&A market was pretty good it turns out. BUD has made a formal approach to SABMiller and I would peg the odds of a deal at no less than 75%, conservatively. While BUD's slow pace was baffling to me, in hindsight it appears maybe they were waiting for a global stock market correction to help them offer a big premium. Opening with an offer of $65 per share when SAB stock was at $60 would look a bit insulting. With the stock at $47 before today's announcement, it would get the two sides talking for sure.

Even after major anti-trust concessions such as the sale of SAB's 50% stake in the Miller Coors joint venture, BUD investors would be material winners if the two beer giants combine. The InBev playbook has always been about lean operational excellence and BUD's EBITDA margins are well ahead of SAB's (the gap is more than 10 percentage points, even after subtracting the U.S. operations). After a few years of deal integration the SAB business would likely have similar margins to legacy BUD, which would mean EBITDA accretion of a couple billion dollars. Apply a 13 multiple to that and you get about 15% accretion for BUD shareholders. My fair value estimate for BUD pre-deal is in the high 130's, which would likely get pushed over $150 after a successful SAB integration.

We could be looking at 2018-2019 as far as a timeline is concerned for such an integration, but given the shaky global economy right now, the risk-reward for BUD investors was very solid before today's announcement and the numbers would only improve if a deal gets done. As a result, I am not a seller of BUD here and would not be opposed to opportunistic buying depending on how negotiations go. I'll post an update digging into the deal specifics if one is agreed to over the next couple of months.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of BUD at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Noodles and Company Update: I'm Turning Bullish

My first post about casual dining chain Noodles and Company (NDLS) was on the company's IPO day in June 2013. Fast casual restaurants were very hot and NDLS took advantage of that with a very well-timed initial public offering at $18 per share. That first day the stock doubled and I tried to caution people that the valuation made little sense, despite the company's growth prospects (link: Noodles and Company IPO Doubles in Price, Already Overvalued After One Day).

The stock continued to soar for a little while, peaking at $51.97 a month after the IPO, but it has been an ugly downhill slide ever since. In August 2014 I wrote a follow-up post as the stock dipped below $20, highlighting that I thought it was still too high, but situations like it are worth monitoring (link: Noodles and Company Falls Back to Earth, Still Not A Bargain). The reason is because many of these companies are profitable and growing and therefore are not bad investments, provided the price is right.

In the case of NDLS, the stock hit a new low of $11.37 on Friday and can be had today for $12 and change. That is down 75% from its high and nearly 1/3 below the original IPO price of $18 per share. So is it finally a bargain? I think so. At current prices the company trades at less than 1 times annual revenue. Add in solid cash flow generation from existing units and a lot of room to grow the restaurant base over time (unit growth is currently above 10% annually) and I think the stock is quite undervalued. Earnings per share are often depressed on an accounting basis when companies are growing quickly as capital expenditures for building new units flow through the income statement, so cash flow is really the most crucial metric for NDLS. On that basis the numbers look very good.

I estimate that the company's existing unit base alone is worth approximately $19 per share, so it trades at quite a discount right now in my view. And that does not even include a $35 million stock repurchase plan that the company has authorized and indicated they plan on completing by year-end. It may have taken more than two years since the IPO, but paying attention to the company could very well pay off for those who have been patient.

Full Disclosure: Long NDLS at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time