저자: Kevin · 외국인
요약 보기
스타벅스의 치폴레 인수 보도를 두고 두 회사 모두 성숙기라 합병 시너지는 낮다고 평가. 스타벅스는 중국 사업 실패 후 현금 부족(12개월 내 부채 상환 곤란)이라 비관적. 치폴레는 M&A 프리미엄 기대로 단기 하방 지지선(31.62달러) 형성, 인수가 46달러 가능성 언급. 스타벅스 CEO의 전용기 사용 한도 해제 등 거버넌스 우려도 제기. 영상 후반은 유료 강좌 프로모션.
다듬은 글
Well, a ridiculous idea just hit the headlines: a front- page Financial Times report said Starbucks is considering a takeover of Chipotle. This is probably one of the stupidest forms of desperation I could imagine, but I will say this: if it happens, one of these two stocks will benefit significantly very quickly.
Let's first look at the financial indicators, because let's be honest. Chipotle is far from a cheap company. Although its stock has fallen significantly since the peak of its growth phase in 2024, with the advent of Chipotle lanes, we are seeing a frenetic expansion of the business. I love Chipotle.
I think they have a great product. I think they are generally very good. But their rating dropped by about 60%, which is quite extreme. That is, a company that was worth almost a hundred billion dollars has depreciated to approximately 42 billion. Starbucks, I think, is a little desperate right now .
Starbucks is in despair, partly because their growth has stalled due to a failed Chinese experiment. During COVID, they tried to rapidly expand their presence in the Chinese market. And at first, stocks really performed well in 2021 because of the expectation that everything was opening up, China was opening up, and everything was going to be great.
And then it turned out that the Chinese were n't going to spend five dollars on a cup of coffee . So, what a surprise. Starbucks decided, "Oh, we made a mistake." We can't sell American coffee in China when the Chinese are willing to buy cheaper coffee that sounds happier, like Luckin Coffee. So now Starbucks has decided—you won't believe it—to create a divestiture group to get rid of its Chinese operations.
Now they are desperately trying to find another line of business. I'm not kidding. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the company announced an agreement to establish a joint venture with Boyu Capital to manage Starbucks retail operations in China, i.e., the “ Divergence Group.” This is in the actual SEC report .
They call it the " Exclusion Group." Everything is so bad. This is a complete failure. So I'm thinking: Okay, how much money does Starbucks have to try to buy Chipotle, and how would that affect their stock? Spoiler: they have no money. They are bankrupt . Starbucks is bankrupt. They failed experiment number one, and now they're damn poor.
I have $8.1 billion in accounts receivable, and that's including their store card obligations, okay? So, I have $8.1 billion in accounts. I do n't know what happened here, but if I look here, I can see that there's not that much cash there. I have $3.4 billion in accounts receivable and $1.3 billion in accounts receivable .
I will not consider the inventories because they will be needed to repay those liabilities. So let's consider this a mutual coverage, okay? That only gives me $4.7 billion. Even if I'm generous and add all the supplies, I still won't have enough money to pay the bills. So, for the next 12 months, Starbucks doesn't have enough money to pay its bills, and that's crazy.
Yes, they have free cash flow of about $3 billion a year, and that's what they rely on. They think, "Okay, if we add our free cash flow for next year, there'll be enough money." OK. That may be true, but it's not enough to go and buy Chipotle because you're broke. This is a problem . If you look at their income statement, total revenue fell by 1.4% year-over-year.
Their operating expenses have decreased by almost 2%, which is actually good. This means they become a little more efficient. So they are trying to stabilize. I see it. But, frankly , for a company with a 10% margin, a PEG ratio of 1.8, and a P /E of 35—this is not a good deal. This is not...this is not profitable.
For example, I could buy Broadcom for almost a third of that valuation. And get the potential of AI. Or I could buy Corning Glass at the same valuation. Corning has a PEG ratio of about 1.7. And I would get access to fiber, which I like much more than that. Good. This is Starbucks. Now, if you look at Chipotle, at least the numbers are better there.
Of course? We still have growth. Growth of 9.3%. However, total operating expenses increased by 12.7%. So Chipotle's net profit is actually falling. Both of these companies are in a very mature phase of the business cycle, where they have already grown significantly. Starbucks got slapped and failed in China, and now they have a group of assets for sale.
And Chipotle has almost exhausted its growth potential, as the market is already saturated. They are already at every step. And I guess the idea now is that if we take, you know, a mature business like Starbucks and combine it with another mature business, then somehow we get a better business. It's similar to how Burger King bought Tim Hortons .
Although Tim Hortons is fantastic. Timmies is the best coffee in the world . Uh, it's Canadian coffee, after all. Some people joke very poorly, as if it's coffee from another country. But we won't make such jokes here. So it's more important to think about what came of it . In fact, the purchase of Tim Hortons simply transferred the chain to Burger King's ownership.
As far as I know, you have n't seen a Tim Hortons inside a Burger King. Of course, you definitely haven't seen the rebuilt institutions there. I don't think we'll see lines like at Chipotle at Starbucks. I mean, maybe you'll see Starbucks-branded filter coffee at Chipotle. It's probably not a bad idea if they can sell you high-margin coffee for $5, but I don't think you'll be getting your special fancy latte at Chipotle anytime soon.
And if you do, it's an even worse signal for this potentially merged company. Because it's very difficult when you start adding different lines of business to people who work for minimum wage and do one thing very well. For example, putting rice in a burrito. Put the beans. Now you want to teach the person who puts the rice and beans to make you a fancy latte—that just won't work, okay?
A different type of people, a different mentality, everything is different here. This is why historically, when companies start adding more and more verticals and overcomplicate their menus, they go bankrupt. I have at least some experience in the restaurant business . The first place I worked, and maybe, maybe, I'm to blame for that.
The first place I worked was Jamba, well, one of the first—Jamba Juice. And as soon as they started expanding their menu, they went bankrupt. Lauren, my wife, worked in a coffee shop. As soon as they started expanding the menu, they went bankrupt. Then I worked at Red Robin, and they almost went bankrupt, but they were saved by JP Morgan through a successful refinancing and revitalization of the shopping centers, because they have a lot of leases in half-empty centers, and they were very lucky that the shopping centers came back to life .
Uh, but after all, you know, Red Robin tried to do that too. They started making pizza and complicating the menu, because every time these businesses overcomplicate the menu , it's certain death. Crumbl Cookies is doing it now. Crumbl Cookies say : "Now that we're so good at cookies, we're going to start making different kinds of cakes or something ." It's like, it's a death sentence every time.
This is a real death sentence. This means peak. Every time. So I'm very pessimistic about this combination. However, I believe this could be a positive for Chipotle stock. The reason I think this could be a positive for Chipotle stock is that to convince Chipotle shareholders to do something as stupid as merging Chipotle and Starbucks would require paying a significant premium for Chipotle.
So in the near term, this deal creates a technical " floor" for Chipotle shares, and they have potential for upside. Here, for example, I'm quickly trying to find a good technical point. It's hard for me to do this . We'll draw a little gray line here. I have...it's on the weekly schedule. Here is my peak.
This is at 31.62, which is roughly where we are right now. Here is the top, here is the top, here is the top here. We're circling around these numbers, and you can see that it's almost a " floor." Isn't that right? " Floor", "floor"... It's all confusing. It's a fuzzy gray line, but I believe this deal creates a " floor" at 31.62 for these stocks until the deal falls through, because it's such a stupid idea.
But if the deal were to happen, I think it would probably be closer to $46. Of course, there are no guarantees and this is not personal financial advice, but I think for Chipotle shareholders to agree to this, they need to be compensated at $46 per share. This is my assumption. That would be about 43% of the premium.
Now Starbucks will have to raise a lot of debt to do this because they are on the hook. So they will have to sell stocks and issue bonds. So, pessimistic about Starbucks, optimistic about Chipotle, and pessimistic about all of these combined. And now, the CEO of Starbucks, and this is where it gets interesting, is the former CEO of Chipotle.
It seems he misses Chipotle so much that he now wants to do something incredible after the debacle in China that he was actually hired to solve. He has to do something, and I think he's just bored , so they think it's a good idea. Let's just buy the company I used to work for. Meanwhile, Starbucks is literally paying this guy to fly to work in what I'm pretty sure is a Gulfstream jet, to their Seattle office.
I'm not kidding. He lives well, which is convenient since Chipotle is headquartered in Newport Beach, California. By the way, the area there is beautiful. This is a great place to live. Newport Beach, Irvine, just beautiful. You just have to put up with their " communist" internal politics, but even so, these areas are wonderful.
And Starbucks is in Seattle. And even though they built him an office when he was first hired, the guy basically flew back and forth in his, I'm pretty sure Gulfstream, to get to the Starbucks offices. Either way, it's kind of crazy. And, in general, this is my vision of this situation. So, yes, there is a note here.
Starbucks has lifted the $250,000 annual limit on the CEO's personal and non-business use of a plane . This is a requirement to use private aviation for all air travel after security screening. In other words, previously, the CEO had to reimburse Starbucks for personal use of the plane in excess of $250,000 per year.
Now they're saying, "No, no, no, man. You know what? Because of the threats to CEOs these days, you can use this plane as much as you want, even for your personal business. So if you want to fly to Hawaii, you can do it." It appears to be its tail number N721L. N721L. Let's take a look at this handsome guy.
Gulfstream 2007. Old device. Oho. I'm even surprised that it's from 2007 . Of course, this is not the newest model. I mean, these things probably cost around 10 million, maybe? But still, it's a Gulfstream. And operation is the most expensive part, right? This is not a fuselage, no. But anyway, it's pretty cool.
But... All that aside , I'm bearish on Starbucks, bullish on Chipotle, and very bullish on the fact that the reinvestone.com coupon expires today. This is actually very, very exciting about the product that we have -- the reinvestone superintelligence all-in-one terminal coming out later this year. You get all of this.
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