Hail, Caesar! New menu innovations boost Guzman y Gomez sales

Guzman y Gomez has launched a $100 million buyback to support its ongoing global restaurant rollout, while reporting a near-19 per cent jump in sales for the September quarter.

The buyback announcement and trading update on Thursday sent Guzman’s stock to a high of $32.54 in early trade. The momentum quickly faded and the stock closed down 2.3 per cent to $26.39.

Guzman said the buyback — expected to commence in the current quarter — reflected the company’s robust balance sheet and cash generation, while preserving capacity to fund the ongoing expansion of the restaurant network.

Global network sales grew 18.6 per cent to $330.6m in the three months to the end of September. Comparable sales grew 4 per cent in Australia and were up 6.7 per cent in the US.

It’s a slight improvement from the trading update provided during its full-year result in August, when Guzman revealed sales in the Australian segment grew just 3.7 per cent over the first seven weeks of the new financial year, well below consensus of 7.6 per cent.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Toner said while Thursday’s update for the Australian segment marked an improvement, it was still tracking below consensus expectations of 5 per cent growth for the first-half.

He said comparable sales growth of 6.7 per cent in the US was ahead of RBC’s estimate of 5 per cent for the half, but below market expectations of 9.1 per cent.

Guzman expects to deliver strong sales growth in the 2026 financial year, particularly through menu innovations. Guzman recently launched its new Caesar menu items, which include the Caesar Burrito and Caesar Cali Burrito.

“The launch of the new Caesar menu items has performed well to date and has contributed to an improvement in comp sales growth (in October),” the company said.

It also reaffirmed its previous guidance that Australian operations were expected to grow full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation — as a percentage of sales — by between 5.9 per cent and 6.3 per cent, up from 5.7 per cent in 2025.

Guzman in the September quarter opened three stores in Australia and one each in Singapore and the US. It takes Guzman’s total store network to 261, up from 226 a year earlier.

Guzman plans to open 32 new restaurants in Australia this financial year — 20 franchised stores and 12 corporate restaurants.