Chipotle: Another Spin-off Makes Good

Article Excerpt

CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL INC. (New York symbols CMG $82 and CMG.B $76; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 14.2 million (class A common) and 18.4 million (class B common); Market cap: $2.6 billion; WSSF Rating: Speculative) owns and operates over 600 Mexican food restaurants in 26 states. Chipotle sets itself apart from traditional fast-food restaurants by using only fresh ingredients and traditional cooking methods. This lets it charge slightly higher prices than competing chains. The company was a 92%-owned subsidiary of McDonald’s Corp. until January 2006. That’s when it issued class A shares (one vote per share) to the public at $22.00 a share. In October 2006, McDonald’s handed out its class B shares (10 votes per share) to its own stockholder under a special, tax-free exchange offer. Investors that chose to participate received 0.8879 of a Chipotle class B share for each McDonald’s share tendered. Long-term trends look favorable Chipotle is riskier than most of our recommendations. However, it is in a good…