# Portillo's (PTLO.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/PTLO

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:31:23.363Z. Financial observations: FY2019–FY2025.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: fail; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $4.79 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

Estimated value: low $0.22 per share, central $0.24 per share, high $0.26 per share. Buy at or below the central value $0.24 per share. Valuation as of 2026-10-16T07:31:23.363Z; scenarios are not confidence intervals.

Expected annual return: 3.2% at the stated quote. About 3.2% a year at today's price (required return 10.0%). required return 10.0% a year (10% floor; US 10-year bond 5.1% + 4 points).

## Checklist

### understandable: pass

- 1 revenue decline in the last 10 years (informational)

- Financial history: 7 years

- Years with declining revenue: 1

- Years with a net loss: 0

- Operating margin variation: 0.26×

Chart: Operating margin; fiscal year observations.

- FY2019: 0.10×

- FY2020: 0.13×

- FY2021: 0.06×

- FY2022: 0.07×

- FY2023: 0.08×

- FY2024: 0.08×

- FY2025: 0.07×

### moat: fail

- ROIC median below threshold

- ROIC worst years below threshold (more than 1 bad year allowed)

- ROIC, median of available years: 10.5%

- ROIC, second-lowest year: 8.0%

- Typical minus recent gross margin: 1.1 pp

- Typical gross margin (annual median): 40.5%

- Recent gross margin (lower of latest and 3-year median): 39.4%

- Years with nonpositive capital: 0

- Capital spending / revenue: 8.0%

- ROIC including acquisitions, ten-year median: 1.0%

Chart: ROIC excluding acquisitions; fiscal year observations.

- FY2019: 8.0%

- FY2020: 21.3%

- FY2021: 41.7%

- FY2022: 10.9%

- FY2023: 10.5%

- FY2024: 8.4%

- FY2025: 6.2%

### economics: fail

- owner earnings cash conversion below threshold

- incremental invested capital return below threshold

- Owner earnings / net income, 5-yr: -0.21×

- Cash conversion uses consolidated totals: No

- Owner earnings, five-year total: -$18M

- Net income, five-year total: $84M

- Return on incremental invested capital: 5.9%

- Working capital / revenue, annual change: 0.0 pp

Chart: Annual owner cash / profit; fiscal year observations.

- FY2021: 1.00×

- FY2022: 0.81×

- FY2023: 0.04×

- FY2024: -0.22×

- FY2025: -1.39×

### management: pass

- potential debt-funded buybacks (informational)

- buybacks leaned toward cheaper years (informational)

- ROIC first 3 years vs last 3 years: 21.3% vs 8.4%

- Per-share earnings: 0.17 to 0.32 (three-year endpoint medians)

- Management verdict uses per-share economic progress: Yes

- Ordinary dilution, 5-year annual growth: 6.8%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: 6.8%

- Per-share value growth: 17.7%

- Per-share value change: $0.15

- Per-share value, starting three-year median: $0.17

- Per-share value, ending three-year median: $0.32

- Buybacks concentrated in cheaper years (correlation): 0.20

- Average buyback yield: 23.8%

- Buyback history: 4 years

- Debt-funded buybacks: Yes

- ROIC, first three-year median: 21.3%

- ROIC, last three-year median: 8.4%

Chart: Earnings per share; fiscal year observations.

- FY2019: $0.11

- FY2020: $0.24

- FY2021: $0.17

- FY2022: $0.25

- FY2023: $0.32

- FY2024: $0.46

- FY2025: $0.27

### accounting: pass

- latest-year receivables to sales index (DSRI) exceeds 1.465

- Sloan accruals: -3.3%

- Receivables to sales index (DSRI): 1.60×

- Restructuring years, last five: 2

- Stock compensation / operating cash flow: 9.0%

- Earnings backed by cash: Yes

- Operating cash / earnings: 3.72×

- Accounting red flags: 1

- Goodwill and intangibles / equity: 0.89×

Chart: Sloan accruals; fiscal year observations.

- FY2019: -4.3%

- FY2020: -5.1%

- FY2021: -3.7%

- FY2022: -3.6%

- FY2023: -3.8%

- FY2024: -4.6%

- FY2025: -3.3%

## Holders

- [Glenn Welling](https://gigainvestors.com/ENG): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

## Price story

Down 88% since Nov 2021 · "Portillo's lowers sales expectations as McDonald's focus on value weighs on the restaurant sector" (seekingalpha.com, Sep 2025) · sales +3%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:59:27.410Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

Price needs cash profits to grow 47.9% a year for ten years

- 2025-08-05: Portillo's slides after lowering its full-year sales outlook ([seekingalpha.com](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4478514-portillos-slides-after-lowering-its-full-year-sales-outlook?utm_source=feed_news_all&utm_medium=referral&feed_item_type=news))

- 2025-09-10: Portillo's lowers sales expectations as McDonald's focus on value weighs on the restaurant sector ([seekingalpha.com](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4493690-portillos-lowers-sales-expectations-as-mcdonalds-focus-on-value-weighs-on-the-restaurant-sector?utm_source=feed_news_all&utm_medium=referral&feed_item_type=news))

### Sales · FY2024–2025

sales +3%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1871509/000187150926000012/ptlo-20251228.htm; observed 2026-02-24.

- FY2019: $479M 

- FY2020: $455M 

- FY2021: $535M 

- FY2022: $587M 

- FY2023: $680M 

- FY2024: $711M 

- FY2025: $732M 

### Gross margin · FY2025

gross margin 39.4%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1871509/000187150926000012/ptlo-20251228.htm; observed 2026-02-24.

- FY2019: 40.9% 

- FY2020: 43.3% 

- FY2021: 42.9% 

- FY2022: 38.9% 

- FY2023: 40.5% 

- FY2024: 40.5% 

- FY2025: 39.4% 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in restaurants; annual sales are USD 732.1 million.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1871509/000187150926000012/ptlo-20251228.htm (filed 2026-02-24); FY2025: revenue 732066000; grossProfit 288670000; margin = grossProfit / revenue.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-05); PTLO.US: Portillo's Inc. owns and operates fast casual restaurants in the United States. The company offers Chicago-style hot dogs and sausages, Italian beef sandwiches, char-grilled burgers, chopped salads, crinkle-cut and cheese fries, homemade chocolate cakes, and chocolate cake shake. It also operates a food truck under The Beef Bus name; and a ghost kitchen. In addition, the company provides delivery services through its application and website, as well as third-party delivery platforms. Further, it sells gift cards. Portillo's Inc. was founded in 1963 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.

### Why customers stay

Margins ranged from 39.4% to 40.5% during 2023–25; it earns 10.5% on its capital.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2023: grossProfit / revenue = 40.5%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2024: grossProfit / revenue = 40.5%.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1871509/000187150926000012/ptlo-20251228.htm (filed 2026-02-24); FY2025: grossProfit / revenue = 39.4%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); 7-year return on capital observations [[2019,0.08045892961965873],[2020,0.2131924686431994],[2021,0.4170092866188265],[2022,0.10935978593922789],[2023,0.10473955785808313],[2024,0.08379505956441144],[2025,0.061939215572712994]]; median 0.10473955785808313. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Paid dividends in 2 of 7 years.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2019: growth capex 0; upkeep 22045000; owner earnings 7874000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2020: growth capex 0; upkeep 21452000; owner earnings 15395000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2021: growth capex 12871000; upkeep 23312000; owner earnings 5992000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 2.148030707610147.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2022: growth capex 22890129.100560386; upkeep 24170870.899439614; owner earnings 8786754.320113117. Growth capex / owner earnings = 2.6050721650614794.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); FY2023: growth capex 45950867.019222446; upkeep 41967132.980777554; owner earnings 769867.0192224458. Growth capex / owner earnings = 59.6867587153326.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); Dividend observations: [[2019,0],[2020,0],[2021,215565000],[2022,5956000],[2023,0],[2024,0],[2025,0]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 8% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-05); PTLO.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 7.958 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-05.

### What the price says

The price assumes cash profits grow 47.9% yearly over ten years.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); Ten-year compound average after fade. Initial solved rate 0.7020149255566366. Price 4.79; FX 1; discount 0.1; same standard ten-year fade to terminal 0.03.  Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2021-10: $38.00 per share

- 2021-11: $40.75 per share

- 2021-12: $37.54 per share

- 2022-01: $26.55 per share

- 2022-02: $25.06 per share

- 2022-03: $24.56 per share

- 2022-04: $20.83 per share

- 2022-05: $18.57 per share

- 2022-06: $16.35 per share

- 2022-07: $22.83 per share

- 2022-08: $22.02 per share

- 2022-09: $19.69 per share

- 2022-10: $21.44 per share

- 2022-11: $20.19 per share

- 2022-12: $16.32 per share

- 2023-01: $22.56 per share

- 2023-02: $22.72 per share

- 2023-03: $21.37 per share

- 2023-04: $21.62 per share

- 2023-05: $20.07 per share

- 2023-06: $22.53 per share

- 2023-07: $23.05 per share

- 2023-08: $18.34 per share

- 2023-09: $15.39 per share

- 2023-10: $14.95 per share

- 2023-11: $15.54 per share

- 2023-12: $15.93 per share

- 2024-01: $13.74 per share

- 2024-02: $14.53 per share

- 2024-03: $14.18 per share

- 2024-04: $12.26 per share

- 2024-05: $10.02 per share

- 2024-06: $9.72 per share

- 2024-07: $10.36 per share

- 2024-08: $12.31 per share

- 2024-09: $13.47 per share

- 2024-10: $12.93 per share

- 2024-11: $11.55 per share

- 2024-12: $9.40 per share

- 2025-01: $13.91 per share

- 2025-02: $13.97 per share

- 2025-03: $11.89 per share

- 2025-04: $10.34 per share

- 2025-05: $12.00 per share

- 2025-06: $11.67 per share

- 2025-07: $9.96 per share

- 2025-08: $7.08 per share

- 2025-09: $6.45 per share

- 2025-10: $5.35 per share

- 2025-11: $5.22 per share

- 2025-12: $4.54 per share

- 2026-01: $5.65 per share

- 2026-02: $5.34 per share

- 2026-03: $5.29 per share

- 2026-04: $6.25 per share

- 2026-05: $4.29 per share

- 2026-06: $4.74 per share

- 2026-07: $4.57 per share

- 2026-08: $4.57 per share

- 2026-09: $3.53 per share

- 2026-10: $4.79 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

- FY2023: low $1.94 per share, central $2.21 per share, high $2.56 per share

- FY2024: low $1.47 per share, central $1.66 per share, high $1.91 per share

- FY2025: low $0.20 per share, central $0.22 per share, high $0.24 per share

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1871509/000187150926000012/ptlo-20251228.htm); period 2025-12-28, filed 2026-02-24.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.