It's shaping up to be an underwhelming end to the trading week this Friday. After locking a new 9,000-point record high yesterday, investors seem to be in a consolidative mood this session. At the time of writing, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: JXO) has slipped by 0.28% and is back under the 9,000-point threshold. But let's talk about what's going on with Guzman y Gomez Ltd (ASX: GYG) shares.
Guzman y Gomez shares are having a shocker, no way around it. The fast food chain closed at $28.97 a share yesterday afternoon. But this morning, those same shares opened at $27.04 each before plunging as low as $22.74 each. At the time of writing, the company is nursing a nasty 19.4% loss and is down to $23.40 a share.
So what is going so wrong with Guzman y Gomez this Friday?
Well, it appears investors do not like what they see when it comes to the full-year earnings the company has just reported for the 2025 financial year.
Image source: Getty Images
Guzman y Gomez shares dive 20% on earnings result
There were plenty of big numbers in this earnings report. For the 12 months to 30 June 2025, Guzman reported sales of $1.18 billion across its store network. That was up 23% against what was reported in FY2024.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in a $65.1 million, up 45.5% year-over-year.
Segment underlying EBITDA was up 35.1% to $52.8 million, while net profits after tax (NPAT) rocketed 151.8% over FY2024's numbers to $14.5 million.
This enabled Guzman y Gomez to unveil a maiden dividend, with investors set to receive a fully-franked payout worth 12.6 cents per share.
So why are investors seemingly panicking over these numbers? Well, it could have something to do with the company's comparable sales growth numbers.
Over FY2025, Guzman y Gomez reported 9.8% comparable sales growth across Australia. However, over the first seven weeks of FY2026, Guzman has revealed this growth has been lower at an annualised 3.7%.
Management didn't seem worried, saying this to investors today:
Let me give you some context. This is not new. To give you a bit of flavour – over the past 7 years we've had <5% weekly comps 16% of the time. More recently, in the 6 weeks from mid-Feb to late March 2024, comps averaged 4.7%.
Why does this happen? This happens due to the timing of marketing campaigns, promotions or new menu items. We're excited about what's coming up, with an incredible menu addition with a major campaign coming in Q2. We're confident that comps will improve from here.
Evidently, investors are not convinced. But let's see what happens next for Guzman y Gomez shares.
After a blistering start to ASX life in June last year, it's been a rough 2025 for owners of Guzman y Gomez shares. At today's pricing, the company remains down around 42.5% year to date in 2025 so far, and down 31.65% over the past 12 months.
