CAVA Group Inc (NYSE:CAVA) shares are trading lower Wednesday on the heels of the company’s first-quarter financial results.
- Q1 Revenue: $256.3 million, versus estimates of $245.935 million
- Q1 EPS: 12 cents, versus estimates of 5 cents
Revenues were up 30.3% year-over-year in the first quarter. Net cash provided by operating activities totaled $38.4 million and the company generated $4.7 million of free cash flow during the quarter.
Cava reported the same restaurant sales growth of 2.3%. The company said it opened 14 new restaurants during the quarter, bringing total locations up to 323, up 22.3% year-over-year.
“CAVA’s results in the first quarter demonstrate the strength of our category-defining brand, our clear leadership position in Mediterranean and our compelling differentiated value proposition,” said Brett Schulman, co-founder and CEO of Cava Group.
“We opened 14 net new restaurants and as we continue to invest in scalable infrastructure to support our growth, we are in a strong position to capture the significant whitespace opportunity ahead of us.”
Cava expects full-year same-restaurant sales growth to be between 4.5% and 6.5%, up from a prior range of 3% to 5%. Full-year adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $100 million and $105 million, up from a prior range of $86 million to $92 million.
Analyst Changes: Multiple analysts adjusted price targets on the stock following the company’s quarterly results.
- TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles maintained Cava Group with a Buy and raised the price target from $73 to $90.
- Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan maintained Cava Group with an Outperform and raised the price target from $74 to $90.
- Baird analyst David Tarantino maintained Cava Group with an Outperform and raised the price target from $90 to $92.
- Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Harbour maintained Cava Group with an Overweight and raised the price target from $68 to $85.
Check This Out: CAVA Group Analysts Boost Their Forecasts After Upbeat Earnings
CAVA Price Action: Cava shares were down 7.56% at $76.05 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro.
Photo: courtesy of Cava Group.
