WEN reached a new milestone with their new Croydon location
The Wendy's Company (NASDAQ:WEN) is an international fast food restaurant chain. WEN’s restaurants are best known for their made-to-order square hamburgers, chili, baked potatoes, and Frosty dessert. Wendy’s franchisees employ hundreds of thousands of people across more than 6,700 restaurants worldwide.
On November 16, The Wendy's Company announced the opening of its 1000th international restaurant located in the United Kingdom. The Croydon-based restaurant is Wendy's fourth company restaurant in the United Kingdom since opening its first location in June of this year.
Wendy’s stock has decreased about 2% in price year-over-year and WEN is trading down 25% since peaking at a 52-week high of $29.46 in June. Shares of WEN have grown 3% year-to-date and Wendy’s stock is currently up 17% from its 52-week low of $18.86 in early March of this year. Moreover, The Wendy’s Company offers a forward dividend of $0.48 and a dividend yield of 2.17%.
From a fundamental point of view, Wendy’s stock valuation is relatively high at a price-earnings ratio of 26.69 and a forward price-earnings ratio of 24.51. WEN also lacks stability with its balance sheet and lacks consistency with its bottom-line growth rate. Wendy’s balance sheet currently holds $571.5 million in cash and $3.81 billion in total debt.
Additionally, Wendy’s has experienced two years of back-to-back net income declines, dropping 14% in fiscal 2020 and 70% in fiscal 2019. However, WEN has generated strong revenue growth over the past few years, increasing sales by 55% since fiscal 2017.
Overall, at a market cap of $4.88 billion, Wendy’s stock could still have long-term growth potential, but the fast-food company’s fundamentals suggest that WEN offers very little security for its high price.