LOCOEl Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc.
Is it safe?
Nothing alarming, nothing pristine: insiders quiet, comfortable debt (AA), and typical volatility.
Insiders were net sellers (-$3.4M, 90 days to Oct 8, 2026), selling is often routine.
Rock-solid balance sheet, low leverage. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Moderate price swings, typical volatility. Worst drawdown -63% · now 13% below its 52-week high.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can LOCO take a bad year?
El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. carries $17M of net debt at 0.24× EBITDA: a load its earnings can carry.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · under two and a half years of EBITDA, comfortable
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 0.24×
Net debt / EBITDA · 1.09× a year ago · the load is coming down
- Interest cover
- 14.9×
Interest cover · operating profit covers the interest bill several times over
- Annualised volatility
- 36%
Annualised volatility · roughly twice as jumpy as the market
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $30M
- Cash and short-term investments
- $13M
- Net debt
- $17M
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $69M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $53M
- Debt / equity
- 0.10×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 0.43×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 36%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −63%
- Below its 52-week high
- 13%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.