Coffee Stock Caribou Coffee CBOU Quick Take

Caribou beat by $.10 at the beginning of the year and had decent numbers in that hellish economy. In hindsight I guess that was one of the fundamental buy indicators. I was onto the stocks breakout but never bought any shares to hold. They have been upping guidance pretty consistently lately and I believe right now are guiding for $.38-.39 next full year. With the stock at $7.50 that seems about right at a forward PE of around 20.

The reason I am bringing up CBOU again though is I stumbled upon a coupon in the local newspaper advertising section for Caribou Coffee. What really surprised me was that the coupon was for buying their beans(or ground coffee beans). It said they were "available at a local grocery store near you." This is very good for the company and their brand. For years they have had independent reviews that ranked their coffees,especially their light roast coffees higher than competitors like Starbucks.

For some reason over the years they had been slow to sell their coffee in stores. Wholesale businesses getting coffee directly to consumers from other stores are what has propelled Diedrich Coffee (DDRX) from $.40 this year to $25. I probably had been saying that in my older CBOU posts. I knew it to be true since 2005 before Caribou started the aggressive turnaround.

What selling more of the coffee in stores means to me is it can act as a cushion around store operations because of its profitability, allow more consumers to find their brand, and possible allow for more upside surprise in EPS.



full disclosure:no position

Caribou Coffee Bought By Private Equity For $340 Mil

I recently read that Caribou Coffee was purchased by a private equity company for $340 million. This is surprising yet at the same time not all that surprising to see the second biggest coffee chain next to Starbucks get bought out. People have been speculating on a buyout for years. I've been writing about Caribou Coffee (former ticker symbol CBOU) since 2009 here on the blog. I remember back in either 2009 or 2010 Caribou was actually trading for not that much over its net tangible equity value. The recent purchase price was for over 30 times earnings.