El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. — Earnings Quality Grade F
LOCO · Consumer Cyclical
Major red flags
Screening Summary
Management Signals
Financial Trends
Revenue & Net Income ($B)
Margins (%)
18-Point Screening
Revenue Quality
DSO 8 days, change +1 days YoY
AR growth 18.4% exceeds revenue growth 3.6%
Revenue 3.6%, CFFO 2.8%. Cash follows revenue
Expense Quality
Inventory -6.6% vs COGS 3.2%. Normal
CapEx growth 18.6% vs revenue 3.6%. Normal
SG&A/Gross Profit = 46.3%. Normal
Gross margin 22.2%, change +0.3pp. Stable
Cash Flow Quality
CFFO/NI = 1.82. Profits backed by cash
FCF $0.0B, FCF/NI = 0.96
Accruals ratio = -3.6%. Low accruals
Cash $0.0B covers only 3% of debt $0.2B
Balance Sheet Health
Goodwill+Intangibles $0.3B = 107% of equity. Over 50%
Debt/EBITDA = 4.2x (>4x). Financial stress
Other assets grew 28.7% vs revenue 3.6%
No write-off data
Acquisition Risk
FCF after acquisitions positive
Goodwill+Intangibles change 0% YoY. Normal
Manipulation Score
M-Score = -2.46 (< -2.22). Unlikely manipulator
Portfolio monitoring
Monitor LOCO continuously
The full checks and model details are free to read. Use Watchlist to track your holdings; Pro adds automatic quarterly rescoring, risk-event email alerts, scans up to 50 tickers, and export workflows.
Beneish M-Score
Altman Z-Score
Generated from public financial data using forensic accounting frameworks. Not investment advice. Data: Yahoo Finance · 2026-04-25