Linsanity Capital

My main takeaway is that AI skeptics are anchored on the ~$1 trillion in unfunded MOUs being a massive risk and it is therefore upsetting to hear that no one in the supply chain takes them seriously. There are so many good, realistic bear cases. Such a strange one to focus on.

We are short $SBUX with a PT of $70.76 and a 27% projected NTM IRR with 2.8x R/R. The Street believes Brian Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” turnaround is a success, extrapolating accelerating SSSG into sustained demand and normalized margins. We disagree. Our geospatial imagery analysis, calls to 300 stores, scrape of 1.2M store-week operating-hour posts, permit filing analysis, scrape of 10,082 Glassdoor employee reviews and 80,777 Google reviews, credit card and foot traffic data covering 150M Americans, and survey of 293 customers reveals that 1) store closures are disproportionately concentrated in trade areas where demand can be transferred to nearby Starbucks locations, inflating SSSG by 483 bps, 2) Emerging beverage brands are increasingly locating directly within Starbucks’ trade areas, with competitor openings associated with 8-10% declines in Starbucks traffic, and 3) the Street erroneously models margins reverting to 2022 peak levels despite shops being drastically understaffed, all while employee sentiment declines precipitously. Our thesis is threefold: 1. Under Brian Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” plan, Starbucks closed 627 North American company-operated shops in Q4 2025. Since then, SSSG has accelerated from 1.0% to 7.9%, which the Street views as sustained organic growth continuing into FY2027. We believe management has materially understated the customer transfer impact from store closures on transaction growth, with our analysis showing ~483bps of inorganic transaction tailwinds ending after this quarter, most of which management claims is organic. 2. Starbucks has historically dominated the U.S. specialty coffee and drive-thru beverage market. However, its competitive landscape is rapidly changing, as emerging brands ($BROS, 7 Brew) scale into Starbucks’ core markets. Our channel checks indicate 7 Brew will deliver 60%+ unit growth over the next two years, with 500 and 900 openings in FY2027 and FY2028 respectively, while Dutch continues to grow at 17%+. Our analysis of leasing documents shows that 73% of these emerging brand stores are scheduled to open within a mile of a Starbucks, which based on foot traffic alternative data has historically led to 8-10% volume declines at similar locations. 3. In FY2022, Starbucks averaged 26.8 employees/store before cutting North America employees/store to a trough of 19.8 in FY2024, well below competitors’ staffing. Despite Starbucks’ $500M labor investment, which has since increased employees/store to 21.3 in FY2025, we believe Starbucks’ current staffing levels are unsustainable as it adopts a more service-intensive operating model. Valuation: We model 483 bps of closure-driven SSSG unwinding as Starbucks laps the FY2025 closure cohort, with 181 bps of offset from the FY2026 cohort. This, combined with increasing competition, drives North American SSSG 174 bps below consensus in our base case and 286 bps in our bear case. This steps up by another ~280/420 bps respectively in FY 2028 as the 181 bps tailwind is lapped and competition intensifies. We model labor intensity remaining structurally elevated, forecasting Starbucks increasing employees/store from 21.3 to 24.0 through FY2027, driving FY2027 EBIT margins 263 bps below Street projections. Utilizing a conservative 18.5x/18.5x/20.0x NTM EBITDA multiple on FY2028 EBITDA, our bear/base/bull cases yield price targets of $48.48/$73.39/$113.95, respectively. Weighted at 35%/50%/15%, this yields a weighted average price target of $70.76. An in-depth breakdown of our primary research and full theses, along with a catalyst path will be published tomorrow.

Energy storage: 10GW to 100GW in 4 years. Battery storage is becoming a critical part of the energy stack, helping shift solar power from midday production into evening demand as electricity needs rise. More in the latest C:\Take ⬇️