President Donald Trump dropping the tariff hammer on Mexico doesn’t worry one buffalo wing chain CEO with skin in the game in the country.
“I think it’s going to be fine,” Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “I think our franchisees in Mexico are solid. They are performing well. They have continued the same-store sales growth we have seen in the U.S. I think even in some tougher economic times, we have been able to position this brand to navigate through that quite easily.”
Probably unknown to many Wingstop (WING) investors, is that Mexico has become a very key market for the company. Wingstop now has 80 restaurants in the country, making it the second largest behind the U.S. Should U.S. trade tensions with Mexico escalate further, it could go onto zap consumer demand for eating out in both countries.
Wingstop has more than 1,250 locations globally.
Morrison, who joined Wingstop as CEO in 2012 and has led a near tripling in the company’s stock price since its 2015 initial public offering, has placed international expansion at the top of his priority list. Besides its Mexico restaurants, Wingstop has navigated into the U.K. and Indonesia — the latter being its second largest international market with 30 locations.
Morrison believes Wingstop has the potential to reach 6,000 total locations around the world, split evenly between the U.S. and international.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-host of ‘The First Trade’ at Yahoo Finance. Follow Brian Sozzi him on Twitter @BrianSozzi.
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