Chipotle shares fall more than 7% after CEO leaves for Starbucks

Chipotle (CMG) stock fell more than 7% on Tuesday after The company announced The departure of its CEO, Brian Niccol, who will assume the same role at Starbucks (SBUX) starting next month.

Nicole has served as Chipotle’s CEO since 2018. Scott Boatwright, COO, will serve as interim CEO.

Nicole has been instrumental in Chipotle’s resurgence over the past several years, as the company has recovered from the E. coli crisis that began in 2015 and weighed on its stock for years.

The year before Nicole joined the company, Chipotle’s annual revenue was about $4.5 billion; by 2023, it had more than doubled to $9.9 billion a year. In the past five years, the stock has risen more than 240% versus an 85% gain for the S&P 500.

Amid the executive shakeup, Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung, who announced plans to retire in 2025, has agreed to stay with Chipotle “indefinitely” as head of strategy, finance and supply chain.

“Chipotle is in a very good position,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setian told Yahoo Finance. “They’re in very good hands… I give the turnaround as much credit to both of them as I do to Brian Niccol. So I think they’re in very good hands.”

“They’re on the autopilot, frankly, and not much should change,” he added.

Danilo Gargiulo, senior research analyst at Bernstein, agreed that Chipotle is well positioned for a turnaround.

“The brand has evolved from being just a company led and managed by the CEO,” Gargiulo said. “I think it has proven over time that it is bigger than its own management… Now we are talking about a potential modular approach that Chipotle will need to roll out to more regions and expand the number of units.”

Josh Schaffer is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X @_Joshshafer.

Click here for an in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events that move stock prices.

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance.