Priced about right

Very flawed analysis. I agree with the suggestion that the increased store numbers and revenues are not accompanied with compelling evidence of operating efficiency gains, but not for the reasons cited. SSG has been buying out franchisees, and thus bringing costs in-house (replacing franchise fees with sales, less sales-costs, less opex). So of course EBIT margins against total revenues are on the decline (a franchisor is a higher margin business than a shop owner - as long as the franchisees are solvent).

In particular, occupancy costs and staff costs will rise proportionately with revenues brought in-house - so the time marching costs versus revenues breakdown provided, is not particularly instructive.

Finally, notions such is "this has become a dividend stock" are not particularly useful or insightful, much less that the "Gordon growth model" is only applicable to "dividend stocks".

Those are some really good points MarsC

I'm keen to hear if you have formed an opinion on SSG yet?