GYG on the ingredients fuelling growth

Thu 19 June 2025
10 MIN READ

Alexandra Cain

Freelance Finance Journalist

The burrito empire’s founder and co-CEO, Steven Marks, offers a masterclass on how meticulous preparation, relentless focus and a generational mindset has propelled Guzman y Gomez into the ASX 200.

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Guzman y Gomez co-CEO Steven Marks describes the burrito empire’s ASX listing as a magical journey. Since its June 2024 debut, GYG has become a case study on how to nail a public market listing, including an eight-week sprint from prospectus to trading and entry into the ASX 200 index within six months of listing.

Listed@ASX: What is your advice to companies looking to list on ASX?

Steven Marks, Guzman y Gomez co-CEO: Listing on ASX is transformational. But you have to be clear on your purpose. The preparation that goes into a listing has to be done years before. We’ve had a board in place for 15 years and we also prepared by having the right internal processes, a culture of governance and an investor-facing story to build long-term credibility.

You need to know why you are listing, whether it’s access to growth capital, profile raising or providing liquidity for shareholders. It’s also about making sure we deliver on our strategy and nail execution every single day. That’s what I love about this business. Nothing’s really changed for us. The people who come to GYG now have the opportunity to own a piece of the business. That really means a lot and we love that accountability, because it’s been a magical journey and it’s truly just beginning.

Companies that are about to list on ASX need incredible governance and process systems. When you go into a prospectus leading into the IPO, you have to have a team that’s dedicated to that. We had an amazing IPO preparation team, and we went from prospectus to listing in eight weeks. The only way we could do that was because our governance, financials and systems were so tight. But don’t underestimate the work involved.

You also need to make sure you’re still running your existing business, because you must deliver on what you said you would during the first year of listed life. That credibility piece is important for any business.

We had an amazing IPO preparation team, and we went from prospectus to listing in eight weeks. The only way we could do that was because our governance, financials and systems were so tight".

Listed@ASX: What are the main lessons you learned during your first year of listed life?

Steven: Fundamentally, nothing has changed at GYG since we listed on ASX. For our franchisees and corporate restaurants, it’s business as usual. Our board is very experienced and we are fortunate to have them along on the GYG journey.

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My co-CEO Hilton Brett is one of the best retail CEOs in the country and he already knew what life was like as a public company CEO. Hilton and I have an amazing relationship. We’ve known each other for about eight years and he was on the board. We have very clearly defined roles in terms of what we do for the business. We have an incredible CFO, Eric Du Plessis, and Helaina Raad leads investor relations and corporate strategy. So the IPO wasn’t a major distraction, because we were set up properly for public life.

Staying focused on your strategy and not becoming too distracted by the little aspects of being a public business is key, because it’s about long-term decision making and growth. We don’t make short-term decisions for short-term moves. We’re a generational business and we want to be listed on the market and build credibility over a long period.

Listed@ASX: How’s your store rollout program tracking?

Steven: We’ve been building the business for 20 years and we’re on track to deliver 31 new restaurants in FY25, aiming to increase to 40 per annum in five years. We’re incredibly proud of our 30-person real estate and construction team. We’ve invested heavily in this business to make sure we’re in a place to execute on strategy. We have more than 100 restaurants in our pipeline and we’re adding four or five premium sites a month to it. When you open up a GYG drive-through, which accounts for about 85 per cent of our store mix, it takes two years to build. So that pipeline has to get deeper and deeper.

In terms of new restaurant openings, it’s all about top-line growth. Our new restaurant opening teams are so well trained. When we open new restaurants, we hit the revenue we want and they’re ready for growth in the future. It’s all about making sure we provide the experience we’re known for to our guests.

"Staying focused on your strategy and not becoming too distracted by the little aspects of being a public business is key, because it’s about long-term decision making and growth".

This is why our culture is so essential. If you don’t have a high-performing team and a really tight, clear culture, you can’t execute your strategy. I’m very proud of the 14,000-plus team of people working in our restaurants and the 300 people working in our head office.

Listed@ASX: Let’s turn to financials. You report quarterly, even though you don’t have to. Why is this?

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Steven: We have a culture of transparency across our corporate and franchise networks. For us, transparency drives accountability, which in turn drives performance. GYG is a high-performing team. But unless you know the metrics you’re pursuing and you’re transparent about them, you can’t move at our pace and have our success. The restaurant business is a never-ending, 24-hour business and we want to include our investors in our drive for performance. It gives investors an update about how we’re performing on sales and restaurant counts. This builds GYG’s credibility over time and significantly reduces continuous disclosure risk, because we’re always informing the market of how we’re doing on our key performance drivers.

Listed@ASX: GYG entered the S&P/ASX 200 index in September 2024. What changes does this require in managing your markets interface and IR activities?

Steven: We were very proud to join the ASX 200 within the first six months of listing. It was a huge accomplishment. Being included in the index has expanded the universe of investors who are interested in hearing our story and we love it when people discover GYG and understand what we’re all about. We were founded in 2006 and we’ll do over a billion dollars in revenue this year. Investors are really getting their heads around the fact that a company started in Sydney is becoming one of the best and biggest restaurant companies in the world. Our mission is to reinvent fast food and change the way the masses eat. We feel that as a food business, we have a social responsibility to serve clean food to the masses. We say GYG is fast food for this generation and it’s really resonating.

Listed@ASX: The environment is turbulent, with an unpredictable geopolitical and economic backdrop. How does this affect your ability to plan and strategise?

Steven: No matter what happens in the economy, people need to eat. So we operate well regardless of the economic conditions. It comes back to how we are reinventing fast food. We sell high-quality, clean, great-value food at traditional fast-food speed and our sales are incremental. We don’t use promotions. Every morning, we have a call with all our people, with a focus on comparable growth. But everything comes down to our hot and fresh food, an engaged crew and delivering on our experience.

For GYG, we can never be complacent. We have a relentless culture and it’s not for everyone. It’s highly rewarding, and you can see it in our numbers. Everything comes down to what we offer guests.

No matter what happens in the economy, people need to eat. So we operate well regardless of the economic conditions.

Listed@ASX: Strategy-wise, apart from store rollouts continuing, what are your priorities and what should investors be expecting in your next year of listing?

Steven: All our marketing is done in-house. We have a team of about 40 people dedicated to marketing, led by Lara Thom, who was just awarded Australia’s CMO of the year, and they’re also in charge of revenue with our ops team – which is usually not the way it is, which is fantastic. We have some fantastic new menu items coming out this year, which feeds into that exceptional guest experience.

Then there’s margin improvement. When you look at our restaurants, we look at comparative growth and margins. As revenue grows, we get operating leverage as we open up more drive thrus so margins get stronger year after year, which is important.

We also have an amazing tech team, and there’s innovation taking place with everything from our app to partnerships with our delivery aggregators. We’re constantly investing in every facet of GYG that drives revenue – whether it’s internal or with our partners – to deliver huge business performance for the future.