Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alain Bouchard. I am the founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Alimentation Couche-Tard. I'm pleased to welcome you to our annual shareholder meeting. I now declare the meeting open. In accordance with the corporation's bylaws, as Executive Chairman of the Board, I shall chair this meeting, and Mélanie Charbonneau, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, will serve as secretary of the meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since the meeting is being held virtually through a live audio webcast, we believe it is necessary to set a few rules for it to run smoothly. The agenda for the meeting includes, one, the receipt of our audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended April 28th, 2024, together with the auditor's report.
Two, the appointment of our independent auditor and to set its remuneration by the Board of Directors. Three, the election of directors. Four, an advisory vote on our executive compensation policies. And five, the review of and vote on the five shareholder proposals received from one of our shareholders this year. Details of these matters are outlined in the Management Proxy Circular.
As a reminder, and as a corporation governed by the Quebec Business Corporations Act, Couche-Tard does not have to expressly disclose in its Management Proxy Circular the deadline by which a shareholder proposal can be submitted and may refuse to submit to its shareholders a proposal that was not submitted within the period prescribed by government regulation, being April 22nd, 2024. The chairman will present all the proposals. They will not need to be seconded.
Only holders of record as of July 10th, 2024, or their duly appointed proxies who are registered with our transfer agent and have obtained a control number prior to this meeting may participate, ask questions, and vote at the meeting. All other persons may attend the meeting as guests. At the appropriate time, shareholders or their duly appointed proxies will be asked to vote on the virtual meeting platform after all items on the agenda have been presented.
You will have only a limited time to do this. If you've already voted and you vote again on the meeting platform, it will change your previous vote. Registered shareholders and duly registered proxies who have already voted do not need to vote again unless they wish to change their vote.
Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxies who wish to communicate with leadership members present today or who wish to ask a question may do so by using the instant messaging service provided on the virtual meeting platform. There are two ways to ask questions during the meeting. Questions may be submitted in writing by using the relevant dialogue box in the messaging function during the meeting.
Questions may also be asked over the phone. To do so, the shareholder or proxy holder will need to submit their name, their telephone number, and the subject of their question by using the relevant dialogue box in the function called messaging during the meeting in order to be reached by telephone at the appropriate time. Your telephone number will not be shared with the other meeting attendees.
Only shareholders and duly appointed registered proxy holders may ask questions during the question period at the end of the meeting. When asking a question, please indicate your name and the entity that you represent, if that's the case, and confirm that you are a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder. Please also indicate to which member of our leadership present today you wish to ask your question.
Questions will generally be received shortly after being submitted, but will be dealt with only during the question period at the end of the meeting. In order to be able to answer as many questions as possible, shareholders and proxy holders are asked to be brief and concise, and to address only one topic per question. Questions from multiple shareholders on the same topic or that are otherwise related will be grouped, summarized, and answered together.
Answers will not be provided to questions that have already been answered or that are redundant or repetitive or that are irrelevant to the corporation's operations or to the business of the meeting. The corporation will also not answer any questions related to non-public information about the corporation, that are related to personal grievances, or that are otherwise offensive to third parties. I'd like to let you know that some topics discussed during presentations following the legal portion of the meeting may constitute forward-looking statements issued by the corporation with the usual provisions.
We cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize, and accordingly, we urge our meeting's attendees to consider the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements, and we caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.
Details with regards to cautionary statements regarding forward-looking statements may be found in the Alimentation Couche-Tard management proxy circular for the 2024 fiscal year, which is available on SEDAR+ and on the corporation's website. We will now proceed.
Thank you, Mélanie. I would now like to appoint the TSX Trust Company as scrutineer of this meeting, represented here today by Ms. Francine Beauséjour and Ms. Isabelle Vachon. The secretary has informed me that we received confirmation from the TSX Trust Company that it has sent the documents regarding the meeting to all shareholders of record on the corporation's books as of August 1st, 2024.
I am instructing the secretary to keep these documents in the corporation's records with the affidavit from the TSX Trust Company confirming that they have sent to Couche-Tard shareholders. The scrutineer has submitted to me the report on attendance at the meeting.
It shows that quorum has been reached. I ask the secretary to attach the scrutineer's report to the minutes of this meeting. Accordingly, I declare this meeting duly convened and legally constituted to conduct the business for which it was called. The first item on our agenda here today regards the receipt of the corporation's financial statements. I now submit for receipt the consolidated financial statements of Alimentation Couche-Tard and its subsidiaries for the fiscal year ended April 28th, 2024, as well as the auditor's report on these financial statements.
The next item on the agenda concerns the appointment of the auditor for the current fiscal year, and the authorization provided to the Board of Directors to set its remuneration. As indicated in the circular, the corporation recommends the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a firm of chartered professional accountants, until the next annual meeting of Alimentation Couche-Tard.
I propose that PricewaterhouseCoopers be appointed auditor of the corporation, and that the board of directors be authorized to set the auditor's compensation. As indicated in the circular, the board of directors has set the number of directors to be elected today at 16. Biographical notes on the candidates are included in the management proxy circular made available to our shareholders.
I'd like to now introduce the 16 people who have been nominated: Willie Vachon, board member since 2021 and lead director; Jean Bernier, board member since 2019; Karine Bouchard, board member since 2021; Eric Boyko, board member since 2017; Marie-Ève D'Amours, board member since 2023; Janice L. Fields, board member since 2020; Eric Fortin, board member since 2021; Richard Fortin, co-founder and board member since 1988; Steven J. Harper, board member since 2024; Mélanie Kau, board member since 2006; Marie-Josée Lamothe, board member since 2019; Monique F.
Leroux, Board member since 2015, Alex Miller, currently Chief Operating Officer and designated President and Chief Executive Officer, assuming his new roles as of tomorrow, September 6th, and new candidate to the position of director, Réal Plourde, co-founder and Board member since 1988, Louis Têtu, Board member since 2019, and myself, Alain Bouchard, co-founder, Board member since 1988, and Executive Chairman of the Board.
Each candidate has indicated their desire to serve as a director of the corporation. I propose that each of these individuals be elected as a director of the corporation until the close of the next annual shareholders' meeting, or until a successor is duly elected or appointed. As mentioned at the start of the meeting, votes will be cast today through a single electronic ballot after the items on the agenda have been presented.
The next item on our agenda is the advisory vote of the Board of Directors' executive compensation policy. We are confident that you will judge the corporation's executive compensation program to be based on a performance-based approach aligned with our shareholders' long-term interests. The result of the vote will not be binding to the board. However, the board will take account of this result and of other comments from shareholders.
The full text of the advisory resolution appears in the Management Proxy Circular. I propose adopting the advisory resolution concerning the corporation's executive compensation practices as set out in the Management Proxy Circular. The next item on our agenda concerns the five shareholder proposals received this year by MÉDAC, Mouvement d'éducation et de défense des actionnaires, represented by Mr. Louis Gagnon.
These proposals relate to incentive compensation for all employees based on ESG objectives, in-person shareholder meetings, disclosure of languages mastered by executives, advisory vote on environmental policies, and company sustainability strategies. The company has reproduced in Appendix D of its Management Proxy Circular the full text of these five proposals and of the presentation that the shareholder, MÉDAC, transmitted to us. Said text has not been modified other than to translate the proposals in English, because it was sent to us in French only.
Appendix D of the Management Proxy Circular also contains the corporation's response to the MÉDAC's proposals. With regards to shareholder proposal number one, we would like to highlight that sustainability practices are integrated in our business strategy, and we have already added the achievements of ESG goals to determine short-term compensation awards for certain members of our executive team.
However, given the lack of a standardized sustainability framework, as well as the constant evolving nature of ESG practices, we believe that linking the achievements of ESG goals to the incentive compensation of all our employees would not be appropriate nor fair at this time. Relating to shareholder proposal number two, as we have seen over the past few years, virtual meetings have become increasingly popular due to the significant advantages they offer, including the ability for all shareholders and our proxy holders around the world to attend, vote, and participate in the meeting, which is only more advantageous for a multinational corporation such as Couche-Tard.
We also point out the carbon footprint reduction of virtual meetings compared to in-person or hybrid meetings, and the minimized meeting-related costs for the corporation, the shareholders, and other participants that virtual meetings offer.
With regards to shareholder proposal three, we strive to comply with all applicable laws and regulations related to language in our multiple jurisdictions in which we operate. We would like to emphasize that we uphold and comply with the Quebec Charter of the French Language, and adhere to all requirements related to the French language in the course of our business activities and operations in Quebec. In this respect, there are no disclosure requirements with respect to the language proficiency of officers of Canadian private companies.
Our operations are global, decentralized in some geographic areas, and our managers may speak other languages other than French, in addition to English. Our goal as a global corporation is to seek in our executive management team a diversity of skills, education, geographical representation, background, and expertise that meets our strategic needs and priorities.
With regards to shareholder proposal number four, we have been on a sustainability journey towards providing greater transparency and engagement on our efforts, and our desire to contribute to a cleaner and safer future. While creating value for our shareholders, we have created a defined framework and strengthened how we incorporate sustainability in our way of thinking and decision-making, including by making it a lens to our business. Our commitment to actionable results is based on stakeholder perspectives, conversations with investors, and interviews with business leaders.
Our board, through its human resources and corporate governance committee, oversees our commitment to sustainability and ESG, including oversight of monitoring climate risks and opportunities. Through this committee, our board monitors the corporation's management of its environmental impact, including the longer term development of sustainable business practices, for which we are already engaging with various stakeholders.
Relating to shareholder proposal number five, we would like to highlight this year in our 2024 sustainability report, that we published our first GHG assessments for Scope 3 emissions. We have reviewed and revised our 2025 climate targets to include our ambition to invest in specific renewable projects, and to include new greenhouse gas emission reductions targets for our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
We are now finalizing our climate targets for 2030, and that will be presented in our 2025 TCFD report. It is paramount that we understand and identify how climate-related physical and transitional risks may impact our business in the future to better prepare and capitalize on our opportunities that may arise.
Although the corporation shares MÉDAC's position on the importance of these issues, we believe that our current practices and disclosures in each area are adequate to meet regulatory requirements. We invite our shareholders to vote against these five proposals. Mr. Gagnon would like to address the assembly and speak to the MÉDAC proposals. Mr. Gagnon, you will be given five minutes to speak to these proposals. Thank you, Mr. Gagnon.
Yes, hello. Louis Gagnon, representing the MÉDAC. Can you hear me well?
Yes, we can, Mr. Gagnon.
Thank you. We're happy to see that you talked about each of the five proposals that we submitted, and that you dealt with them verbally. It is pretty rare to see as much attention given to our points. Unfortunately, we're unfortunately hearing that there will. That you've recommended a vote against.
Normally, we send proposals each year, and some of them get adopted. We have submitted proposals to you and other companies that have also agreed to some of them, so it's unfortunate that it hasn't happened here. In order, these five points, as were previously mentioned, compensation, a new direction around compensation.
I will report what or repeat what you said, ma'am. You said that it wasn't appropriate to manage incentive compensation. We invite shareholders to support our proposal for in-person. We propose that meetings happen in person. Virtual meetings can be complementary. You say in your answer that shareholders are very geographically vast, and that's good for them to have virtual.
I remind you all that our proposal does not say that we should not have in-person at all, and, hybrid works as well, but, in-person helps, and it's good to see who is there. It's unfortunate that we can't speak to somebody sitting on a chair, so we would be happy to see these in-person meetings come back. In August, the 9th of August, Saputo had a meeting. It was hybrid. It was in a location where it was a company that allowed for a hybrid meeting.
And so, yes, it is important to reduce carbon, consumption. And are you saying that a virtual meeting doesn't have an impact, on the environment? Well, if it's more or less, we don't have any numbers on that. Proposal three, the languages spoken by upper management.
We're talking about executive languages, and that these languages be disclosed. There is no obligation legally, but we believe that it's the spirit of the law in terms of diversity. So you did not hesitate to disclose languages from directors last year, and this year we don't understand why you are refusing to talk about languages spoken by upper management. It's not very complicated, and we ask shareholders to support our proposal.
The consultative vote on environmental policies on the climate, you say that it's an additional burden, yet the holding of a meeting with regards to compensation should not be an additional burden. And you say that manager or management board members can judge the ESG strategies through consultative vote.
That vote would not prevent board members or upper management to talk about these questions, so we reject that argument, and we ask shareholders to support our proposal. The last proposal, so the sustainability strategy belonging to the corporation, this is something that was sent to us after an article in the Financial Post. Marc Cadar said that situations or companies in the same situation as Couche-Tard should channel their compensation to be able to increase dividends and buy shares, and that's the reason why we sent this proposal.
We ask all shareholders to support our proposals. Ma'am, in your presentation, you said that Couche-Tard does not publish the limited or the last date. It's the first time in our lives that we see that it was the 22nd of April. This year, we calculate that it will be the 11th of April, 2025.
Is that the case, and why do you do that? Why don't you publish the date? All companies do that, even those who don't have to. What's the point for Couche-Tard to not publish that date? We don't understand. Thank you for all of the time that you have given to us.
Thank you, Mr. Gagnon, for your comments on the shareholder proposals. We will now move to the vote using a single electronic ballot. I remind you that the items to be voted on are, one, the appointment of the auditor, and to set its remuneration by the Board of Directors. Two, the election of directors. Three, an advisory vote on our executive compensation policy, and four, the five shareholder proposals received. We now invite you to vote on each of the four items on the agenda. Please go to the voting page.
First of all, select for or withhold next to the resolution to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers as the corporation's auditor. Then press the for or withhold button next to the name of each candidate for director, and then press the for or against button next to the advisory resolution on the corporation's executive compensation practices, and then press the for or against button next to each shareholder proposal.
Once the electronic voting is complete, the voting page will disappear, and your votes will automatically be recorded. We'd now like to leave you a few minutes to fill out your electronic ballots. We will resume once voting has ended. Thank you for your patience. I've received the scrutineer's report on the voting results, and I confirm the following: I'm pleased to announce that the resolution on the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been adopted.
Regarding the election of directors, Louis Vachon, Jean Bernier, Karine Bouchard, Eric Boyko, Marie-Eve D'Amours, Janice L. Fields, Eric Fortin, Richard Fortin, Steven J. Harper, Mélanie Kau, Marie-Josée Lamothe, Monique F. Leroux, Alex Miller, Réal Plourde, Louis Têtu, and myself have been duly elected as directors of the corporation. I'm pleased to announce that the board's approach to executive compensation has been adopted.
Finally, regarding the five shareholder proposals submitted, I wish to announce that each proposal was rejected and recommended... or as recommended by the corporation. Details of the results will soon be available on the SEDAR+ website and on the corporation's website. With the legal formalities now completed, it is time to close the meeting and move on to corporate presentations. I declare the formal portion of this meeting now closed.
I'm very happy to join you here today to reflect on the incredible milestones that we achieved this year. From a company that started with modest beginnings and a single store, this year we reached 16,700 stores, 150,000 team members, and operations in 31 countries.
We celebrated 20 years since we acquired Circle K and began the journey of establishing a truly global brand. We also launched a few five-year strategies, and a new five-year strategy rather, after successfully completing our Double Again ambition. All of this has been beyond my wildest dreams when I opened the first location in Laval, Canada. Believe me, I am beaming with pride.
Perhaps what makes me even more proud is how we continue to balance our growth ambitions with staying true to our humble mission of making our customers' lives just a little bit easier every single day. From day one, we have always put our customers and our people first. It's a fundamental way of proceeding when it comes to our winning culture, and it's how we play to win for the future. Our growth in Europe has almost doubled, and we clearly stand out.
Our achievements for the year stand out, as we've doubled our size in the region and welcomed thousands of new team members. After having visited these two new countries, well, those new countries, I have no doubt that this acquisition will be another great success story. So how can I be so sure? Well, I saw firsthand how team members fit into our family.
They know their customers, they care about their people, and they live by our values. That has been the secret to our success in the past, and I am confident that this will be the case in decades ahead. Our new strategy, called 10 for the Win, is another milestone that we accomplished over the course of the year. The strategy has strong financial goals and bring real value to our business and to our shareholders.
I'm particularly proud of how this strategy is centered around winning the customer, innovating for the future, engaging our people, and being a responsible retailer in our communities. This is indeed one of the things that I love the most about this company. We are a big business, and we live by our values and our value of doing the right thing.
Once again, this year, we were recognized, and this recognition will never get old. For the third straight year, we have been recognized as an exceptional workplace by Gallup. We're one of the very few companies of our size and our scale to win this award. What a true testimony to our highly engaged teams, and this makes me proud to the umpteenth degree! We know and fully understand that as a responsible retailer, we are in a position where we have to contribute to a cleaner, safer, and more inclusive future.
We are committed to doing this. We remain humble and disciplined in our approach, and over the six years since we started this journey, we have learned that it cannot be static, but rather it needs to be dynamic and responsive to changing conditions.
We are adapting to emerging ESG trends, reporting requirements, and increased stakeholder expectations, as well as reaffirming that our approaches best reflect the areas that we can control. We want to be able to make the biggest impact and continue to serve the needs of our customers.
Before continuing and before concluding, I must, of course, mention an important milestone of this new fiscal year, the appointment of our Chief Operating Officer, Alex Miller, as our next president and CEO, effective tomorrow, 6th September . Couche-Tard has only had two CEOs over the almost 45 years of existence, and we take this appointment very seriously. Brian Hannasch leaves a big legacy after his highly successful ten-year tenure, and it was important for us that our next CEO come from within the business and fully embrace our values, culture, and growth-oriented mindset.
For those reasons, we believe that Alex is the best person to be our next leader, and we are truly excited to grow together in the years ahead, and now, for the last time, on his last day as President and CEO, let me introduce my dear friend, Brian Hannasch.
Merci, Alain. Mesdames et messieurs, it's bittersweet that I'm addressing you today on my last day as President and CEO. However, it makes it a little easier that I'll be staying on with the organization as a special advisor for a couple more years. Let me say once again, that it's been an honor of a lifetime to lead this amazing company and I'm so proud of the value that we've created together, as well as the commitment and passion of our team members to serving our customers and our communities.
Today, I'm going to cover the opportunities and challenges of the past fiscal year, as well as the ways in which our 10 for the Win strategy is helping us prepare for the future success. After that, I'll hand it over to my good friend, Alex Miller, to give you a sense of what you may expect as he starts his tenure as President and CEO tomorrow. In a year of widespread economic challenges, I'm truly pleased with our progress as we put our customers and people at the forefront of our operations, drove strategic growth across the network, and lived by our values.
I'm especially proud of our team members for their relentless focus on providing compelling value and ease to our customers, both inside and in our forecourts. As many customers continue to feel the strain of their wallets, we've looked for the best ways to provide them with value and ease. Our most significant initiative has been the rollout of our Inner Circle loyalty program this year in the U.S., and the advancement of our Extra loyalty program in Europe.
Inner Circle is a free membership program with fuel and food rewards, and much more, while also providing new personalized experiences to our most valuable customers. The program is now in over 4,000 stores, 30 states, and at the end of the fiscal year, we have over 6 million fully enrolled customers. Inner Circle is an important tool in helping us provide a consistent and highly visible value, both inside our store and at our forecourt, and we're excited that our loyalty members are visiting our stores more frequently.
For the past year, we held fuel promotional days at thousands of stations across the network, which offered immediate discounts at the pump, as well as our fuel cards to use on future visits. These events are bringing increased awareness to the fuel brand and providing impactful savings to our customers and driving location traffic to our locations.
Many of our customers are also turning to our private label products to stretch their available cash. We have substantially expanded our portfolio of products in recent years, with products ranging from private label wine to chocolate, chips, proprietary beverages, and much more, all at attractive price points and high quality. The value for our customers is compounded by limited time offers and bundle deals.
While our day-to-day focus is always on making our customers' lives a little easier, we are also planning for the future as we look to generate more value for our shareholders, simplify work for our team members, and most of all, create a better experience in convenience and mobility for our customers. Importantly, our 10 for the Win strategy is not a radical new approach.
It's rather a framework for continuous improvement of our business and operations, with its main pillars building on our key differentiating strengths. Fundamental to this strategy is developing better ways of working together and taking advantage of our global scale and evolving technologies. We're also enhancing our operating model to reduce duplication, unlock value, and increase speed.
We're also looking to improve our tools and processes, including implementing solutions that decrease administrative time, provide 24-hour customer support, and add automation to make it simpler for our teams and allow them to focus more on their customers. We're also increasing efficiency as part of our Fit to Serve initiative. Here, our commitment is disciplined operational cost control and has already led to strong reduction in normalized expenses. This underscores our commitment to financial prudence and operational excellence, even amidst ongoing economic pressures.
Our aspiration to be the most trusted brand in convenience and mobility guides the 10 for the Win strategy, and our goalposts are clear: winning the customer, having a winning offer, and winning with fuel. As we work to become better food operators, we're committed to creating a best-in-class food offer at our locations. We now have Fresh Food Fast in more than 5,800 locations globally, and our teams are focused on improving profitability and sales by optimizing our supply chain and ensuring availability and in-stock.
This includes rolling out new forecasting production tools in the U.S. that are leveraging AI to determine demand more accurately on a site-by-site basis. Sampling also increased globally, driving immediate sales benefit, and we continue to introduce new popular products that target local tastes.
Satisfying thirst is the main reason customers visit the inside of our stores, and we strive to be the number one thirst stop across our markets. We're focused on the growth of our beverage category by offering great assortment, innovation, and value in both packaged and dispensed beverages at affordable price points. We are also increasing our exclusive beverage deals and promotions with our key suppliers and sponsors, driving excitement and traffic to our locations.
We are pleased with the performance of our fuel business in terms of both volume and margins, as we continue to build value for our customers and business through the optimization of our fuel global fuel supply chain. Partnership with Musket and our trading capabilities in Geneva empower us to explore new and lower-cost sourcing options while ensuring that we maintain supply across our network globally.
Our B2B, or business-to-business work, continues with solid growth in Europe, and is beginning to take a good foothold in the U.S. as new initiatives and strategic relationships start to bring in business and fleet customers. Our network of truck-accessible sites is growing as we expand our offer of high-speed diesel and the relevant services for the long- and short-haul truck drivers.
At the beginning of the year, our EV charging network in Europe consisted of more than 2,600 charge points and 55 charging points for heavy trucks in Scandinavia.... We're seeing marked increases in charging transactions on our Circle K branded chargers, driven by the network expansion, improved payment options, and station upgrades we're making. We're also moving forward with the deployment of EV chargers in North America, where demand warrants.
We've had significant network growth this year, as we welcome four new countries in Europe from TotalEnergies and 22,000 new team members, and nearly 2,200 sites to the Couche-Tard family. As Alain mentioned earlier, we have a strong track record of successful integration and realization of synergies, and we're pleased with how the transition is progressing.
We've identified local leadership, rebranded several stores as Circle K, and we're working closely with our new engaged teams. We're advancing nicely on the integration of the 112 Mapco sites in August. We announced a definitive agreement to acquire GetGo markets from approximately 270 convenience retail supermarkets from Giant Eagle Inc. GetGo is an innovative, food-first convenience store experience that operates fueling locations across Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana.
It's a great fit to our existing network, and we're looking forward to bringing GetGo team members into the family and learning more about their popular made-to-order food program and loyalty program. With our strong balance sheet and customary financial discipline, we're optimistic about future deals at the right price and fit. On the organic front, we're advancing on our stated goal of building 500 stores, including opening nearly 85 in North America this year, with many, many more in the pipeline.
We're determined to have store operations that are fast, friendly, and in stock, and we know that our customer-centric teams are critical to our success. Improving retention, lowering turnover is essential here, and we're making notable progress by investing in our store team members in areas they care about, including compensation, benefits, and engagement.
We've improved and expanded our onboarding and our training programs, both in person and gamified. We're also helping our store team members with new scheduling tools and programs to simplify their workload and make it easier to operate our stores and focus on our customers. In closing, this has certainly been a challenging year, especially in the closing months, with persistent inflation and continued economic pressure on our consumers.
Yet our focus consistently remained on providing everyday value and ease for our customers, and leveraging the competitive advantages of our global scale and diversified business to grow market share and drive long-term growth. As I leave my position today, I know Couche-Tard will be in strong hands with Alex Miller as its next President and CEO, as he's been one of my closest business partners for well over a decade.
He deeply shares our one team culture, and he will be supported by a great leadership team. I also want to thank Alain Bouchard and our Board of Directors, customers, team members, and shareholders for your enduring support and for giving me the opportunity to lead this great company. With that, I'll hand it over to Alex.
Thank you for those kind words, Brian, and thank you for your support and friendship over the decades. You've been incredibly generous during this transition period, as well as our last 13 years working together and sharing your extensive knowledge of the business, deep love of our culture, team members, and customers. I'm extremely fortunate to have worked alongside you and learned from the very best in the business.
I'm also truly honored to be with you today as I take on the position of Couche-Tard's third President and CEO, starting tomorrow. I am passionate about carrying on the proud legacy left by my two predecessors, Alain and Brian, as we continue to take market share, put our operations and people first, and make our customers' lives a little easier every day. From day one, I will be partnering and leading with an exceptionally strong executive bench.
These leaders are mostly tenured executives from Couche-Tard, although we have a couple of wonderful new additions. CFO Felipe Da Silva, who joined us about 15 months ago, and Erica Fortune, our new Chief Digital Officer, who joined the team over the summer to help us advance in our customer-focused digital journey. The team has deep operational and business unit experience, gender and global diversity, and is structured around the must-win battles of our 10 for the Win strategy.
You can expect from us the same transparent, prudent, and growth-oriented leadership that has characterized Couche-Tard for the last 45 years. Critical to our decades of industry-leading success has been our operations-first mindset, in which our people and customers are in the forefront of all of our decision-making. That has been fundamental to my approach as Chief Operating Officer and will continue to be so as Chief Executive Officer.
It is what makes our culture so special, and like my predecessors, I promise to protect and foster it. During my years at Couche-Tard, we have made a lot of progress in building a diverse and inclusive culture as part of our sustainability journey. And while we have much to do, we take great pride in the ways in which we now reflect the communities where we work and live.
We have instituted training programs for our underrepresented communities to help them thrive in the company, and we are working to advance equitable representation, opportunities, and pay. This is not only making us a better, stronger company, it is also helping us with engagement, retention, and lower turnover rates…. We are also firmly committed to improving workplace safety, and have made notable strides in the last few years.
As Brian mentioned in his remarks, having customer-centric teams is fundamental to our mission and our 10 for the Win strategy. Here, many of our must-win battles in food, thirst, and fuel center on winning the customer, and we have many initiatives in place to expand our food and beverage offer, improve our operational excellence and efficiency, and provide more compelling value to our customers. Same with our fuel and mobility offers, all with the goal of making it easier on our store team members and customers, and driving more traffic to our locations.
I firmly believe that we are just at the beginning of our journey to become the world's preferred destination for convenience and mobility, and I have full faith that with our engaged people, entrepreneurial culture, and long-term strategic plan, we will continue our incredible growth trajectory, take market share, and create lasting value.
Again, I want to thank all of our team members, customers, and shareholders for your support and continued commitment. I'm really excited to get started tomorrow. I'll now hand over the floor to my colleague, CFO, Felipe Da Silva.
Merci, Alex. Let's start by looking at financial performance since 2014. We have work done by our teams year after year to be able to create value for our shareholders, and you see that our gross margin has increased by 9.3% since 2014, and 0.4% over the last year, to reach more than $12 billion. In addition to that, since 2014, our EBITDA increased annualized by 13%, and per share, earnings per share increased by 15% to reach $6 billion and $2.41 billion per share, respectively, which is exactly in line with our operational goals. And finally, our value creation increased by 13% per year since 2014.
If you look at this chart here, showing growth of EBITDA, you can see that the long-term equation is in place since the past 10 years. This equation is good for, and combines two exceptional competencies, and means that we have really good discipline around cost control, and therefore, we have been able to have excellent performance, generating EBITDA growth of 18% since 2000. It's amazing to see the starting point, which was the $100 million, and the work that has been done to reach the $5.5 billion in EBITDA this year. Over the past 10 years, the value of shares increased by 450%, and beats indexes across North America.
It's interesting to mention that an investment of $1,000 in shares 38 years ago, very specifically, when we started to be publicly traded, is worth more than $1.3 million today, based on shares at the end of the market closure on the 13th August of this year. Last year, we once again confirmed the strength of our model, including cash flow. EBITDA went down by 2.9% compared to the previous fiscal year, reduced by $5.6 billion over the same period.
We had available cash flow of $1.7 billion. Over the years, we also saw lots of growth, annual compound growth of 7% between 2014 and 2024. For 2024, we also were able to have a strong capital invested and be more operationally efficient.
Solid performance in our operations, combined by capital allocation strategies, allowed us to invest capital of 13.3% over the last year. Finally, we exceptional results and amazing visions to increase our quarterly dividend by more than 25%. We also increased our dividend over 18 consecutive years since the first payment of dividends in 2005, in November.
We compensate our shareholders as we grow. We also continued the implementation of our share redemption program, and over 2024, $1.4 billion were redeemed for a number of shares, which allowed us to complete more than half the program. At the beginning of 2024, we had a share redemption program allowing us to redeem more than 10% of our share portfolio, a total of 78 million shares.
In the context of this program, we redeemed shares for a total of more than $530 million. Last year, we paid out more than $1.5 billion to our shareholders, after optimally investing in our growth and the maintaining of our opportunities and our activities. Mr. Alain Bouchard, I turn the floor back over to you.
Thank you, Filipe. Let's now move on to our question period. We received a question from Willie Gagnon, following his comment, and let me read it to you, and I'll ask Alex Miller to answer. Let me read it to you in French, and it'll be translated for Alex. Bloomberg recently said that Seven & i was trying to prevent the purchase of 7-Eleven by Couche-Tard.
Within the context of the Japanese state, Couche-Tard attempted to buy Carrefour, but the French prevented that transaction, and we look at the measures. What are the measures taken by the company to be able to protect itself from future failures when it comes to state intervention? Alex?
Thank you for the question, Willie. We don't comment on media speculation. We do not intend to discuss this further at this meeting regarding Seven & i or take further questions on the topic. However, we can share a few words about our perspective and past experience. We have a deep respect for Seven & i and the business they have built in Japan and around the world, including their great operating model, franchisee network, and brand.
We are historically a company that has led disciplined growth by merging with locally led businesses across the globe. We have a strong history of using a partnership approach when entering new markets, always maintaining and learning from local leadership and empowering local leaders and operators with resources to enable them to keep serving their customers and communities.
Like Seven & i, we have deep experience supporting our communities during crisis, including during pandemics, hurricanes, fires, and floods, providing essential goods and services. We have a successful history and track record of acquisitions and working with US and other regulators in full compliance with applicable processes and requirements. We are experienced, sophisticated, and disciplined in our use of capital markets with significant financial capacity for this transaction. We are proud of our strong investment-grade credit rating and have a strong history of closing transactions that are the right fit at the right value.
Thank you, Alex. Next question?
There's none.
No other questions.
We don't see any other questions. So without more question.
If there are no questions, thank you very-