Good morning. Welcome to the Restaurant Brands International First Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode today. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the conference over to Andrea John, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Restaurant Brands International's earnings call for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2016. A live broadcast of this call may be accessed through the Investor Relations page on our website at investor.rbi.com, and a recording will be available for replay. Joining me on the call today are Restaurant Brands International CEO Daniel Schwartz and CFO Joshua Kobza. The team will be available to answer questions during the Q&A portion of today's call. Today's earnings call and presentation contain forward-looking statements which are subject to various risks set forth in the press release issued this morning. This earnings call and presentation include non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings presentation and press release available on our website. Let's begin with the agenda for today's call on slide two.
Daniel will review first quarter highlights at Restaurant Brands International. He will then discuss brand-specific performance at Tim Hortons and Burger King. Josh will discuss consolidated financial results for the quarter. Daniel will share some concluding remarks before opening the call up for Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to Daniel.
Thank you, Andrea, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report our results for the first quarter of 2016 at RBI, led by the strong performance at our two iconic brands, Tim Hortons and Burger King. This quarter, we reported Adjusted EBITDA of $408 million and Adjusted Diluted EPS of $0.30 per share, setting a solid foundation for the remainder of the year. Starting on slide four, we achieved strong comparable sales growth at both brands this quarter. Successful marketing platforms, innovative product launches, and consistent focus on guest satisfaction led to global same-store sales growth of 5.6% for Tims and of 4.6% for Burger King. Strong sales momentum at both brands contributed to growth in franchisee profitability, building on the progress that we made last year to further improve our restaurant operators' bottom line.
On the development front, our restaurant count grew by 4.1% year-over-year, and we added 30 net new restaurants during the quarter. We continue to be encouraged by our strong development pipeline for the full year at both of our brands and are confident in our ability to accelerate the pace of restaurant growth versus the prior year. Favorable comparable sales and restaurant development led to first quarter system-wide sales growth of 7.9% and 10% at Tims and Burger King, respectively. These strong top-line results and consistent cost discipline contributed to RBI's Adjusted EBITDA of $408 million, which was up 23% organically compared to the prior year. Turning to slide six, it has been another positive quarter for Tim Hortons.
Continued strength in beverages as well as our food platforms across dayparts led to good results across all regions, with global comparable sales up by 5.6% during the quarter. Restaurant count was 3.2% up year-on-year, with 25 net new restaurants added during the quarter. System-wide sales grew by 7.9% in constant currency, and Tims Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 228 million grew by 35% organically versus the prior year results. Moving to slide seven, we discuss our first quarter highlights in Canada. Same-store sales growth of 5.6% was driven by successful limited time offerings such as the Pulled Pork Sandwich and the Croissan'wich, which was added to our breakfast offering. We also continued to experience good results with the relaunch of Nutella products starting in mid-March and drove strength in coffee with another great year of Roll Up The Rim.
While we were very pleased with the Q1 sales performance in Canada, I would note that there was a benefit to our comps from both the leap year effect and from better weather compared to the prior year. We're going to be facing some more challenging prior year comparable sales levels as we progress throughout the year. With net restaurant growth of 17, we grew the store count in Canada by 2% versus the prior year and continue to see significant opportunities to create value for all of our stakeholders through accelerated growth across regions and channels in our home market. Let's discuss our results for the Tims business in the U.S. on slide eight. First quarter comparable sales growth of 5.8% was driven by impactful product launches such as the Croissan'wich and strength in our base coffee business.
On the development front, we signed important new development agreements in Columbus and Indianapolis during the quarter, marking further progress in our strategy to build partnerships with well-capitalized strong operators who share our vision for the Tim Hortons brand in the United States. The quick succession of development agreements in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis starting in the fourth quarter of last year speaks to our commitment in finding the right partners and increasing our presence in the world's largest QSR market. We're excited to continue to bring great Tims restaurants to our guests in the United States. We look forward to supporting our new partners as they begin developing new restaurants in their respective markets while we continue to work on putting agreements in place with other attractive markets in the region.
In slide nine, we maintained our top-line momentum on TH International with comparable sales growth of 6.8%. Beverages and baked goods contributed to favorable results with local innovation and global platforms like grilled wraps contributing to continued momentum in the region. We've grown the restaurant count by 95% over the last 12 months and now operate in six countries across the Middle East, with strong prospects for further expansion in the region for many years to come. Turning to slide 11, let's discuss the first quarter results at Burger King. Our balanced approach to menu, marketing, image, and operations led to comparable sales growth of 4.6% while restaurant count grew by 4.3% year-over-year across developed and emerging markets.
This led to system-wide sales growth of 10% and Adjusted EBITDA growth of 10% on an organic basis to $180 million for the quarter. On slide 12, we had good results in the U.S. and Canada, with first quarter comparable sales growth of 4.4%. Performance was driven by impactful new product launches, including the launch of Grilled Dogs, which brought our signature flame grilling technique we've been perfecting for more than 60 years to hot dogs. We offered Grilled Dogs at more than 7,000 restaurants, and they have quickly become guest favorites. Similar to what I mentioned regarding Tim Hortons, Burger King's U.S. and Canada business positively benefited from better weather and a leap year impact in the first quarter. In addition, as we transitioned into Q2, we've seen sales levels soften a bit sequentially.
However, we remain very confident that we have the right strategy in place to deliver strong results for the year and for the long run. Turning to slide 13, EMEA recorded comparable sales growth of 3.6% for the quarter, with strength in Russia, Spain, and the U.K. Restaurant count grew by 7% year-over-year, led by Russia, Spain, France, and Turkey. In Russia, our joint venture has plans to re-accelerate the pace of development in 2016, while in Spain, our newest joint venture is up and running, and we expect it to be a significant contributor to our full-year growth. On slide 14, APAC comparable sales growth for the quarter was 4.7%, driven by growth in China, where we saw double-digit same-store sales growth as well as strong performance in Korea and Japan.
Restaurant count grew by 18% year-over-year, with 24 net new restaurants for the quarter, with notable openings in China and India, two of our most important joint ventures that have been formed in the past few years. Moving to slide 15, we achieved strong same-store sales growth of 10.1%, led by excellent results in Brazil and Argentina. Our restaurant count grew by 5% year-over-year, mostly driven by Burger King Brazil. I'll now turn it over to Josh, who will discuss the financial results for the quarter.
Thanks, Daniel. Let's turn to slide 17, where we review RBI financial results for the quarter. In addition to restaurant growth over the past 12 months, our strong same-store sales, along with discipline on costs at Tims and Burger King, resulted in first quarter Adjusted EBITDA of $408 million, which grew 23% on an organic basis versus prior year results. Adjusted net income increased 92% year-over-year to CAD 142 million, or $0.30 per share, as we transition to a less capital-intensive development model at Tims and achieved interest expense savings, primarily as a result of last year's debt refinancing. Last May, we paid down CAD 300 million of total debt and repriced our term loan to L plus 275 basis points with a 1% LIBOR floor.
Furthermore, in December of last year, we repurchased 8.15 million partnership exchangeable units, resulting in diluted weighted average shares of 468.4 million on an as-converted basis. Moving to slide 18, we achieved free cash flow of CAD 190 million during the quarter, driven by Adjusted EBITDA growth and the transition to a franchisee-led development model. We maintained a balanced approach to capital allocation, returning capital to shareholders, paying down our debt, and reinvesting in the business. This quarter, we allocated capital across debt repayment of CAD 17 million and dividends of CAD 128 million, ending the quarter with CAD 826 million in cash. Turning to slide 19, we show our capital structure. As of March 31st, 2016, our total debt was CAD 9 billion, and our net leverage was 4.7 times LTM Adjusted EBITDA, down approximately 0.5 turns year-over-year. Moving on to slide 20.
On April 27th, 2016, the RBI board of directors declared a dividend of CAD 0.15 per common share and partnership exchangeable unit of RBI LP, payable on July 6th, 2016. I'll now hand it back to Daniel for concluding remarks.
Thanks, Josh. By increasing the presence of our brands around the world and improving the quality of every guest experience in our restaurants, we are driving positive same-store sales growth and increased profitability for our franchise partners and for RBI. We're very encouraged with the progress this quarter and are excited by the long-term growth prospects for our brands. We have strong operating partners and dedicated employees all around the world who we believe will enable us to achieve our targets, and we look forward to updating you on our progress again next quarter. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll now open up the call for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star two. Again, to ask a question, it's star one. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Nicole Miller of Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. A couple product and development questions. On the product side in Burger King, did the Grilled Dogs help mix shift? Was that used as an entrée or as an add-on item primarily?
Hey, Nicole. It's Daniel. We're really pleased with the launch of the Grilled Dogs this quarter. As we had discussed last time, this is one of the larger product launches that we've had in some time, our way of bringing flame grilling to a great product that folks know and love. We saw both. We saw new guests coming to come try the Grilled Dogs. We saw existing guests adding Grilled Dogs to their meals. We saw it as a mix of entrées and add-ons. It was a nice healthy mix with a good ticket average for us. We're really pleased with the performance of the Grilled Dogs, both from a guest satisfaction and from a franchise profitability standpoint.
Turning to development, how can we think about development through the year? I know it's difficult because it's franchised and there's only so much in your control, and obviously you're growing globally. Should we look for this 1Q as the pace for the rest of the year, or an acceleration potentially as we go through the year?
Yeah. Hey, Nicole. It's Daniel again. We would look to see the pace of growth across both brands accelerate for the balance of the year. We're really excited about the outlook for restaurant growth at Restaurant Brands International. On the Tim Hortons front, you've seen some of the development agreements that we've put in place in the U.S. where we're actively expanding the brand. We have a long track record in the U.S., 25-year track record with Tim Hortons, have around 650 restaurants today, and we've signed important development agreements in places like Cincinnati, Columbus, most recently Indianapolis. We're excited to see these come to life and bring this great Tim Hortons guest experience to folks in these markets. We would see initiatives like this enable us to accelerate the pace of growth on the Tims front.
On the Burger King front, similarly, new master franchise agreements that we've signed in the last year and a half, places like Spain, Germany, Italy. As you know, last year, our excellent operating partners in Burger King France acquired and now are in the process of converting Quick restaurants. We're excited to see the pace of development accelerate in France through the conversion of Quick restaurants. We're seeing things ramp back up in Russia. Lots of good things. Both brands all around the world give us confidence in our ability to accelerate the pace of net restaurant growth at RBI this year.
Just a last big picture question. As you look down the road, this is well into the future, how do you view your ability to grow the portfolio of brands and really leverage the human capital, both corporate and the franchise network you've built, the operational playbook, and really balance that with access to capital?
Yeah. What we like about our business, the industry that we operate in, the incredibly iconic brands that we own, there's so much room for organic growth. I talked about all those countries between both of the brands, I didn't even mention all the Tims international projects that we're working on as well. We feel like there's so much headroom in front of us to grow our brands and our business organically. You saw this quarter, we grew our organic EBITDA by over 20%. We feel like we have so much on our plate, we're just focused on running our two brands. If we run our two brands really well, we can continue to deliver great value for our guests, our franchisees, our employees, our shareholders for the long run. We're just focused on the two brands right now.
Thank you.
Thanks, Nicole.
Our next question comes from Will Slabaugh of Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks guys. This is actually Billy on for Will right now. Wondering if you could just elaborate a little bit more on the comment you made regarding a little bit of sales softening to start 2Q and whether or not there are any underlying geographical trends or maybe any day part trends that you might be able to speak to. Thanks.
It's Daniel. The comment in reference to the Burger King business. Internationally, we saw the strong pace continue. We did see the trend soften a bit in the U.S. As it's been our policy in the past that if we saw a departure from trend, we'd mention. We don't see anything particular in the day parts worth going into. What I'd say is we're confident in the strategy, focused on the guests, focused on our owners' profits, and we're really confident in our outlook for the full year and for the long term.
Thanks. That's helpful and congrats on a great quarter.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Joseph Buckley of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. This is Greg Francfort on for Joe. On the Tim Hortons business, the cost of sales margin this quarter, very strong. I'm just wondering what primarily is driving that. Is that company store closures? Is that the Tim Hortons distribution business that you guys are able to take some costs out there?
Hi, Greg, it's Josh. Good morning. There are three primary drivers that I would call out for you. The first one is that we have a significantly lower number of VIEs this year. We've managed to reduce the number of VIEs that we have by basically turning more of those into normal franchise agreements. The second piece is we've been able to grow our retail business very significantly year-over-year, and that business line has higher margins than the overall segment has had historically. The third piece is, as you've mentioned, we have been able to achieve some cost reductions in the overall supply chain business. Those are the three big drivers that have allowed us to improve the margins in that segment.
Got it. Could you just give us an update on where you stand with the Quick transaction and maybe the pace of conversions or how many you've done so far?
Yeah. I think as Dan mentioned earlier, we closed the transaction at the end of last year, and we're working very closely with our partners in France to move forward with the conversions of the Quick restaurants in France. We're really pleased with the pace that we're moving together with our partners and the local franchisees in France. We haven't given any guidance, but we're moving as quickly as possible to begin converting restaurants this year.
The last one for me, just China, I know you talked about the fourth quarter and last year comping up 15%. What have you seen into early 2016? Has that market continued to post results in that range?
Yeah. We've seen very strong continued results in our Burger King China business. We've made such incredible progress there in the past few years. We accelerated the pace of restaurant growth, improved unit-level economics, bringing the great Burger King experience to more and more guests throughout China. We really attribute that to having some of the best operating partners in the world in our partners from Tab Gida, who are leading the efforts there in China.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Brian Bittner of Oppenheimer and Company. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks very much. Just going back to the sales trends comments on the Burger King U.S. business. I realize the trend's not something that is too worrisome, but from your perspective, what do you think is the main driver of the softening? Do you think it's a weather impact change, or are you seeing something competitively that you want to point out, or is this more just in line with the softening of the entire industry maybe?
Yeah, Brian, it's Daniel. It's hard to say. I think you're right, the comment was limited to the BK U.S. business internationally. We've seen the business continue to go on a strong pace. The industry is always competitive. In the first quarter, we did have a little bit of a benefit from some better weather. There was the extra day from the leap year. As we said in the past, the industry is always competitive. It's our job to kind of grow independent of macro situation. We have a policy that if we depart a bit from trend, we'll let you know. Like I said, we're still confident in our strategy, driving guest satisfaction, driving franchise owner profitability.
We've made a lot of progress in the Burger King business in the U.S. over the past few years, going from 1.1 million per restaurant to 1.3 million per restaurant. It's our job to continue growing from there, delivering on that great guest experience, further growing our franchise profitability, and we feel really good about our outlook for the full year and for the long term in the Burger King U.S. business. Some quarters will be stronger than others, and that's how our business works, but we still feel really good about things.
No, totally understand. Thanks for that. Just second question is, I know it's not that big of an impact to your profitability because it's mostly franchise, but the restaurant margins for Burger King, they're quite incredible. I don't think we've really seen anything like this out of Burger King, almost 20% restaurant margins year-over-year. What's really driven that? Is that really a commodity thing, or what are you leveraging there? How did you get that much margin expansion in the company-owned stores?
Hi, Brian. This is Josh. What I would say is we've talked quite a lot about how we've been able to drive significant increases in sales through 2015. You saw solid sales performance at Burger King in the U.S. in Q1 of 2016 as well. That's driven meaningful increases in profitability at restaurant levels for both our franchise partners and for our company-owned restaurants. I think what you're seeing in our restaurant-level profitability is a very positive trend, and we're seeing that for our partners at the franchise level as well.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Mark Petrie of CIBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. You spoke about accelerating the net restaurant growth. I guess I just wanted to ask specifically about the BK banner in the U.S., what you see as the potential for that, and what your decision criteria would be in terms of adding new locations.
Yeah. It's Daniel. We definitely see an opportunity to grow the size of the BK U.S. business, both in terms of our sales per restaurant and in terms of the number of restaurants. We've worked closely with our franchise partners over the last five-plus years to invest alongside them in re-imaging our restaurants, and we've made a lot of progress on that front. This, we felt, was the best priority for us and our franchisees to devote our resources to accelerating the pace of re-imaging in the past. If you rewind a few years ago, we had about 10% of the restaurants in the United States at Burger King with a modern image, having been renovated. At the end of last year, we took that number up to 50%.
You're going to continue seeing us to invest in this in order to provide that great atmosphere and that overall great guest experience.
However, as you mentioned, we do see an opportunity now to also begin accelerating the pace of growth in Burger King in the U.S., as is the case all around the world.
I think if I can just add to that. From my prior comment, I think one of the biggest things that we focus on is franchisee profitability. You've seen a big change in franchisee profitability in the U.S., and that's fundamentally what will drive growth in the system. There's clearly a huge opportunity for us to expand the footprint of Burger King in the U.S. and bring the brand to more communities around the country. As we increase the sales of our restaurants and increase the profitability of our restaurants, we're going to make it even more attractive to do that for our franchise partners.
Okay, thanks. That's really helpful. Then Josh, I guess just to follow up on a previous comment of yours with regards to supply chain efficiency at Tims. Could you just talk a little bit about what the initiatives there have been and what the future opportunity is from here?
Across the supply chain, our number one focus is just making sure that we supply the best products and the best service to our restaurants at the right cost to our restaurants. That's really what we've been focused on. I think we've been doing a good job of that over the course of the past 18 months.
Do you see continued opportunity?
Yeah, we're always going to be focused on improving our operations across supply chain, as with all of our operations around the world.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Andrew Charles of Cowen and Company. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. Was curious about BK U.S. You mentioned success of Grilled Dogs in 1Q, curious why you didn't call out the 5 for $4 promotion driving sales, as you mentioned on the 4Q call that January sales were off to a strong start.
Hi, Andrew, it's Daniel. Look, I think, when you look at what drives our results, in the Burger King U.S. business or any of the Burger King businesses, or even this would apply to Tims as well. It's kind of all four pillars of our strategy. It's the menu, marketing, image, and great operations. There's no silver bullet. There's no single product. The Grilled Dogs did well. We'd like to think that we have a balanced approach with respect to premium and value. We have products at full price, like the Grilled Dogs and Chicken Fries and our core Whopper sandwich. Yes, there are value offerings, 5 for $4 being one of them. There's no single silver bullet. I think we saw a nice benefit from all the restaurants that we've reimaged over the past few years.
We're seeing a benefit from delivering better and better great guest service. It's our job to offer kind of convenience and value across our whole menu.
Maybe similar then, just in April and focused on what's in your control. You were featuring the Angriest Whopper at the beginning of the month and then quickly pivoted back to 5 for $4 Grilled Dogs and now Chicken Rings. Is it fair to say the intensified focus on value is needed to continue to compete in the current quick-service environment, just given the aggressive dynamics you're seeing?
Yeah, Andrew, it's Daniel. The quick service restaurant industry is a competitive one. It's always been a competitive industry. It's our job to kind of grow independent of what's going on from a macroeconomic perspective. I think you see us always with a balanced approach. Every quarter, every year, we have good offerings in the value end, we have good offerings in core, good offerings in premium. You'll see us playing across the full spectrum because that's what our guests want.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from Karen Holthouse of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Keith on for Karen. Congrats on a great quarter. We've seen Burger King work with two bundle options in the past, the 5 for $4 and the 2 for $5. What do you think the puts and takes have been between the two in terms of operations, margin profile, consumer resonance, flexibility, and the ability to keep new news in front of consumers? Would be curious for any thoughts you're willing to share.
Yeah. Thanks, Harsh. Like we said before, we believe in taking a balanced approach. We like to offer our guests good value. We think the 5 for $4, the 2 for $5, those are two examples of good value. We think the Grilled Dogs is great value at the price point at which we launched it. We actually think across the whole menu, we have plenty of good value offerings, and it's our job to have a balance between premium and value. You've seen us do this in the past. You've seen us do this today. What we can say is when we look at the guest satisfaction levels, we see them continuing to trend positively.
At the end of the day, the best metric for us to look at is the growth in our franchise profitability, which has been strong last year and has continued to be strong into 2016. So if we can drive great guest satisfaction, drive continued restaurant owner profitability, then we feel like we're doing the right thing. Thank you.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Palmer of RBC. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. It's actually Eric Gonzalez in for Dave Palmer. I just want to circle back to the Tims supply chain business for a second. Obviously, you're achieving impressive cost savings in that part of the business. I think it'd be helpful if you can help us visualize exactly how you're achieving those savings. Perhaps if you could provide an example or two, I think it might be very helpful. Thanks.
Hey, Eric, it's Josh. As I said, across cost of sales, I think you're seeing there's a few different big factors in there. They're all driving a meaningful piece of kind of the margin expansion that you're seeing. Obviously, we have a pretty big initiative going on where we've been converting some of the VIE restaurants to normal franchise agreements. That's affecting the margins in that business line. We have a pretty big and growing retail business that's present, especially in Canada, but both in the U.S. That's been a big focus for us and something that, especially through the back half of last year and the first half of this year, has been a big driver of performance. Also, as you said, we have been able to find some efficiencies through our supply chain business.
I would emphasize that there are all of those things happening in that segment of the business that are helping us achieve better performance.
Maybe I'll circle back this way. In order of magnitude, is the VIEs the biggest contributor, or is it the retail business or the supply chain?
We haven't provided disclosure on the exact size of each of those.
Okay, fair enough.
Thanks, Eric.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from Keith Siegner of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Dennis Geiger on for Keith. Thanks for the question. Some of your competitors have announced quality upgrades in recent quarters. Could you comment some on how you think Burger King stands as it relates to quality scores? Are there any upgrades to core menu items currently being contemplated?
Yeah, sure. It's Daniel. On the Burger King front, we think we have great quality. As you know, we flame-grill all of our burgers, all of our grilled chicken sandwiches, which is an excellent taste, an excellent flavor that our guests have known and love. The Whopper is America's favorite burger, continues to be America's favorite burger, we're really excited about that. Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Hartley of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thanks. VIEs, could you tell me how many were converted in the quarter, and how many are remaining? How many VIEs do you have left in the system? Should I assume they're all at Tim Hortons?
Yeah, of course. There were 22 fewer versus Q4, compared to the prior year, there were 139 fewer. At the end of Q1, we have 119 at Tim Hortons.
Okay, 119. When you're converting these over, you just convert it to the new structure of royalty plus wholesale margin on products you supply to them. Of course, you're surrendering all the costs related to the in-store operations. I've got that right, correct?
Generally, we're converting them from what were historically, for the most part, what you knew in the old Tim Hortons world as 80/20 agreements.
Right
to more traditional franchise agreements that, as you said, are more based on kind of our traditional royalty and where we own properties. We'll earn rents on those agreements.
Okay, in terms of properties, has there been any sales of property in the quarter, and what is the outlook for your real estate holdings going forward? Is that something you want to sell or leverage in some way?
We're really happy with our existing real estate portfolio. We're not making material real estate sales. We don't have any intention to sell the broader real estate portfolio. As was the case with the history with Burger King, we've kept all of the real estate that we've had, and we've maintained that portfolio, and I think probably we have the intention of doing the same thing with the real estate portfolio that we have at Tims. We like the business, and we have the intention of keeping it.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Thank you.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Daniel Schwartz for any closing remarks.
Thank you, and thanks, everybody, for joining us today. As we said before, we're focused on two things, which is delivering that great guest experience across both brands and driving our franchisees' profitability. We think if we continue to do these, it'll support long-term sustainable value for our guests, our franchisees, our employees, and our shareholders, and we look forward to updating you on this again next quarter. Thank you.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your line.