Good morning, and welcome to the Restaurant Brands International First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by 0. Slides are available and may be accessed and are downloadable on the webcast portal. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Anisha Datt, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Restaurant Brands International's earnings call for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2015. A live broadcast of this call may be accessed through the investor relations page on our website at investor.rbi.com. 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. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this earnings call and presentation include forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks set forth in the press release that we issued this morning. This earnings call and presentation include non-GAAP financial measures, the reconciliations of which are included in the presentation and in this morning's press release, both of which are available on our website.
Let's start on slide three with the agenda for today's call. First, Daniel will discuss first quarter highlights at Restaurant Brands International. He will highlight Tim Hortons and Burger King brand-specific initiatives, business strategy, and performance updates. He'll turn it over to Josh to discuss financial results. Daniel will close the call with some concluding remarks before opening it up for Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to Daniel.
Thanks, Anisha. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for our first full quarter of results as Restaurant Brands International. We're excited to have two independently managed iconic brands under the same umbrella. In the first quarter, we achieved strong comparable sales growth and positive net restaurant growth across both the Tim Hortons and Burger King brands. We continue to execute on our brand-specific strategies in order to deliver value to all of our stakeholders, our guests, franchisees, employees, shareholders, and the communities in which our restaurants operate. We have made strong progress on a number of initiatives that will serve as a sturdy platform upon which to build over the course of 2015. Starting on slide five, we're very pleased with the results in the first quarter. Tim Hortons and Burger King increased global same-store sales by 5.3% and 4.6% respectively.
This marked our best quarterly comparable store sales performance for Tim's in three years, and for Burger King in nearly seven years. At Tim's, Canada same-store sales grew by 4.9%, while U.S. same-store sales at Burger King were up 6.8%. We attribute these favorable results to our consistent execution of key strategic initiatives with macroeconomic tailwinds also playing a role. We also saw some benefit from better weather year-over-year in the U.S. On the development front, we achieved net restaurant growth of 68. This represents 5% growth on a trailing 12-month basis. Consistent with historical development trends, we started to build our restaurant pipeline in the first quarter and expect to see acceleration of NRG into the back half of the year. The continuation of strong same-store sales and development resulted in system-wide sales growth of 8.1% at Tim's and 9.6% at BK in constant currency.
We believe these favorable top-line results contributed to improved unit economics for our franchisees and contributed to RBI organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 18% compared to pro forma first quarter results from the prior year. We also continue to transition to a franchise-led development model at the Tim Hortons brand, which led to growth in RBI EBITDA less CapEx versus pro forma Q1 of last year. Let's spend some time now reviewing the highlights of each of our brands. Starting with Tim Hortons on Slide seven, global comparable sales were up by 5.3% in the quarter. Recently launched innovative products such as our Dark Roast coffee and our Crispy Chicken Sandwich continue to drive sales in both of our Canada and U.S. restaurants. Strong unit growth, combined with positive same-store sales growth, system-wide sales growth of 8.1%.
Our Q1 performance was a direct result of the hard work and dedication of our Tim Hortons team. The next slide highlights our business strategy for Tim's across our three geographic markets, Canada, the U.S., and international. We have a fantastic restaurant base in Canada, and we'll look to build on our key learnings as we bring Tim's to additional markets in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Starting with Canada on slide nine, our lead, defend, and grow strategy is critical to the brand's overall success. As we've stated in the past, we're determined to build on our strong position to defend our core business and grow in new formats. The first part of our strategy to grow in Canada centers around menu innovation with a real emphasis on introducing new products and continuing to expand our lunch daypart presence via increased combo penetration.
We had a very successful product launch this quarter with our delicious new Philly Steak & Cheese Panini. The Philly Steak & Cheese Panini gave our guests yet another compelling lunch option alongside our Crispy Chicken Sandwich line and many other compelling offerings. In breakfast, our guests continued to really enjoy our Dark Roast blend. The second part of our strategy to grow Canada and extend brand reach entails growing our presence in core urban areas through non-traditional format. We made tangible progress on our domestic expansion this quarter with an increase in year-over-year openings. Now let's turn to our strategy in the U.S. market on slide 10. We've had three main objectives in the U.S., build a scalable and profitable business, expand our presence in core and priority markets, and continue to improve unit economics.
The first part of our U.S. strategy looks to increase average unit volumes through enhanced top-line growth. The second part of our strategy focuses on expansion with strong local operating partners. It's all about selecting the right partners to develop the brand and run excellent restaurants. The last component of the strategy entails improving unit profitability to create an increasingly compelling franchise opportunity. We're excited to increase Tim Hortons U.S. presence and bring such a great concept to more communities across America. On slide 11, we outline our international strategy. We like to show this in graphic display to emphasize our under-penetration outside of our core Canada and U.S. markets.
We believe the Tim Hortons brand has tremendous potential for international growth and system-wide job creation, we're truly excited to have the opportunity to share one of Canada's most iconic brands with the rest of the world in the coming years. Moving on to slide 12, we can see same-store sales and net restaurant growth for Tim Hortons by geographic market. Strong sales growth in Canada was mainly driven by the continued success of Dark Roast and product launches and promotions in our lunch day part. In the U.S., we achieved same-store sales growth of just under 9% for the quarter, mainly driven by Dark Roast coffee sales, as well as strength in breakfast and cold beverages. Let's now turn to slide 14 for the first quarter highlights at Burger King. We continued the strong momentum from 2014, which has led to favorable financial results to start the year.
The execution of our key strategic initiatives has been vital in growing profitability for our franchisees and delivering a great guest experience. Global same-store sales growth of 4.6% represented our eighth consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales growth and helped to drive system-wide sales growth of 9.6% in constant currency. As can be seen with the three charts in this slide, our first quarter results across these three metrics compare favorably to first quarter 2014 results. On slide 15, we lay out our four pillar strategy in the U.S. and Canada, as well as our international expansion strategy. We established this four pillar strategy back in 2011 and have executed on it every single year since then. Internationally, we continue to accelerate our year-on-year pace of development.
Having a presence in approximately 100 countries and U.S. territories around the world, we have a strong foundation from which to open more restaurants and continue to see opportunities to expand in new and existing markets. Looking at our menu and marketing strategy on slide 16, new products and promotions help to drive our strong first quarter sales results in the U.S. and Canada. To that end, I'd like to point out three successful products that drove positive sales and were well received by our guests. The first was the Spicy BLT WHOPPER. It's worth noting that this product did not increase behind-the-counter complexity and contributed to incremental franchisee profitability. The second was the Bacon Cheddar TenderCrisp, another example of an operationally simple, yet very impactful product that complements our burger offerings.
Third, I'd like to highlight our fan favorite Croissan'wich breakfast sandwich, which was promoted in our two for CAD 4 breakfast lineup without introducing a single incremental SKU into the kitchen. The promotion helped us drive the very important breakfast sales day part for us. On the marketing initiatives during the quarter, we were the official burger of the NCAA and the Final Four for the second year in a row. As many of you know, we also brought back another guest favorite, our Chicken Fries, at the end of March. Turning to slide 17, we'd like to highlight the re-imaging component of our four pillar strategy, as it has been instrumental in helping us create top-line growth at the restaurant level and transform the image of our brand in the U.S.
After a significant effort by our franchise partners over the past three years, we've made huge strides toward remodeling our store base. Having already hit our 40% target of restaurants on the modern image in the U.S. and Canada at the end of last year, we've continued to push forward restaurant image updates in the first quarter, not just in the U.S., but all around the world. Favorable sales trends of re-imaged restaurants offer our franchisees a very compelling return on their investment. On slide 18, we show some of our restaurants in key international markets for Burger King. Our efforts internationally this quarter focused on building our development pipelines for the quarters to come. Our joint ventures in India and Russia and France and South Africa continue to perform well, and we remain very excited about growth opportunities in these important markets.
We look forward to updating you more on the progress of our international development as we convert our restaurant pipelines in these countries into openings over the course of the year. Turning to slide 19, we can see that all the Burger King markets achieved positive same-store sales growth for the quarter. The U.S. and Canada reported comparable sales growth of 6.9%, driven by our continued commitment to the four pillar strategy. In EMEA, we achieved same-store sales growth of 0.7%. Despite some notable macroeconomic headwinds in Russia, we continue to grow our same-store sales there. Performance in the U.K. and Spain were also strong but were partially offset by some softness in Germany. For the first quarter, APAC was Burger King's largest driver of net restaurant growth, driven by Korea and China. Overall, APAC same-store sales were up by 1.7% year-over-year.
Lastly, moving on to our LAC market, we reported same-store sales growth of just under 5% for the quarter due to strength in Brazil and improved performance in Mexico and Puerto Rico. I'll now turn the call over to Josh, who will discuss RBI's financial results for the quarter.
Thanks, Daniel. I would like to start today by mentioning that we have published preliminary pro forma figures in our earnings release and in a separate 8-K to be filed today in order to facilitate prior year comparisons and help investors to better understand the underlying trends in our business. These figures reflect the financial performance of RBI as if the merger between Tim Hortons and Burger King had occurred at the beginning of 2014 and are based on a number of additional assumptions that are highlighted in the 8-K. The release also includes non-GAAP financial figures, the reconciliations of which are contained therein. Let's start on slide 21. For the first quarter of 2015, RBI adjusted EBITDA for the quarter grew 18% organically compared to the pro forma first quarter of 2014.
Our strong performance this quarter was primarily driven by favorable comparable sales growth and net unit growth across both brands, as Daniel discussed earlier. We were also able to achieve cost savings in G&A across both brands this year, leading to an approximately CAD 19 million reduction in management G&A versus the pro forma 2014. While we continue to manage the brands separately, our common culture of ownership and implementation of zero-based budgeting were a meaningful contributor to bottom-line results. D&A for Q1 was CAD 51 million. Higher depreciation at Tim Hortons is a result of a more capital-intensive business model historically, and we expect that in the future, growth will be based on a more capital light model, particularly in the U.S. and international markets.
Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was just below 23%, which was slightly lower than our prior year rate due to the mix of taxable income in various jurisdictions around the world. Adjusted net income of CAD 84 million led to adjusted earnings per share of CAD 0.18 per share based on an as converted diluted share count of 476 million. Moving to slide 22, we generated CAD 215 million of free cash flow during the quarter. This reflects the strong growth in adjusted EBITDA, as well as a decline in capital expenditures for the pro forma company as we continued the transition to a more capital light model. During the quarter, we completed a tender offer for the majority of Tim Hortons legacy bonds, resulting in the repurchase of CAD 1,158,000,000 in debt using cash balances that were raised in connection with the transaction.
Our change in cash balance during the quarter, as reported in U.S. dollars, reflects approximately $60 million of translation impact of a weaker Canadian dollar on the Canadian dollar balances that we had reserved for this purpose. Finally, in addition to normal course amortization of our Term Loan B facility, we prepaid an additional CAD 43 million of our term loans in accordance with our loan agreements to offset the CAD 43 million of legacy Tim Hortons bonds that were not tendered and remain outstanding. On slide 23, we show our capital structure as of RBI was levered 5.2 times. We ended the quarter with total net debt of CAD 8.2 billion, down roughly CAD 200 million from the previous quarter due to our cash flow generation for the quarter.
Turning now to slide 24, on April 27th, the RBI Board of Directors declared a dividend of CAD 0.10 per share and per partnership exchangeable unit of RBI Limited Partnership for the second quarter of 2015. This represents a CAD 0.01 increase in dividends per share compared to the previous quarter. The dividend will be payable on July 3rd to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 29th. I'll now hand it back over to Daniel for some concluding remarks.
Thanks, Josh. Wrapping up on slide 25, we were able to deliver positive comparable sales and net restaurant growth across both of our independently managed brands, creating value for our franchisees and plenty of opportunities for our employees. We're encouraged by our first quarter results, recognize that we still have tremendous opportunities to create value for all of our stakeholders for both brands for many, many years to come. Thank you so much for joining us today, and with that, we'll now open up the call for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Nicole Miller with Piper Jaffray.
Thanks. Good morning. Two quick ones. On Burger King first, you talked about some of the items that drove comp. Can you talk about how that changed sales by day part? Where do you stand today in terms of breakfast, lunch, dinner, or however you look at it in terms of sales by day part?
Hey, Nicole, it's Daniel. Thanks. Overall, we had quite a strong quarter on the Burger King front, and I'm pleased to report it was actually across multiple day parts. We mentioned lunch day part, we had another successful quarter with our Two For Five promotion, some new products, including the Spicy Fish, that did quite well. We had some good WHOPPER limited time offers, like the Spicy BLT WHOPPER. On the breakfast side, it was also another good quarter led by the fan favorite, Croissan'wich. Breakfast still stands around 13%, 14% of our sales. It was one of our strongest growing day parts in the quarter.
Thanks. Just quickly on Tim Hortons, when you talk about the capital-light structure or relative capital-light structure going forward, can you give us a little bit more information what that means? On the international or rest of world development
Do you plan that initially to be in the five existing markets today or also at the same time entering new markets?
Yes. Thanks, Nicole. It's Josh. As we've mentioned previously, Tim Hortons has historically had a more capital-intensive business model. We continue to be fully committed to remodeling restaurants in Canada and committed to participating with our franchisees in investing in remodeling the restaurants as we think that's a key strategic pillar for both Burger King and Tim Hortons. When we look forward at the development model, we see more of the growth in the future coming from markets like the U.S. and some of the other markets that we'd like to grow in around the world. We expect that business model will probably be more franchisee-led from a development perspective, which should lead over time to a more capital-light development model. I don't know if, Dan, if you want to touch on the markets.
Nicole, on the international side, we've spoken before, you know our international goals are quite ambitious for Tim Hortons. I would remind you, it was about a year after owning Burger King before we signed up our first international partnership in the master franchise joint venture structure. We're excited about the prospects of taking Tim's globally, and we'd envision using the same master franchise joint venture model. There's no shortage of interest from partners around the world in taking Tim's, expanding Tim's around the world. I would say, as you know, it's all about having the right structure, the right partnership. Give us some time. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Charles with Cowen and Company.
Great. Thank you. Daniel, when we think about Tim Hortons U.S. development, should we think of it as skew into existing markets like Upstate New York, Ohio, and Michigan, or more so under new area development agreements? Josh, FX was about a 10%-11% headwind to adjusted EBITDA. I know you previously guided to about 8% for the year. Just wanted to see if there's any updated thinking around that.
Yeah. Daniel, I'll take the development question and pass it over to Josh for FX. We're encouraged by the strong results that we've seen in the Tim Hortons U.S. business. You saw the same-store sales were just under 10% for the quarter. As the business is growing and unit profitability is getting increasingly stronger and the return on investment of building new Tim Hortons is getting increasingly more compelling, naturally, we're seeing a lot more interest in expanding the Tim Hortons brand in the U.S. Yeah, I'd say the brand does quite well in some of the markets in which it operates today, I think that some of the biggest opportunities to just further expand around those areas today. Josh, if you want to handle the FX question.
Yeah. Andrew, thanks for the question. To your point, the FX impact for the quarter was a little bit higher than what we thought when we announced the fourth quarter earnings. If you look at some of the key currencies that our business operates in, both the Canadian dollar, the euro, and some of the other emerging market currencies, we did see a little bit of a further deterioration in those exchange rates versus the US dollar through the rest of the quarter, which is what drove a slightly larger impact in the quarter than what we had previously thought for the full year.
The Canadian dollar's come back a little bit in the last week or so. I expect that the FX rates will continue to be volatile, and we'll continue to give you guys visibility each quarter into the underlying organic performance of the business and the FX impact.
Thanks.
Okay. Thank you. The next question comes from Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer & Co.
Thanks very much. Good morning. Just two questions. First, on a disclosure question, then a question on the business. First, obviously, there's a lot of moving pieces here with the reporting of your new entity, and I think you said you're going to file another 8-K later today. Are we going to be able to see the detailed breakdown of the P&Ls between the regions? Or is this now how you're going to report with just two segments, just the Burger King and Tim Hortons segment on their own?
Yeah, Brian, it's Josh. Thank you for the question. When we went through the course of the last quarter, we reevaluated our business in the context of the merger. Given the way that our organization is now set up, the key decision-makers are the two brand presidents who report to the CEO, and we felt that it makes the most sense. It's how we look at the business as we look at the financial performance of the two brands, and we felt that that was the appropriate way to present the business going forward. The way we'll present the financials is that we'll give you the financial performance by reportable segment, which will be Burger King and Tim Hortons, and we'll also give you additional detail on some of our geographical markets where you'll get key KPIs, things like same-store sales and NRGs.
You get a sense of what's driving the results in some of those key geographies. The financial reporting segments will just be at the brand level going forward.
Okay, thanks. Just a question on Tim Hortons and the numbers. Clearly great results. When you adjusted EBITDA ex the FX, it grew at about 20%, which really doubled your revenue. This leverage of higher profit growth against the revenue, I think really reflects the zero-based budgeting approach you guys are quickly putting through the business. I think G&A was down over 30% on a core basis. Can you talk a little bit about what drove this and maybe your thoughts on this dynamic going forward?
Yeah, Brian, it's Josh again. We were really pleased with the performance at Tim's this quarter. I think the real highlights are the same-store sales, where we continue to see improvement across both the Canadian and the U.S. market. That's great for us. It's really encouraging to see our strategic initiatives working and in driving better results for our franchisees as well. The same-store sales were a big driver across all pieces of our business, both franchise, property, and the supply chain business. On top of that, we've seen strong net restaurant growth, both over the past year and in the first quarter. We had a really strong start to the year. As we grow the restaurant base further, that's also going to be a driver of our results.
As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we were also able to achieve some savings on zero-based budgeting, on G&A, and that was across both brands, both at Burger King and at Tim Hortons. As we've mentioned repeatedly, we manage the brands separately. We think that's really important to have two really fantastic, high-quality, independently managed brands. We're going to share a common culture of ownership and accountability, and that means that we share things like zero-based budgeting. We put that in place at Tim Hortons as well, and that's allowed us to achieve savings and refocus the organization and our resources on the real key priorities, which, as we talked about, are growing the store base, in the U.S., around the world, and continuing to grow sales and profitability in Canada.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Joseph Buckley with Bank of America.
Thanks. Can you share some insights, maybe into the Burger King U.S. Canadian number and then the Tim Hortons Canadian number, how the same-store sales broke down between transaction and check?
Yeah. Joe, it's Daniel. As a practice, you know we don't disclose the breakdown, but we can give some color into what drove the strong results across both brands. Again, at Burger King, as you know, we put in place our four-pillar strategy about four and a half years ago and have been consistently executing on it every quarter since. Menu, marketing, image, operations. There's no silver bullet. We went from 10% of our restaurants being remodeled to just over 40%. Our franchisees are running better and better restaurants. Our goal is to drive higher sales, higher franchise profitability, so our franchisees can continue to reinvest in the restaurants and deliver better and better guest experiences. That's what we're seeing on the Burger King side. On the Tim side, it's all about consistent execution and great operations.
Our franchisees in Canada are running incredibly strong restaurants. We're doing really well on the operational side, and we've also had a couple of great new products, like the Dark Roast coffee blend that we launched late last year that guests really love. We've done a really good job expanding the lunch day part. We had some good product wins across the Philly Steak & Cheese Panini, the Crispy Chicken Club Sandwich. As we're selling more and more at lunch and increasing our combo penetration, couple that with continued strength in coffee and breakfast, we're seeing a real positive momentum on the Tim Hortons side. We're pleased with the results across both the brands this quarter.
I think just to add to that, Joe, I think a couple of exciting highlights in each of those markets. We brought back the Chicken Fries again later in the quarter. I think one of the exciting things about that is that we're promoting Chicken Fries pretty extensively across social and digital media. I think we're appealing to a younger demographic, some of the more millennial customers, and bringing more of those customers and getting them excited about coming back to Burger King restaurants again. On the Tim side, with the new Dark Roast coffee blend, we've really been able to drive improved momentum across coffee and make sure that we're selling more coffee in our restaurants. I think those two things have been really powerful in bringing new customers and additional customers into our restaurants.
Just one more on the Tim's U.S. plans. Pre-merger, I think Tim's was moving more capital light. Are you guys moving even more capital light, and will there be any change with the existing Tim's system? Daniel, when you talk about waiting a year or the BK experience being that it took a year to get master franchise agreements in place, should we expect the Tim's U.S. pickup to happen faster than that? I think you've kind of highlighted that as the initial focus in a prior call.
Joe, we're following the same path that Tim's brand management had been following in the U.S., in that we do think it makes sense to move to more of a franchisee-led development model. We're already in discussions with prospective partners in important markets where the brand does very well about accelerating the pace of Tim Hortons growth and it's all about having the right structure with the right operator who could run great restaurants and deliver that same incredible Tim Hortons experience that has made the brand what it is in Canada. We're excited about the prospects of accelerating the pace of Tim Hortons growth in the U.S., creating a lot of opportunities for employees, for franchisees. It's all about having the right partnership structure with the right operators, and just similarly on the international side, same idea.
Rather than rushing into setting everything up, taking our time, making sure we develop the right structures, the right partnerships. As you know, we have big goals for Tim Hortons, both here in the U.S. and internationally, and we look forward to talking more about it in the coming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from John Glass with Morgan Stanley.
Thanks. Good morning. I'm wondering if you have thoughts on the distribution business in Tims as you've gotten involved in managing it. Is this a business that you think has an opportunity to be more profitable as you look at the sibling companies that 3G owns and using best practices there? Are there parts of it that are maybe less essential or less value-add? How do you look at, in totality, that business and how it grows going forward and where the opportunities are?
Hi, John, it's Daniel. In Canada, the distribution of products to the restaurants, it's done in part by third-party distributors and in part by corporately-owned distributors. In the U.S., it's all third party. Really the way we look at it, our goal is to maximize franchisee profitability, and in order to do that, we need to have the best service and the best distribution delivery system to our restaurants. We're constantly evaluating what that method is, and at the end of the day, whatever decisions we make will really just be around what's going to result in the optimal distribution delivery system to our restaurants. That's something we look at from time to time. No plans, nothing really to report there. That's going to be what's going to be the driver of our goal, the optimal distribution in order to maximize franchisee profitability.
Got you. Just two more, if you can. One is just on the overall integration of the two businesses, and you've done a lot of work in Canada integrating, bringing the zero-based budgeting in. Is this the right run rate then to think about in Canada for the expense lower rate, and you expect continued progress in, say, the coming quarter?
Hey, John, it's Josh. We were very pleased with the savings that we saw in the first quarter really across both of the brands. As I said, our goal with our ownership mentality in zero-based budgeting is to always look for ways to be more efficient in the way we operate and focus our resources on growth and supporting the franchisees. We don't have any guidance for the outlook on Tims. Obviously, there was a reorganization that happened during the first quarter, there was some benefit there that I would expect to continue. We're also going to be reinvesting as we try to grow faster, both in the U.S. and around the world. No guidance on exactly where we go, but I think there are a couple of factors that go each way in the spending.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from David Palmer with RBC Capital Markets.
Good morning. On BK in the U.S., I'm curious how much value you think the value promotions, like 2 for 5, 10 nuggets for CAD 1.49, how much do you think those were important to your sales as a mix of your sales? Perhaps if you have some consumer perceptions over the last year, how much has the consumer increasingly viewed you as a good value due to these levers?
Yeah. Dave, it's Daniel. We're pleased to see and to report to you that we saw actually balanced growth across multiple day parts and across multiple offerings. We saw strength in the breakfast day part. We saw strength in value with our 2 for 5 offering. We also had some very successful WHOPPER limited time offerings in the quarter. On the premium side, the A.1. Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger continued to perform well. There was no single product or single layer that overly contributed to sales. I think more than anything, what's most important is that with the sales increase that you saw, we had one of the strongest quarters in a long time with respect to franchise profitability growth.
We think that the balanced approach that we're taking to menu innovation, launching high impact, high volume, operationally simple products, has really enabled us both to grow our sales, but to grow ourselves profitably. To enable our franchisees to earn more and more money, to reinvest back in the business, to continue to drive that great guest experience, which, as you know, creates this virtuous cycle.
Just a quick follow-up on your tax rate. It was a little over 22% this quarter. How should we think about the corporate tax rate going forward? Thanks.
Hey, Dave. This is Josh. You're right. We came in just below 23% for the quarter. It's a little bit lower than it was last year for BK. Really, it's a function of the mix of where the profits are earned around the world. We don't have any guidance or outlook for that, but the rate that we printed for the quarter was our best estimate for now as to what the rate would be given our current mix of business.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Brian Harbour with Wells Fargo.
Taking another shot at sales. You all expanded into delivery in multiple markets in the U.S., some of your other competitors are looking to go down the same path. I was wondering if you could comment on the success of delivery and what kind of mix it may be having as a % of sales, I've got a follow-up.
Hi, it's Daniel. Delivery is still quite small for us on the Burger King side. In certain markets, it has worked out pretty well, but it's not a meaningful contributor to the overall same-store sales. We're always looking for new and innovative ways of delivering a great guest experience, that's one that we are working with. Again, nothing meaningful today.
All right. My next question, Josh. When I look at CapEx for the year of the combined businesses, I was wondering if you could give us some type of guidance, considering that you're moving more to a capital-light initiative at THI. Thanks.
Brian, thanks for the question. If you noticed in our 10-K that we published, we said that at the time, we thought CapEx could be up to around CAD 180 million for the full year. It's still really early in the year, and generally for us, capital expenditures have been pretty back-end weighted. I don't really have an update on that number at this point.
Very good. Thank you for your time.
Of course.
Thank you. The next question comes from Karen Holthouse with Goldman Sachs.
Hey, thank you for taking the question. We've continued to hear more from other QSRs about investments in mobile technologies, mobile payment, mobile ordering. I'm just curious for any updated thoughts on what your roadmap is for the development and continued capabilities of your app.
Yeah. Hi, Karen. It's Daniel. We have good mobile apps across both of our brands, still with lots of work to do. We established a team just to be focused on this very important area of our business. We agree with you that this is an area that is changing quickly, and it's something that we need to be focused on and we are focused on. We look forward to updating you more on some of the initiatives that we have planned in the digital space in the coming quarters. We're pretty excited just to give us some time to report back on that one.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Keith Siegner with UBS.
Thanks. Just one simple one for me. You seem like folks that really wouldn't be that interested in the inefficiency of CAD 1 billion of cash on the balance sheet. When we think through our models kind of for this year and into next year, Josh, what should we think about modeling in terms of that cash balance and allocation of it to maybe more efficient, say, return opportunities, whether that's paying down debt, et cetera? Thanks.
Hi, Keith. It's Josh. It's a great question. You're right, we ended the quarter with about $1 billion U.S. dollars in cash. When I think about the use of that cash and the cash we'll generate going forward, obviously, we do have pretty meaningful interest payments on debt. We'll have our preferred dividends, and we've been paying a common dividend that's been growing pretty consistently over the last couple of years. To the extent that there's excess cash beyond what we feel we need to operate, and we generate excess cash, we may consider paying down some of our pre-payable debt to reduce our interest expense. That's something that we're constantly looking at our capital structure and ways to be more efficient, and that's definitely something that we'll look at over the next couple of quarters.
Is there a base level? You mentioned there having some base level of cash in order to properly maintain the business plus cushion. Any willingness to tell us kind of where you would be comfortable in terms of maintaining that cash balance?
I don't have a fixed number yet today, Keith, but I would say, I do believe it's lower than $1 billion .
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from David Hartley with Credit Suisse.
Yeah, thank you very much. Just thinking about new store growth, and Tim Hortons was double what we saw in Canada last year. Is there a plan to accelerate growth relative to what we've seen in previous years?
David, it's Josh. Thanks for the question. I think we were really pleased with net restaurant growth in Canada for the quarter. I think another great detail is it came across a number of different formats. We saw growth in traditional restaurants, non-traditional, and some of our smaller kiosks and self-serve. The team in Canada did a really fantastic job on net restaurant growth in the quarter, and I think we do have a very positive outlook for the year. Despite the fact that we already have a large store base, we are finding innovative new ways to bring the Tim Hortons experience to customers across Canada, where the brand is so well-loved. I think we are excited about the prospects for the year for Canada, for NRG and Canada.
I think it just continues to show our commitment to the country and investing in the country and creating job growth in the country.
Do you think the I think previous management had a store count loose target of maybe 4,000 stores or so. Is there a plan here just to accelerate the pace to that number, or do you think a number like that could easily be surpassed?
It's Daniel. We don't have a specific target, but we do feel comfortable and excited about the prospects of continuing to grow the brand and grow restaurants in existing and new formats in Canada for many, many years to come.
Okay, just two more. The dinner daypart opportunity in Canada, is that an opportunity for you? And does the current restaurant configuration, if you will, support expansion into that daypart?
Yeah. Yes to both questions. It is an opportunity for us to continue expanding upon, and the existing restaurants do support it. If you look at the focus today and the real opportunity, it's further expansion of the lunch daypart, where we've launched some great new products, and we're continuing to increase the combo meal penetration there, which has been one of the drivers of the recently strong sales performance. We're excited about continuing on building the momentum we have at lunch and further expanding at supper.
Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Will Slabaugh with Stephens Inc.
Thanks guys. Just two quick ones. First, you mentioned the favorable weather year-over-year. Could you provide us with an approximate impact for both brands? The second piece, more anecdotally, just on the Tim Hortons side, since the merger, as we look at the net new unit numbers begin to pick up year-over-year with, I'm assuming, expectations for that to continue, whether you're seeing franchisees that are growing more aggressively or if you're attracting a new base of interested groups at this point.
The comment on the weather was really limited toward the Burger King U.S. business, it's tough to quantify. We just did want to highlight that the weather this year in the U.S. was a little bit better than it was last year. There are plenty of puts and takes, we did think it was noteworthy given the tough winter we had in 2014 in the U.S. With respect to the Tim Hortons restaurant growth, we're seeing strength across multiple formats, traditional, non-traditional, and we have some of the best franchisees who are excited about growing with the brand. We don't need to look outside of the system. We have great franchisees who run great restaurants and are excited about running more great restaurants.
I would say, though, as you look at net restaurant growth around the world for Tim Hortons, and as we enter into new markets in the U.S., we definitely will be looking for some new high-quality partners who are well-capitalized and who are going to be excellent operators of restaurants to help us to grow into new markets and bring the brand to new communities across the country and across the world. I think we'll see a balance in some existing markets of growing with our existing franchisees and finding some new partners in some new markets.
Thank you.
Thank you. Today's last question comes from Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays.
Great. Thank you very much. Couple of questions. One, maybe just to follow up on that, Josh, in terms of the Tim Hortons brand outside of, obviously Canada and the key core markets in the U.S., but when you look at the rest of the markets in the U.S., or maybe when you look at outside of North America, I thought there was a comment that the franchise demand is still strong. I'm just wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the familiarity with the brand that you're finding as you go to some of these new U.S. markets or outside of North America. I know when you acquired Burger King, that was a big positive, was just the brand had such strong recognition around the world, and it was just kind of putting it in the right people's hands.
Just wondering how that compares to Tim Hortons' recognition. I had one follow-up.
Yeah, Jeff, thanks for the question. It's Josh. I think what we've seen in the U.S. is that the real key to success for the brand is creating convenience and creating density in markets. What we see is that in the markets where we've been able to build a really strong presence and build a high degree of convenience in those markets, our average revenues for a restaurant go up, and our franchisees make a lot of money. I think when you look at our strategy as we try and to grow into new markets and try to further penetrate existing markets, it'll be to drive density and convenience in those markets so that we can make sure our franchisees are just as profitable in the U.S. as they are in Canada.
When you look around the world, I would say what we saw with Burger King is that while the brand did have a meaningful international presence back in 2010, there were a lot of markets where the brand awareness was very low, especially in emerging markets where we didn't have that many restaurants. I think what we see as the real key to growing the brand around the world is carefully choosing the right markets, finding the right partners. That's the most critical thing, the right well-capitalized partners who are going to be good operators of restaurants and are committed to developing the brand in an aggressive way. That's what's going to allow us to build a brand, build brand recognition, and build really great and profitable restaurants.
That's going to be our focus as we go around the world, and we think there's huge opportunity for the Tim Hortons brand to be successful in a lot of markets. As Dan said, it'll take time, and we're going to take the time to find those right partners. We do see tremendous long-term potential and are really excited to bring this iconic Canadian brand to the rest of the world.
Got it. The other question was just a clarification. I know in the slide deck you talk about from a capital structure standpoint I think you said net debt, just over 5x. I'm just wondering, as you talk about your plans to potentially your cash balance and whatnot, how should we think about that range? Is that a reasonable run rate in the low 5s or is there a broad range you could say this is where we'd ultimately settle out?
Yeah, Jeff, it's Josh again. It's a great question. We've never had a leverage target. I would say that historically, we've been willing to take on some amount of leverage when we see an opportunity to do a transaction where we think we can create a lot of value for shareholders. Once we do that, our first priority is going to be to grow our earnings and generate cash flow so that we can reduce leverage. What you'll see us doing going forward is you'll see, we had great progress this quarter on growing our EBITDA by 18% on an organic basis, and we're looking to generate a lot of cash flow. As I said a little bit earlier, we may use some of that cash flow to the extent we have excess cash flow to bring down the level of debt.
Certainly our priority will be to deleverage as quickly as possible over time. No fixed long-term target on it.
Thanks.
Thank you. As there are no more questions at the present time, I would like to turn the call back over to management for any closing comments.
Thank you everyone for taking the time. We're very encouraged by this first quarter's performance, but we still have so much to do for very many years to create significant value for all of our stakeholders, our franchisees, our employees, our guests, our shareholders, our communities. We look forward to working very hard to drive this value, and we look forward to reporting to you in the coming quarters. Thank you very much and appreciate your continued support.
Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.