Jack In The Box Inc.

Good day everyone and welcome to the Jack in the Box Incorporated first quarter fiscal 2020 earnings conference call. Today's call is being broadcast live over the internet. A replay of the call will be available on the Jack in the Box corporate website starting today. During the question and answer period, please use your handset when asking a question. Please do not ask over a speakerphone. At this time for opening remarks and introductions. I would like to turn the call over to Rachel Webb, VP of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis for Jack in the Box. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Missy, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Chairman and CEO Lenny Calma and Executive Vice President and CFO Lance Tucker. In our comments this morning, per share amounts refer to diluted earnings per share. We will refer to non-GAAP items throughout today's call, including operating earnings per share, Adjusted EBITDA, as well as restaurant-level margin and franchise-level margin. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation provided in yesterday's earnings release. Following today's presentation, we will take questions from the financial community. Please be advised that during the course of our presentation and our question-and-answer session today, we may make forward-looking statements that reflect management's expectations for the future, which are based on current information. Actual results may differ materially from these expectations based on risk to the business. The safe harbor statement in yesterday's news release and the cautionary statement in the company's most recent Form 10-K are considered a part of this conference call. Material risk factors, as well as information relating to company operations, are detailed in our most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and other documents filed with the SEC. These documents are available on the investor section of our website at www.jackinthebox.com. Our second quarter is on Sunday, April 12th. We tentatively plan to announce results on Wednesday, May 13th after market close. Our conference call is tentatively scheduled to be held at 8.30 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday, May 14th. With that, I will turn the call over to Lenny.

Thank you, Rachel, and good morning. Before Lance recaps some of the first quarter highlights, I'd like to take a moment to articulate my confidence in the trajectory of the company and some of the progress that's already been made on our 2020 and long-term goals. First, the team has completed yet another chapter. We exited the transition services agreement associated with Qdoba, we completed the securitization, and we closed on the sale of one of our corporate buildings. We are now a single-branded company in one building focused entirely on the success and growth of our iconic Jack in the Box brand, and it's wonderful to see the positive energy and early momentum. Second, we've made progress in reestablishing equity in everyday value. After conducting consumer research a few years ago, we found our core customers associated Jack in the Box with craveable products, with approximately half being more value-oriented and half looking for indulgence. We've historically been able to capitalize on both, leveraging our iconic tacos. But after raising the price ceiling on our two tacos deal back in 2016, we lost a lot of value-oriented guests, specifically through transactions under $5. Our product marketing, operations, and supply chain teams collaborated to restore some of our lost equity, and leveraging the success of our snackable, craveable sides, launched our new Tiny Tacos platform as a permanent addition to our menu just last month. We were pleased with the initial consumer response, and guest sentiment has been extremely positive, with guests describing them as a great value for the price and to quote one consumer, all they think about when they're hungry. It is only four weeks in, so we won't give too many details on what we're seeing, but we are optimistic so far on the ability to restore some of the lost value-related equities. Thank you for joining us today. Third, when I see the upside for 2020 and future years, I believe we have identified and begun to capitalize on untapped potential in our restaurant operations. As I mentioned last quarter, this is our single largest focus for the year. Two years ago, we hired Marcus Tom as Chief Operating Officer. He's built a team that has changed operational paradigms and processes and brought new expertise to restaurant operations. The partnership and new processes for operations, Product Marketing and Supply Chain has laid the foundation for our brand to continue to launch innovative new products and reduce wait times while also ensuring the guest experience is not compromised. We are pleased with the progress we are making toward reducing system speed of service by one minute by 2021. We continue to see improvements in the locations where we are testing the back of house equipment and process changes. We are in the early stages of rolling out training and new processes to system with modest equipment modifications not far behind. So far, all indications are that we are on the right track. Looking longer term, we continue to believe digital and delivery are important pieces of the consumer journey for quick-serve restaurants, and we remain committed to appropriate investments in these channels. As mentioned earlier, for 2020, our biggest priorities are operations improvements and product innovation, but our mobile app and Delivery Channels continue to receive modest investments and the resources necessary to meet the current expectations of our guests. Our mobile app addresses most consumer needs, including order ahead, mobile pay, in-app offers and menu and location information. While still a relatively low percentage of our overall sales, we continue to see the number of users and transactions grow each quarter. And almost our entire system now has delivery as a sales channel with over 95% of our restaurants serviced by at least one of the four major delivery providers. We've completed integration with Grubhub into our POS system, and we are currently working through integration with the other providers as well. Lastly, we remain committed to returning cash to shareholders, and we are well on our way to returning over $1 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends by 2022. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lance for a more detailed look at the first quarter. Lance?