Monro, Inc.

stores in 98 franchise locations as of September 28, 2019. During the second quarter, we added one company-operated store and closed six, of which five are temporarily closed as a result of damage sustained during Hurricane Laura in Louisiana and Tropical Storm Isaias in the Northeast. A complete bridge of our second quarter fiscal 2021 earnings per share performance with same-store compared with the same period last year, as presented on slide 9. The 11.4% decrease in comparable store sales resulted in a corresponding 34 cent earnings per share decline. As we previously noted, every 1% decline in comparable store sales translates to roughly 3 cents in earnings per share loss. Partially offsetting the comparable store sales decrease was the benefit of our cost reductions, lower expenses due to a year-over-year reduction in our number of stores, and the positive impact of our non-comp stores. Also included are higher recruiting expenses, which reconciles us to our adjusted earnings per share of $0.39 in the second quarter. As previously noted, this excludes approximately $0.01 per share related to Monroe-Ford initiatives and management transition costs. Turning to slide 10, our financial position remains strong, and we have flexibility to execute our growth strategy. As a result of our actions to drive improved business profitability and bolster our working capital position, we generated approximately $126 million in operating cash flow during the first half of fiscal 2021, compared to $80 million for the same period last year. We invested approximately $24 million in capital expenditures primarily to support our investments in stores and technology, and paid $15 million in dividends to our shareholders, as well as paying approximately $15 million in principal for financing leases. We were able to reduce our bank debt net of cash by approximately $71 million during the first six months of fiscal 2021. We believe that we are well positioned to continue to generate strong operating cash flow in the second half of fiscal 2021. At the end of the second quarter, we had net bank debt of $150 million and a net bank debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.1 times. As of October 24, 2020, we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $55 million and availability on our revolving credit facility of approximately $365 million. Moving on to our financial assumptions for fiscal 2021, The COVID-19 situation continues to evolve with a resurgence in cases in some regions and a significant amount of uncertainty in the upcoming months. Therefore, it remains difficult to accurately forecast the impact of the pandemic on our future operations, and we are not providing fiscal 2021 guidance at this time. On slide 11, we have provided our updated financial assumptions to assist with your modeling. We are making solid progress on our rebranding and re-imaging initiatives, and now expect a capital expenditure range of approximately $40 million to $50 million, assuming the transformation of approximately 100 to 150 stores. In addition, we will continue to leverage our diverse and global supply chain and expect tire and oil costs to remain relatively stable year over year. Moving on to our expected cost reductions, we realized approximately $5 million in additional cost savings during the second quarter, on top of the $15 million achieved in the first quarter. For the second half of the fiscal year, we expect to achieve $5 million to $10 million in additional cost savings. Overall, we expect lower cost savings during the remainder of the fiscal year as we reinvest a portion of these savings in our business to drive top line growth. As a reminder, we also expect previously announced store closures to benefit our operating income by approximately $3.8 million in fiscal 2021. Looking beyond fiscal 2021, we anticipate about $15 to $20 million in annual structural cost savings, in addition to $5 million in annual benefits from store closures. And with that, I will turn it back to Rob Meller for some closing remarks.

Rob Meller Well, thank you, Brian. We continue to improve our business profitability and generate significant cash flow while making solid progress on some of our most important growth initiatives, including our store rebrand and reimage initiative and the acquisition of 17 stores in Southern California. Overall, we remain well positioned to capitalize on improving demand trends and have the financial flexibility to execute our strategy to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. Now, before turning over the call to Q&A, I'd like to provide a brief update on our CEO search. The process is progressing well, and the Board is assessing both internal and external candidates. Our priority is to find the right leader who can continue to build upon the momentum that we've seen from our Monroe Forward strategy. We have a number of transformational initiatives underway that are critical to driving sustainable growth and we believe our next CEO will be well equipped to join with and lead our team on the path towards long-term success. As we have recently onboarded new teammates, I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight our corporate social responsibility efforts, which are ongoing across our organization. Monroe strives to maintain an environmentally and socially conscious corporate culture. and our core values have an important role in our strategic planning. Chief among our initiatives is strengthening our relationships with our diverse employee base, as well as our customer and communities in which we operate, and which we know will be an integral part of our success going forward. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star 1 to ask a question. One moment while we pull for our first question. Our first question comes from Brian Nagle with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.