BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to BJ's Wholesale Club Q1 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Diana Rushko, Vice President of Investor Relations. Diana, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to BJ's first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Bob Eddy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laura Felice, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill Werner, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Development. Please remember that we may make forward-looking statements on this call that are based on our current expectations. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we say on this call. Please see the risk factors section of our most recent SEC filings for a description of these risks and uncertainties. Please also refer to today's press release and the latest investor presentation posted on our investor relations website for our cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP reconciliations. And now, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Our first quarter results represent a solid start to the year enabled by doing what we do best, serving our members with value. Membership remains a key strength driven by strong acquisition and retention and continued momentum in our higher tier memberships. Our gas business continued to be a powerful proof point of our value proposition as families increasingly relied on BJ's for savings at the pump. And our expansion efforts, including our progress in Texas, are off to strong starts, reinforcing our confidence in the opportunity ahead. All of this reflects discipline, execution, and a business built to take share. With that foundation in mind, let me turn to the details of the quarter and how we delivered for our members. Net sales increased nearly 10% year over year, and our merchandise comps improved by 1.5%. and our two-year stacked merchandise comps remain healthy. In a dynamic environment, our ability to stay focused on what we can control supported consistent execution and performance this quarter. We continue to see growth from perishables, grocery, and sundries during the quarter. Our fresh 2.0 efforts are showing up where it matters most, with strong unit growth in categories like fresh fruit, reinforcing our ability to win the weekly shop. In an environment where members are being more deliberate with their spending, our value and assortment continue to resonate. General merchandise and services delivered mid single digit comparable growth, led by strength in consumer electronics. While discretionary categories remain uneven, we're encouraged by the progress we're making and the way our teams are managing assortments and inventory in this environment. Gas prices increased dramatically during the quarter, putting additional pressure on member wallets. By the end of Q1, retail gas prices were up nearly 50% compared to the start of the quarter. In that environment, our role was clear to help take care of our members by delivering value. Our members responded by coming to see us in record numbers, with comp gallon growth increasing from about 1% in February to more than 10% during both March and April. Same-store gallons in the broader market were down roughly 4% during the quarter, underscoring the share gains we are delivering. While gas margins were pressured early in the quarter as prices rose quickly, our teams executed extremely well through periods of volatility, and profit dollars for the quarter came in largely in line with our plan. Gas prices remain elevated, and that pressure is real for families. To put this in further context, in April alone, our members spent $143 million more at our pumps than they did a year ago. That's equivalent to approximately 3.5% in merchandise comp dollars. As consumers adjusted to the higher prices, we did see some modest shifts in behavior, with average gallons per fill up slightly lower, reflecting the pressure higher prices put on household budgets, as well as more members topping off their tanks more frequently. In a tough pricing environment, members leaned into BJs for value, and that showed up clearly in our continued share gains. While the consumer in the broadest sense has been resilient in the face of continuing challenges, we continue to see a more pressured environment for the lower income households. Elevated costs are weighing more heavily on that segment, and we're seeing more value seeking behavior as a result. This quarter, the vast majority of our comparable sales growth was driven by our higher income members who remain engaged and continue to shop with us consistently. At the same time, value matters across every income cohort, and our focus remains on showing up for all of our members with the right assortment, the right prices, and the right level of convenience. We continue to make progress across our strategic priorities and the work our teams have been doing over the past several years is reflected in today's business performance. Membership remains the foundation of our business and one of our greatest strengths. Members continue to show up this quarter with positive traffic year over year and continued share gains. Membership fee income increased approximately 10% to $132 million, reaching an all-time high driven by strength and acquisition, retention, and higher tier penetration across both new and existing clubs. As we've discussed before, what matters most to us is not just growing the number of members, but continuing to improve the quality of the membership base over time. Higher tier members remain more engaged, shop more frequently, and deliver greater lifetime value. And we continue to see meaningful opportunity to build on that momentum. While we expect membership fee income growth to moderate as we move through the year, as we lap the prior year fee increase, the underlying health of the membership base gives us confidence in the durability of this engine. Building on that strong membership foundation, we remain focused on continuously improving the experience we deliver to those members. Pricing is central to that experience, and our club model is uniquely positioned to deliver compelling value. And in today's environment, value matters more than ever. With that in mind, we invested considerably in value during the quarter by returning tariff refunds to our members through pricing. As a result, we saw roughly half a point of deflation in our retail pricing and our price gaps improved as we leaned into delivering meaningful savings for our members. More broadly, Delivering a great member experience also means continuing to strengthen the fundamentals of our merchandising organization for the long term. With that in mind, we're excited to have welcomed Stephanie Reibling to the team as Chief Merchandising Officer, and we're confident she will be a strong leader as we continue the merchandising work that's been underway for several years now. She brings deep experience across the Club Channel and broader retail, with a strong track record of driving growth, evolving assortments, and building compelling on-brand offerings. Just as importantly, Stephanie understands how to operate merchandising in an omnichannel environment where value, relevance, and execution matter. Her experience and perspective will be important as we continue to sharpen our assortment, invest in our brands, and deliver exciting products at unbeatable value for our members. Alongside member experience, convenience continues to play an increasingly important role in how members engage with us. Digitally enabled comparable sales increased 28% year over year, reflecting growing adoption of tools like curbside pickup, same-day delivery, and express pay. We're seeing particularly strong adoption in our newer clubs, where members are using tools like express pay at higher rates, and importantly, are spending more with us. Because most of that digital engagement is fulfilled through our clubs, we're able to deliver those conveniences in a way that saves members both time and money. We're also continuing to invest in AI capabilities, including Buddy, a new tool designed to support our team members by answering a wide range of operational and training questions, including product availability and item location. These tools help our teams serve members more effectively and efficiently. Collectively, these efforts are making convenience a more integrated part of how members shop BJ's. Finally, we continue to make disciplined progress, expanding our footprint and bringing the BJ's model to more communities. We opened our first club in Texas during the quarter, expanding BJ's to 22 states, followed by three additional Texas club openings in May. We also announced plans to open clubs later this year in Frankfort, Kentucky, Ocala, Lakanto, and Port St. Lucie, Florida, and Portage, Indiana. Last year, we committed to opening 25 to 30 new clubs over a two-year period. With 12 openings planned for this year, we expect to deliver 26 clubs against that plan, and we see the opportunity to continue at a similar pace in 2027 and 2028. I want to take a few minutes to talk specifically about our new club openings in Texas, which represent an important milestone for BJ's as we enter a new high growth market. We're executing our trusted new club playbook in Texas and the execution from our teams has been outstanding. These openings reflect some of the best work we've done to date from how we built awareness ahead of opening to how we improved and showcase the value BJ's is known for to how we showed up for the community from day one. That consistency reflects the culture we've built around new club success with a goal of making each new opening better than the last. We've made it clear from the start that we're there to invest for the long haul and the response has been terrific. Today membership in our four Texas clubs is running 33% ahead of plan and as of today, we have approximately 100,000 members in the Dallas Fort Worth market. While we're excited about our start in Texas, we're equally encouraged by the performance of our most recent classes of clubs. In the first quarter, clubs opened within the last five years delivered comps of more than 6%, growing at over four times the chain average. The newer markets we've entered, including Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, and the Pittsburgh market, continue to stand out, with those clubs comping more than 10% during the quarter. We've discussed in the past with the investment community that new club sales generally mature in five years, and part of our new club execution is to drive these new clubs towards that maturity ahead of plan when possible. The team strategy and execution across all areas of new club operations is delivering on that idea, with two-thirds of clubs opened in the last two years expected to have first-year sales above their year five sales projection. These results are a testament to the team members across our clubs, supply chain, membership, property development, and support functions who made these openings possible. The execution has been exceptional and it gives us confidence as we continue to expand our footprint. With that, I'll turn it over to Laura to walk through the financial details for the quarter.