Murphy USA Inc.

remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask today that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Christian Peichel, Vice President of Investor Relations and FP&A. You may begin.

Hey, good morning. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Jeannie. With me are Andrew Clyde, Chief Executive Officer, Mindy West, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Donnie Smith, Chief Accounting Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer. After some opening comments from Andrew, both Mindy and Donnie will provide an overview of the financial results, operating performance, and a review of our 2025 guidance metrics before we open the call to Q&A. Please keep in mind some of these comments made during this call, including the Q&A portion, will be considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, no assurances can be given that these events will occur or that the projections will be attained. A variety of factors exist that may cause actual results to differ. For further discussion of risk factors, please see the latest MurphyUSA Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and other recent SEC filings. MurphyUSA takes no duty to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. During today's call, we may also provide certain performance measures that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. We have provided schedules to reconcile these non-GAAP measures with the reported results on a GAAP basis as part of our earnings press release, which can be found on the investor section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andrew Clyde.

Thank you, Christian. Good morning, and thank you all for joining today's call. I'm quite positive this is a call I will always remember as I expect it to be my last earnings call as Chief Executive Officer of MRF USA. It has been an incredible honor to serve as MRF USA's leader, and doing so has been the pinnacle of my professional career. For those joining live today or reading the transcript later, I would encourage you to take away three things from today's call. Continuity, resilience, and momentum. In terms of continuity, yesterday's announcement signaled both continuity in MurphyUSA's leadership and continuity in our long-term capital allocation strategy. Having foretold this day to investors as a hypothetical in the past, we certainly appreciate the need to be as clear about future strategy and capital allocation as we are about future leadership. And as both our 50-50 strategy and MNDE are well-known to investors, We believe this announcement sends a clear message about what MurphyUSA will continue to deliver and what investors should continue to expect. At the end of our MurphyUSA board meeting last Thursday, I officially notified the board of my intent to retire as President and CEO at the end of the year. The timing reflects a very thoughtful, intentional, and multi-year CEO succession plan, which led to Mindy's appointment as Chief Operating Officer back in February of 2024, And after almost two years in the current structure, we're ready to make the final transition. As you saw in yesterday's press release, Mindy becomes president of Merck USA immediately and will become CEO and a member of the board of directors on January 1st, 2026. Now will remain as advisor to the company through February of 2027. Mindy and I took this company public in 2013, and she has been by my side every step of the way. Through the peaks and the troughs, through the campaigns that made the business better, through the major inflection points like COVID and the Walmart transition that shaped the business we run today, leading by example in establishing a winning culture. In short, she is well-positioned to lead MurphyUSA into its next chapter, providing the continuity that all our stakeholders will value from a successful transition. In terms of continuity in our capital allocation strategy, The Board took this opportunity to authorize a new $2 billion share repurchase program as we were about 80% through the existing $1.5 billion program, while at the same time renewing our dividend policy at its four-year anniversary where we had naturally increased the cash pool for dividends. Having repurchased about 60% of the shares since the spin ahead of target dates and increasing dividends at a compounded annual growth rate of 20% since inception of the dividend, MRF USA is committed to the continuity of its capital allocation approach to reward long-term investors. Complementing our 50-50 approach is the Board's commitment to new to industry store growth and reinvestments within the existing network. And Mindy will touch on both sides of the 50-50 strategy in her remarks as she will carry this very bright torch into the future. In terms of resilience, MRF USA's third quarter results speak for themselves. Despite earning two cents per gallon less on fuel margins, we generated the same EBITDA as Q3 a year ago due to the underlying improvements made to the business and the enduring strength of our core category capabilities that yielded outsized results. Updated guidance metrics for the full year highlight the team's efforts, as merchandise contribution is expected to be in the upper end of the guidance range, as exceptional Q3 results and Q4 momentum more than offsets first-half temporal effects. And OPEX and G&A expenses are both expected to finish positively below the low end of our guidance due to ongoing initiatives in our previously announced staff restructuring. With regards to fuel, in our most recent investor meetings, we described the low price, long supply, and consequently low volatility environment as a trough, the most challenging for an EDLP fuels retailer, and contrasted it to the 2022 peak. Ultimately, how a firm responds in a trough speaks to its true resilience and whether it can sustain its commitment to an EDLP strategy and emerge a winner on the other side when the cycle normalizes. And Murph USA has done just that. Through capabilities that strengthen its competitiveness and enhance customer stickiness, we are performing significantly better than in the prior trough environment, and we continue to lean into value. Most importantly, we continue to see the structural component of the retail fuel margin grow as the marginal retailer remains challenged and passes through to customers its higher break-even requirements. This not only supports Murphy's ability to lean into price in the current low price environment, but highlights the upside potential for when margins normalize. And we certainly expect the cycle to normalize. In fact, over the life of any 25-year store investment, one should expect three peaks every six to eight years and three troughs based on the last 25 years' experience with normalized periods in between. And when we invest, we are basing our economics on mid-cycle factors, noting there is significant upside over time from the consistently increasing structural component of the margin. In terms of momentum, while Q3 merchandise results are exceptional, we would argue that on an annualized basis, the performance reflects ongoing trends that we expect to continue. For example, nicotine promotional dollars have grown at an impressive 12% CAGR since 2020. While we will never be able to predict exactly what products are being promoted in which quarter, our capabilities to engage consumers in the category are unparalleled. In other areas, QuickCheck reported its fourth successive quarter of same-store food and beverage sales growth. In total, center store categories grew by 5%. while same-store operating expenses moderated, increasing by only 2.8% for the quarter. And ongoing campaigns are designed to further this momentum. New store openings are now projected to be over 45 for the year, with a strong pipeline supporting 50-plus stores in 2026 and into the future. Currently, nearly 40 stores are under construction that will open in Q4 and early Q1 of 2026. While the newest stores ramping do not have the same subsequent year EBITDA impact as stores further under the ramp, getting this first group of about 50 stores under our belt creates the line of sight to futures earnings growth as new build classes come on board. Before handing over the call to Mindy and Donnie for additional remarks, on a personal note, my announcement comes with a great sense of accomplishment for what the MurphyUSA team has achieved together in the past 13 years. and a deep appreciation for an opportunity one can only dream about. As I noted in our internal announcement yesterday, the most resilient force in our business is our team members, the people who make it all happen each and every day. I cannot begin to express my appreciation for their leadership and followership as we have strived to make the business better. Their efforts and sacrifices are too numerous to name and provide the inspiration and energy for future initiatives to keep on making the business better. They define the winning spirit culture at MurphyUSA, and I believe it is one of the greatest hallmarks a company can have. And for that, I'm both eternally grateful and exceptionally proud. So it is with confidence of an enduring business model, a robust growth and capital allocation strategy, and a winning MurphyUSA spirit reflected in our future leader and leaderships and team members that I look forward to in my next chapter, both personally, professionally, and as a MurphyUSA shareholder. I'll now turn the call over to Mindy to review some highlights around our capital allocation strategy and third quarter results. Mindy?