A & W Food Services of Canada Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the A&W Food Services of Canada Quarter 4 2025 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the call over to Susan Senecal, President and CEO.

Please go ahead. Thanks, Jade, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss A&W Food Services of Canada's results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 28th, 2025. I'm Susan Senecal, President and CEO, and I'm joined today by A&W's Chief Financial Officer, Kelly Blankstein. Before we begin, as a reminder, remarks on this call may include our expectations, future plans and intentions that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws in Canada. Such forward-looking information is based on estimates and assumptions made by management regarding, among other things, general economic and geopolitical conditions, as well as the competitive environment. Actual results may differ materially from the conclusions, forecasts, or projections expressed by the forward-looking information. We refer you to Food Service's Fiscal 2025 MDNA and Fiscal 2025 Annual Information Form, both of which include a summary of the material assumptions made by management, as well as risks and factors that could affect A&W's future performance and our ability to deliver on the forward-looking information. We also refer you to Food Services Fiscal 2025 MD&A for definitions and reconciliations of any non-IFRS financial measures mentioned on today's call. Our Q4 Earnings Release Financial Statements MD&A, as well as our Fiscal 2025 Annual Information Form, are all available on Food Service's CDAR Plus profile, as well as on our investor website at www.awinvestors.ca. Following the strategic combination with A&W Revenue Royalties Income Fund in October 2024, we entered 2025 with a simplified corporate structure and a clear focus on driving long-term value for our guests and franchisees. I'm pleased to report we delivered both top and bottom line growth in 2025, despite operating in a challenging environment that's been marked by difficult economic conditions and an extremely competitive burger QSR market in Canada. In fiscal 2025, we achieved positive same-store sales growth in all four quarters, opened 26 new A&W restaurants, and met our annual guidance to the markets. We are pleased with how our value-based promotions and dedicated value menu contributed to food services growth in 2025, and we remain committed to making sure that A&W stays affordable for Canadians looking to enjoy the high quality and great taste that our brand is known for. Strategically, we continue to focus on growing restaurant counts across Canada, with a particular focus on Ontario and Quebec, and in partnership with CENCOR. We opened 26 new restaurants in fiscal 2025, 15 of which were in the important markets of Ontario and Quebec, and 12 of which were in partnership with CENCOR. Our partnership with Pret-a-Manger is also progressing well. We opened our second corporately owned Pret location in Toronto in January, 2026, and are actively pursuing sites in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal that we expect to open as franchise locations. We also continue to progress on our strategic target of achieving a 30% average increase in franchisee profitability over a five-year period as measured against actual restaurant profitability for 2023. We achieved an average of 5% improvement in 2024 and an additional average of 7% improvement in 2025 and are on track to achieving the 30% improvement by 2028. The franchisee business model was further strengthened in 2025 by food services' successful efforts to reduce construction and modernization costs. Specifically, the cost of building a new freestanding A&W restaurant was reduced by nearly $500,000. and the cost to modernize an existing one was lowered by about $40,000. The first freestanding restaurant built with the new lower-cost design opened on December 31, 2025. With that, I'll now turn things over to Kelly, who will take us through A&W's financial highlights for Q4 and the year, and discuss the 2026 guidance that we released today, along with our Q4 results. Kelly?

Excellent. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you, Susan. I'll start by giving an overview of our financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, which was 16 weeks and ended on December 28th, 2025. I will then provide a brief summary of our annual results for fiscal 2025, which was 52 weeks and ended December 28th, 2025. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $93 million and was in line with total revenue for quarter four of 2024. Franchising revenue increased due to a 2.5% increase in system sales and the opening of three more A&W restaurants, but was offset by a decrease in contributions to advertising funds. This decrease in contributions to advertising funds is attributed to a reduction in contribution rates year over year for specific regional advertising funds, as well as timing differences related to the sale of coupons and other promotional materials managed by the National Advertising Fund. As a reminder, all of the contributions to the national and regional advertising funds are used to fund marketing activities and the impact of food services net income related to the advertising funds is merely a reflection of timing differences between when contributions are made and when the marketing funds are spent. System sales increased 2.5% in Q4 2025. due to same-store sales growth of 0.9% and an increase in the number of A&W restaurants. Revenue from service fees and revenue generated from the distribution of food and supplies fluctuate with the movement in system sales, and as such, we're up quarter over quarter along with system sales. A&W same-store sales growth for Q4 2025 was positive 0.9%. This positive same-store sales growth was due to an increase in both average check size and guest counts. The increase in guest counts was largely driven by the strength of the marketing campaigns and value offerings mentioned by Susan earlier in the call. Amidst a challenging macroeconomic environment and highly competitive QSR landscape, both of which continue to create headwinds for sales at A&W restaurants, we believe that achieving positive growth in sales and guest counts is a significant achievement. Average check size increased and is impacted by menu prices, menu mix, party size, and changes in consumers' discretionary spending. Operating costs for the fourth quarter of 2025 were $48.8 million and in line with operating costs for Q4 of 2024. General and administrative expenses for Q4 2025 were $16.9 million and were $1.9 million or 12% higher than G&A expenses for Q4 of 2024. The increase quarter over quarter is attributable to timing differences between when certain costs were incurred in fiscal 2025 versus fiscal 2024, general inflationary increases and increase in professional fees and the launch of our equity incentive plan in 2025. Net finance expense increased by 900,000, primarily due to the debt taken in October of 2024, partway through the fourth quarter of 2024. which was of course used to finance the strategic combination of food services with A&W Revenue Royalties Income Fund, which I'll refer further on to as the combination transaction. We also recognized an unrealized non-cash gain of $859,000 on our interest rate swap in Q4 2025, which was entered into in Q2 2025 to manage interest rate risk associated with our credit facility. Income before income taxes for the fourth quarter of 2025 increased by $2.5 million or 12% to $23.4 million. The growth in income before taxes is largely a function of the cessation of the royalty expense following the combination transaction. It's important to note that our Q4 2024 results included a royalty expense of $5.8 million as well as income from associates of $1.2 million, both of which are no longer applicable following the combination transaction. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 1.4 million or 5% to 29.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2025. Our adjusted EBITDA margin also improved to 31.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 30% in the fourth quarter of 2024. The increase in adjusted EBITDA is primarily attributable to the increase in revenue, excluding the revenue related to the advertising fund contributions that are excluded for the purposes of calculating adjusted EBITDA, And they're partially offset by an increase in operating costs and general and admin expenses, but excluding such items as depreciation, stock-based compensation, and expenses associated with the advertising fund, which are added back for the purposes of calculating adjusted EBITDA. So I'll just turn now to highlighting how we performed on our key business performance metrics for the full fiscal year of 2025. For the full year, system sales increased by 2.8% to 1.92 billion, and total revenue increased by 1% to 294.1 million. Income before income taxes grew by 53% to 76.7 million and adjusted EBITDA increased by 7% to 100 million. The growth in income before taxes is largely a function of the cessation of the royalty expense following the combination transaction. Our fiscal 2024 results included a royalty expense of 44 million as well as income from associates of 9.5 million, both of which are no longer applicable following the combination transaction. In fiscal 2025, we opened 26 new A&W restaurants and increased our net annual restaurant unit growth from 1.8% to 2.0% in the current year. Just now quickly turning to the balance sheet, in fiscal 2025, we were able to deleverage while maintaining a dividend yield that ranged from 4.7% to 6.8%. We reduced our net debt to adjust to the EBITDA ratio from 2.5 to 2.3 to end the year. And we reduced our CapEx to revenue ratio from 1.6% to 1%. We paid cash dividends totaling 192 per share in 2025 and remain committed to maintaining the current level of quarterly dividends for the foreseeable future. Overall, we are pleased with the strength of our balance sheet ending fiscal 2025 after having taken on debt to fund the combination transaction in fiscal 2024. In the news release that we put out earlier today, we provided guidance for fiscal 2026, which incorporates the actual results from fiscal 2025 and reflects the challenging economic environment that food services continues to operate in. Specifically, The guidance accounts for the results seen to date in 2026 in Ontario, where approximately 30% of A&W restaurants are located. This region has been affected by severe weather, economic uncertainty stemming from ongoing trade friction and a notable shift in demographic trends, including rising unemployment and near zero population growth. Our fiscal 2026 guidance includes achieving adjusted EBITDA within the range of $103 million to $105 million, ending fiscal 2026 within the range of 1,112 to 1,120 A&W restaurants. It includes a forecast of achieving system sales for 2026 growth in the range of 2.5% to 5%, and achieving same-store sales growth between the ranges of 0.5% and 3%. This guidance replaces the fiscal 2026 and 2027 long-term targets prepared in connection with the October 2024 transaction. So with that said, I'll just now hand it back to Susan for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Kelly. In summary, we're pleased with A&W's performance in 2025. Despite ongoing economic headwinds, we were able to achieve growth in system sales and revenue and meet our guidance, which is a testament to the resilience and appeal of the A&W brand and the strength of our franchise system, and the dedication of our franchisees and team members. We started the first quarter of 2026 combating difficult external factors such as severe snowstorms and economic pressures in many communities across Canada. As a reminder, the first quarter of 2026 is also facing a comparison against Q1 2025, which included six weeks of a GST-HST tax holiday. That said... our focus on value-driven offerings has been well received and progressively improved our results throughout 2025. This momentum is continuing into 2026, supported by the successful relaunch of our popular $4.99 teen burger promotion, an offer that performed strongly twice in 2025. We plan to continue this strategy with additional value-based promotions planned for the rest of 2026. We've had success with promotions exclusive to the A&W mobile app, particularly in Ontario, which has been impacted by more pronounced shifts in consumer discretionary spending and localized economic softening. A&W Rewards, our loyalty program that is exclusively available through the A&W mobile app, officially launched in April 2025. The program was utilized in approximately 5% of all post-launch fiscal 2025 orders and and we saw the numbers of active users on the A&W app increase to approximately 500,000 by the end of fiscal 2025, which is more than double the number of active users on the app prior to the launch. These early results are encouraging, and we believe that the launch of a loyalty program is a major step in our strategy to improve the guest experience and solidify our standing in the burger QSR market. We also continue to focus on menu innovation and new restaurant growth, particularly in strategic markets and through our partnership with CENCOR. We're seeing the success of A&W's veggie burger-based offerings translate into gains in market share with the guest demographic we are targeting with these offerings. A&W has maintained its spot as the second largest QSR burger chain in Canada, and we believe that our strategic initiatives have as well positioned to improve. We appreciate the dedication of our employees, franchisees and partners, and we thank our shareholders for their continued support. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Please pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Mark Petri from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, Mark. I want us to start at the top, at the highest level. And as you look back on 2025, obviously the macro environment was a clear headwind. And would you attribute all of the deceleration in same-store sales to those macro factors and industry pressures? Or would you say there were other factors maybe in your own execution or marketing?

I think the majority from what we see is truly the macroeconomic factors, competitive pressures and so on. Obviously, you know, we don't have a crystal ball. And so the timing of activities is not always perfectly matched with the needs of the consumer. But we're getting, I think, more and more clear on that. And certainly our plans for 2026 reflect our learning in the year prior.

Yeah, OK, fair enough. And that was my follow up question is the plans for 2026. I think you touched on it. in your remarks around the outlook, but are the plans for 26 that essentially the macro environment is going to maintain with what we're seeing today and what you experienced for most of last year?

Yeah, I think it's a safe bet to say that we expect continued sort of uncertainty and headwinds from an economic perspective. Things are slow to recover. They're slow to take root and they're slow to recover. So we're sort of looking at it that way. But of course, if anything is to improve, we're certainly ready to respond and to create new types of activities that might be even more appealing in a better economic environment.

Yeah, understand that. Okay, thanks. And then a couple questions for Kelly, if I could. I know we shouldn't be, or I think they're for Kelly, we shouldn't be surprised by volatility in the equipment and turnkey line. But Can you give us any sense of what we should expect for that revenue line in 2026 and sort of cadence?

Yeah, I would say that more of the same, although you heard us mention that we've achieved savings in terms of our modernizations and some of our NRO costs, which translates a little bit into how much earnings we'll get from equipment and other services. So as the system grows, that would create stability. But as we do some things to shore up better economics for franchisees, they'll be slightly less expensive. So as we go, more of the same and growing over maybe a longer term is how to think about it, Mark.

Yeah, okay. And you touched on it, but I was, it's impressive to hear, excuse me, the achievements you've made in terms of lowering the cost to open a restaurant. Could you just give us a sense of, you know, the drivers of that and sort of some of the specific pieces or changes that you were able to make?

I'd say this is an area where A&W has got a lot of strength once we decide to do something. And hoping you're seeing this theme that a couple of years ago in our strategy, we said it was really important to focus on franchisee financial health and making the prospect of being an A&W investee a highly investable vehicle. And so we've done things on the profit side. We've done things also on the capital side. But When we focused on them, we really re-interrogated everything. So, you know, size is a piece of it. The size of the restaurants coming down is a piece of it for sure. But material selection, looking at the durability of things, we really uncracked every single thing that we possibly could and come at it with a fresh set of eyes to ensure that we're making the right decisions for the investment profile for our franchisees and the long-term running of those restaurants.

Okay, and is there any way you can quantify or sort of share, you know, the impact to the economics for a new franchisee with this model? I mean, obviously it's highly advantageous, but can you help shape that or quantify it at all?

We are putting out DCF metrics. I just say that we know from comparatives, we know from our EBITDA profile, we know from the advancements we make on the profit that we continue to head in the right direction of making this a really – interesting prospect and an investment vehicle for franchisees.

Yeah, fair enough. Okay, I'll get back in the queue, but I've gone well over my requested limit, so I will pass the line.

Thanks, Mark.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Logan Reach from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to start on the same-store sales guidance. Just kind of curious what the assumptions are, maybe at the high end, and then what are you contemplating sort of at the low end of the range? Maybe just, you know, what are the differences in your underlying assumptions that's driving the delta between the high and low end?

Sure. We mentioned some of the external factors, and some of those are, you know, hyper-regionalized and so on, so they can have a big impact depending on which way the The current goes, if you like, weather can have a big impact as well. So we just saw through the first part of the year that a number of our restaurants were not only down in sales, but actually closed during the biggest storms because either the roads were closed or they couldn't get through. So there's events like that that we need to take into consideration. So as we consider the range, we're sort of thinking about what could impact things in a greater degree than we have imagined. And on the upper end, we're saying, you know, our plans, programs, and so on, if they work as planned. And, um, we're of course resilient to take on small bumps, uh, but the lower end of the range is really about the bigger bumps that we might encounter that are hard to foresee.

Got it. Okay. So it's mostly, mostly macro. It sounds like, and then just on the weather, Tom, and are you able to quantify, uh, what the impact was on the, on the quarter to date, same store sales or, or just how, how, uh, you know, any other way you'd be able to quantify that?

Yeah, I only have anecdotal kind of, um, information at this time we've not really tried to gather it and in fact we were starting to gather it and then there was another big storm so it feels like we need to uh to really get a good grip on what the impact was for q1 we'll need to just wait till the whole quarter works itself out um different provinces have had different impacts but ontario in particular has been really severely impacted by record snowfalls but also multiple times when traffic and ability to get out of the house was um was really negatively impacted

Got it. Okay. Makes sense. That's helpful. And then just on the, you know, I think we're talking a lot about sort of the macro and continued pressure. I guess in Q4, can you maybe splice out or break out the age or income cohorts? I know you called out Ontario regionally, but just anything you could flag or call it any differences in performance between age and income cohorts?

Sure. Age, I don't really have anything other than sort of what we see in our restaurants. We don't have anything that really tells us that much about age. But what we are seeing is that disposable income is under pressure. And I think that goes across all demographics. And maybe if you're, at least theoretically, it would impact, you know, some younger consumers more severely because they tend to have lower incomes to begin with. So an increase in rent or an increase in grocery costs might impact them a little bit more. When we, When it comes to disposable income pressures, what we've really seen is that there's a large number of Canadians who really have been impacted by the cumulative effect of inflation and then risks to their employment. In some cases, a member of the family having lost a job and so on. And so that tends to really move people very quickly through the different brackets, as you imagine them, and that therefore they adjust their spending quite quickly.

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then on the new build cost reduction, I mean, 500K is a very big number. And I'd imagine a large percentage of the total investment capital. I guess, like, what's been the franchisee feedback around that cost reduction? And do you think that could be a tailwind to unit growth, maybe not this year, but in the out years, just given the, I'd imagine the franchisee return on capital is moving in the right direction?

Definitely a tailwind. Definitely a very much appreciated and very enthusiastic response from franchisees, especially now that they've seen either the actual restaurant that they've opened or that they've seen photos and so on and heard about the opening from people who were actually there firsthand. So I think it's been a real plus, and that's why we did it. We knew that in this environment, we need to make sure that the investment costs are in line with the expectations and that people get off to a really good start. And that's, that's what we're happy about.

Got it. That's helpful. And should we assume that all of the ground up builds going forward or, or the standalone builds going forward will be that reduced cost format?

Yes. I don't like to say all because sometimes we have things that are in permitting and so on where it's harder to make changes post the issuance of development permits, but a very, great general answer to your question is yes, wherever possible.

Got it. Great. Super helpful. I will hop back into the queue. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Petrie from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Just a couple more. On Pratt, you know, the second location seems to be off to a good start. I can tell you I'm certainly doing my part. But what's a reasonable expectation to have for pace of new units? I mean, I know you're working on it actively. You've mentioned that and targeting the major markets, but what's a reasonable expectation?

You know, it's hard to... It's still new for us, but so far we've opened one a year. I think we'll be... much better than that. That would be, that's about the clearest I can be right now for you. But as the year progresses, I mean, it depends on a lot of factors, you know, how soon we get in offers to lease all those types of things, but, um, we're expecting that we'll be able to pick up the pace.

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Um, and then the last one, uh, I've asked about it in the past, but wanted to just come back to it. Um, I saw it in your, in your presentation, um, And I wanted to just ask about Brew Bar. Obviously, beverage attachment is a tough lever in this kind of market, these kind of conditions. But just curious, sort of your latest thoughts about how you can leverage that as a source of innovation and consumer interest.

Certainly an interesting platform that offers lots of possibilities. And we learn every single time that we do something. So it's great to have it as part of our offering. You know, beverage does respond seasonally as well. So having things that people want, having things that consumers would like to have can be great. We're seeing a little bit of, you know, occasions for drinks that we might not have seen in the past. And that could be a way perhaps for consumers to save money as well, just coming in for drinks. a different type of offering, but we are still focused very much focused on burgers and beef. So the, uh, the attachment is attachment to what we're really focused and pushing on.

Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thanks a lot. All the best.

All right. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Logan reach from RBC capital markets. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. I'm the, uh, on the beef pricing, like obviously been a headwind, like how are you sort of mitigating that effect for franchisees and just trying to get a sense of like your view on, on how big of a headwind that could potentially be to franchisee profitability at least in the first half of the year or, or, you know, maybe on the full year and, and you know, can you just remind us any sort of like hedging you guys are doing on beef or is it all spotless?

Yeah, if there's an area where A&W has a very long history and lots of expertise, it's in beef. We have lots of great relationships out there. And I think we've been able to navigate it very, very successfully. So despite sort of great inflationary pressures against beef, we've been able to, I think, do a bunch of things, including some smart buying by our buyers. And we feel like there's really a focus here on value, like what's the burger taste like? What does it look like? What's innovative? What's exciting? and that that's really what's going to draw people in. And then we don't have, the more guests you get, the least you have to worry about how much dollar margin or percent you're getting from each of them. So I think we're really committed to keeping prices affordable, but at the same time, we're very conscious of the fact that we need to be clever and thoughtful about how we're purchasing so that we're able to make that formula work.

Got it. That's helpful. And then just on competition, some of your largest companies, competitors are leaning further into value in, you know, late in 25 and also into 26. I guess, like, how do you think about the competitive landscape and value and just, you know, does A&W need to do anything, you know, sort of differently to sort of compete just given the kind of evolving value landscape?

Yeah, we acknowledge that, you know, when consumers have pressures on their disposable income and when they're really trying to be thoughtful about how they spend those discretionary dollars, we need to be part of their consideration set. So we make sure that we've got something affordable every day. We want to also make sure that we've got promotions from time to time that remind people of A&W's quality, taste and affordability. And as well as that, we've introduced some items on our menu that are of lower cost. So that's all so far working really, really well.

Got it. Got it. Super helpful. And then just last one for me, encouraging here, the loyalty trends and the app downloads and users. Any further color you can give on just maybe transaction growth in loyalty members versus non-loyalty members or increases in spend? Just trying to think about how to quantify what you guys are seeing from the new loyalty program, which sounds like it's going pretty well.

Yeah, it is. I mean, directionally, what we're seeing is that, you know, people, not surprisingly, that have taken the action of downloading the app and using the loyalty program, starting to accumulate points. We're at the early stages of people and guests being able to redeem points. So that's another jolt to a reminder to come back. We're seeing positive trends in both intention to visit, things like visitation and frequency and so on. So things look like they're heading in the right direction, but we know there's much, much more potential in those areas as well to keep working on. So we're at the early stages, but very happy with how things have gone so far.

Got it. Super helpful. And then just one follow-up on that. Is there any sort of associated headwind with the points accumulation to start the loyalty program?

I don't see any, no.

Okay. Super helpful. Thank you guys so much.

All right. Thank you.

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Susan Senecal for closing remarks.

Thanks, Jade, and thanks, everyone, for attending our call today. We look forward to updating you on our results after the first quarter of 2026. In the meantime, if anyone does have a question that was not answered on our call today, please feel free to send a follow-up email to investorrelations at aw.ca. Thanks.

This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.