Parkland Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Parkland Corporation's 2021 Q1 Results Analyst Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Brad Monaco, Director of Capital Markets for Parkland. Please go ahead.

Thank you. With me today on the call are Bob Espy, President and CEO, Marcel Tunison, Chief Financial Officer, and Ian White, Senior Vice President, Strategic Marketing and Innovation. This call is webcast, and I encourage listeners to follow along with the supportive slides. We will go through our prepared remarks and then open it up for questions from the investment community. Please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up as necessary, and if you have other questions, re-enter the queue. We'd ask analysts to follow up directly with the capital markets team afterwards for any detailed modeling-type questions. During our call today, we may make forward-looking statements related to expected future performance. These statements are based on current views and assumptions and are subject to uncertainties which are difficult to predict. These uncertainties include, but are not limited to, expected operating results and industry conditions, among other factors. Risk factors applicable to our business are set out in our annual information form and management's discussion and analysis. We will also be discussing non-GAAP measures, which do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by GAAP. These measures are identified and defined in Parkland's continuous disclosure documents, which are available on our website or CDAR. Please refer to these documents as they identify factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements. Dollar amounts discussed in today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. I'll now turn the call over to Bob.

Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to join us and trust you are staying safe and healthy. I would also like to welcome Ian White to today's call to provide an update on some of our ongoing organic growth initiatives, which continue to strengthen our existing business. The photo on today's cover slide showcases one of our proprietary pioneer branded locations with an on the run convenience store. Together, these illustrate our compelling value proposition, which fulfills our purpose of powering journeys and energizing communities and plays a critical role driving continued organic growth. Many of our markets are still dealing with various levels of COVID-19 restrictions. I'm exceptionally proud of our team's to safely and reliably providing the essential fuels and services customers need. In particular, I want to thank our frontline teams for their continued dedication to this effort. We are off to a great start in 2021. Our strong business performance through the first three months has reinforced our confidence in the continued strength of our business model. Our geographic and product diversity continues to provide a layer of insulation from economic volatility. Despite ongoing COVID-19 impacts, the resilience of our business continues to be remarkable. This was a fantastic quarter and we're on track for a full year guidance. For those of you who follow us closely, know how much we focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet. Through the quarter, we enhanced our financial flexibility through the completion of over $3 billion of refinancing. This will deliver approximately $20 million of annual interest savings. It means we have no senior notes maturities until 2027 and are well positioned to fund our growth. Built on a foundation of great brands, great assets, great service, and a great team, we are seeing tremendous underlying strength across the business. In addition, the investments we are making in our marketing capabilities further support our growth. Ian will talk to this shortly. So far this year, we have completed or announced five acquisitions across our US and international segments. This includes another small international acquisition in April, where we will expand our regional aviation portfolio through operations at two international airports in Puerto Rico. As you know, we set a high bar for any acquisition. Each must advance our strategy, provide integration, and organic growth opportunities and strengthen our supply advantage. Looking forward, each of our geographies offers a rich pipeline of consolidation targets to support our growth ambitions, including our international business, which we are seeing increased opportunity. Moving on to slide four, I'd like to talk briefly about our sustainability journey, which is integral to our culture and strategy. We included updates on this important strategic area in our news release. However, I would like to highlight a few key areas of focus for us. Firstly, we are making solid progress building our enterprise sustainability strategy. We're working towards our second annual sustainability report, which will include commitments around our emissions. We look forward to sharing the report in the fourth quarter and discussing details at our November Investor Day. More broadly, we see big opportunity to play an ongoing and expanded leadership role through the energy transition. This extends well beyond our existing manufacturing of renewable fuels at the Burnaby Refinery, which in 2021 will have the equivalent environmental effect of removing 80,000 passenger vehicles from the road. We expect continued growth in this area of our business and will also harness our existing retail network to support our customers' mobility needs, including electric vehicle charging options. We have been pragmatic and disciplined in accessing this opportunity and will focus in markets which already have encouraging electric vehicle penetration. We expect to share more on our energy transition strategy transition strategy as we move throughout 2021. I'll now pass over to Marcel to go through the corporate financial results.