Parkland Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Parkland Corporation's 2021 Q2 Results Analyst Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, August 6th, 2021. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Brad Monaco, Director, 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 Donna Sanker, President of Parkland Canada. This call is webcast and I encourage listeners to follow along with the supporting slides. We will go through our prepared remarks, 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 would 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'll 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 known. I'll now turn the call over to Bob.

Great. Thanks, Brad. And good morning, everybody, and welcome. We appreciate you taking the time to join us today. I would like to welcome Donna to today's call to discuss our strong on-the-run convenience store performance and provide some insights into our recently announced ultra-fast charger network in British Columbia. which we expect to be ready for summer driving season in 2022. The picture on today's cover slide showcases our proprietary on-the-run convenience store brand, which features heavily in our performance year-to-date and our growth trajectory. On-the-run, or Marché Express as it's known in Quebec, underpins our strategy of creating food and convenience destinations and is key in helping our customers make the most of every stop. Our network development team built a lot of momentum through the first half of 2021. They completed phase four of our expansion plan and added 60 new on the run retail stores. We currently have over 330 on the run convenience stores in the Canadian market. And in the second half of the year, we will enter phase five of our expansion plan, which includes an advanced dealer offering. As we move towards our target of 1,000 on-the-run Marsha Express in the Canadian market, we will leverage the unique characteristic of our network to develop large and express format convenience stores to meet the diverse needs of our customers. Our on-the-run convenience brand is highly scalable and provides a convenience growth platform across our entire portfolio. Having bought the license for on-the-run in the US, We've already opened our first location and our position to rapidly expand this throughout both our company owned and dealer network. We see big opportunity to continue to the expansion of our food and convenience business and look forward to sharing more at Investor Day on November 16th. We've delivered robust first half 2021 performance and continue to advance our proven strategy through consistent operational execution, organic growth, financial discipline, and accretive acquisition. I'm very proud of our teams who continue to deliver exemplary customer service and grow our market share. We have seized the opportunity through COVID to fine-tune our operations, streamline our cost structure, increase efficiency, and win new business. This gives us tremendous upside potential as markets continue to recover. A combination of green shoots of macro, economic recovery across our business, strong marketing results, and safe and reliable operations at the Burnaby Refinery helped deliver a 69% increase in year-over-year adjusted EBITDA. We remain focused on our long-term growth strategy and are very confident in our trajectory. Our ambition for $2 billion of run rate EBITDA by the end of 2025 is firmly on track. We have a proven track record of disciplined value creation. built on a foundation of continuous organic growth. We've been very acquisitive since the end of 2020, with a constant stream of highly accretive and complementary deals. Since our Q3 2020 results, we have announced or closed 12 transactions across Canada, the US, and our international operations. Collectively, the acquisitions have totaled approximately $800 million Canadian dollars. They are immediately accretive to cash flow per share and expected to be approximately 8% accretive on a post-synergy basis. We continue to advance our coprocessing innovation at the Burnaby Refinery, maintaining the previous quarter's coprocessing record of 25 million liters. This is a Made in Canada success story that we are very proud of. In addition, we announced plans to launch the largest ultra-fast electric vehicle charging network in British Columbia by site count, which is a natural extension of our energy transition activity. We've been highly disciplined in launching this business in a market with the most promising emerging demand profile. We see opportunity to be our customer's energy partner of choice and to make our convenience retail business a compelling destination for charging. Donna will speak more about this shortly. Parkland has a very exciting future, and you can count on us to remain focused on maintaining our financial strength and delivering sustainable long-term growth on a per share basis. I would now like to pass over to Marcel to discuss the second quarter results.