Arko Corp. (ARKO) Q4 2022 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Arko Corp. Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Ross Parman, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Arko's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. On today's call are Arie Kotler, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Don Bassell, Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings press release, annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 has filed with the SEC and our earnings presentation are available on Arko's website at arkocorp.com. Before we begin, please note that all fourth quarter 2022 financial information is unaudited. And during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by the use of words such as will, may, expect, plan, intend, could, estimate, project and similar references to future periods. These statements speak only as of today and are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our press release, our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, and our other filings with the SEC, for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Please note that on today's call, management will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including same-store measures, EBITDA adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. While the company believes these non-GAAP, financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to our earnings press release for reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would also like to note that we're conducting our call today from our respective remote locations. As, such, there may be brief delays, cross talk or other minor technical issues during this call. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. And now I would like to turn the call over to Arie.

Thank you, Ross. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us. Before we get started, I'm sure you will all love to hear that Don announced that he will retire after a distinguished 42-year career. Don is a great partner and resource. As we reported he will remain in the position for several on more quarters, leading the finance team while the search for his replacement is underway. Don’s time with the company has been marked by significant growth and excellent performance in our business. And 2022 was another year of strong results and continued expansion. This results emphasize that at our core, Arko is a retail convenience store operator. It is important to remember that the majority of our profits are generated in our stores. Arko increased operating income by 18.9% or $33.7 million in Q4 2022, versus the prior year fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased 24.1% compared to Q4 2021 $72.4 million in Q4 2022 and increased 17.3% year-over-year to $301.1 million in 2022. Our balance sheet continued to be very strong. In Q4 the company recorded $69.5 million in net cash provided by operating activities and $43.8 million in free cash flow. For the year, Arko generated $209.3 million in net cash provided by operating activities and $110.7 million in free cash flow. This is a direct results of executing our core strategy, both in-stores and in fuel cells across the business. In 2022, we continue to successfully invest in many initiatives in our stores. Over the past four years we have realigned and expand our marketing and merchandising team, their strategic initiative have successfully led to continue gross profit expansion inside our stores. Compared to 2020 merchandise contribution has grown by 23.4%. According to IRI in 2022, total dollar sales in our stores outpaced the market share during the string of our favourable assortment, loyalty and marketing programs. This includes key product categories like beer, wine, packaged beverages, packaged sweet snacks, frozen foods, alternative snacks and general merchandise. Q4 merchandise margin increased 50 basis points to 30.5% from 30% in Q4 2021. Merchandise margin expanded by 110 basis points to 30.4% for full year 2022 compared to 29.3% in 2021. Fourth quarter same-store merchandise sales excluding cigarettes increased 9.2% on a two-years tax basis. IRI data also shows that we maintain share in our competitive retailer market area including cigarettes and grew by 10 basis points excluding tobacco products. Fourth quarter 2022 same-store sales including cigarettes increased 1.2%. It is worth noting that the concentration of same-store cigarette sales declined from 38.7% of in-store sales in Q4 2020 to 32.7% of in store sales in Q4 2022, due to change in consumer behaviour, and our margin optimization strategy. We continue to price tobacco products competitively to attract adult tobacco consumers however, our main in store focus is to lead with an assortment relevant to our customers and on developing our programs in higher margin items like food service, and dispense beverage categories. Our in-stores growth strategy is based on three key pillars. The first pillar is to grow sales in core destination categories for data driven decision that meet today's customers need. When we acquire new sites, we often add hundreds of items to the acquired stores. We focused on key merchandise that we know resonate with our customers. I will detail the benefits of this shortly in a brief case study of our Andy March acquisition. The second key pillar is using our fast rewards loyalty program to develop and strengthen the relationship with our customers. Our objective is to drive more trips inside stores while providing exceptional value. We ended the year with almost 1.3 million enrolled loyalty members replaced by the consumer response to our current loyalty initiatives that the customers continue to incrementally grow their total spend over the course of the year. Our loyalty and marketing is apparently resonating with them. For example, our $0. 99 coffee program for enrolled members as at a very strong results, enrolled members purchase over 741,000 more cups of coffee in 2022, then in 2021. We are in the process of rolling out a new loyalty app which has many exciting new high value features for the benefits of our existing and new loyalty customers. We are in the final stages of preparing our stores for activation of our new loyalty app, and it will be available in the app store soon. Our goal is to increase new customer enrolment and enhanced customer engagement, with real time information like fuel pricing, and rewards balance. We will be able to target customers by their primary store with relevant high value in-store and in app deals, for our growing numbers or members. We expect that order and delivery will be facilitated through the app, capitalizing on our partnership with third-party services that provide delivery at over 1000 of our stores. We will also be able to make age verified special offers to adult customers, 21 years an older. Our third pillar is expanding our package and fresh food offering including pizza, chicken prepared sandwiches, and many other options, to borrow and other QSR like offering are component of this pillar. Since establishing this franchise relationship, we now have 18 our location. We continue to expand our food offering and implement variety of food options. And we are making progress in identifying food offering at a price point that will resonate with our customers and that we can use across our stores. Our goal is to increase margin trips, and average basket size. We know that we have long runway to significantly increase margin as we expand this important category to meet our customer needs. We believe that in our markets, we can create a value proposition to position our stores as a food destination. Updating areas of our store with a nice food and drink offerings has continued to work well for us. Unit sales have been to cup coffee increased 7.2% in 2022, and are trending up. We believe that through continuous improvement in each pillar, our core convenience store business is well positioned to deliver great results. Turning to fuel gross profit is the most important metric when analysing our performance. We believe our strategy to maximize fuel gross profit while maintaining competitive pricing has consistently proven itself in a volatile market environment. We believe our strategy enables strong results as price decline, as they have from their peak in June 2022, with some volatility through Q3 and Q4, and as total gallons in the market decline. We compete in fuel market by market using a data driven approach based on a fuel strategy that we have also designed to attract customers into our stores. In 2022, we have L merchandise dollar share in our competitive retail market and areas, while significantly improving fuel gross profit. This led to on one hand, same store gallon decreasing by 8.3% in q4, compared to 0.2% decline in the prior year quarter, and for the year, same store gallon declined 8.1% compared to a 1.3% decline in 2021. On the other end, retail fuelled profitability groups to $104.3 million, a 16.3% increase compared to the $89.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the year, we increased retail fuel gross profits by 19% to $416.2 million, compared to $349.9 million in 2021. We believe, based on 2022 national fuel volumes, that in all markets overall demand is likely to remain lower than in 2019. We also believe that cents per gallon is structurally higher than it was in the past, given pressures across the operating environment. OPEX continue to increase across our industry. The labour market is still competitive, and wage growth has been strong nationally. We believe our strategy is resilient across many price environments, as our results had shown. Turning to M&A. Capital allocation is one of the many things and we always think about the best areas to deploy capital. We have proven track records of discipline and consistent growth. We believe that acquisition will continue to drive EBITDA growth, company's return on invested capital across our many acquisition underscores that continue M&A is an effective use of capital. Our financial strength, financing ability and agreement with Oak Street continue to give us an advantage in our ability to move quickly and get deals done. Our balance sheet is strong, with manageable debt and favourable interest rates. Our industry continues to be highly fragmented. As a result, the overall deal pipeline is still strong, and we expect to expand our core convenience store business through our acquisition strategy. There are also opportunities to make accretive deals and acquire expertise in complementary areas that will grow the business. We believe our stores can grow their food offerings. If we believe there's an interesting opportunity or investment that can enhance our stores and create unique value proposition for our customers, we will closely examine the opportunity. We announced four highly accretive acquisition in 2022, of which we already close to Quarles and Pride. Before getting into further details I'd like to illustrate how we drive growth in new acquisitions. I want to walk through the 2022 performance of our Handy Mart acquisition that closed in November 2021. Quarter-over-Quarter, we monitor progress of all of our new acquisition. We fully reset 36 stores adding over 700 merchandise items. This is the value that we bring to our customers increasing mix within demand items. We also implemented our fuel pricing system. For these numbers, I am comparing against seller provided trailing 12 months figures from May 2021, when we conducted our due diligence. In-store margin has increased 6.9% from 31.3% to 33.5%. Merchandise contribution has grown 10.8%. As of December 31 2022, we increase average cent per gallon by $0.6. In the two full quarters following the reset, merchandise sales increased 7.6% compared to the two quarters prior to resets. Most importantly, although adding an approximately $6 million in rent to Oak Street, we've increased store level EBITDA by approximately 30% in just one year. The purchase multiple was reduced from about 1.3 times to one time and our return on investment it's 96%. This case study underscores an important part of our strategy in this highly competitive industry. Being an effective capital allocator is essential. But capital allocation alone is not what makes our business successful. Execution in operation is what drive us forward. Our teams have been very effective at improving marketing, in-store mix, and offering to drive sales at our newly acquired stores. If you're curious of our scale, and the efficiencies afforded us by our scale, allow us to compete market by market store by store every day. We plan to undertake similar value added measures in approximately 155 company operated convenience stores we expect to add to our network in the first half of this year. Once we close the remaining two acquisitions announced in 2022. The transit Energy Group acquisition will add approximately 135 convenience stores and expand ourselves and retail territory into Alabama and Mississippi. We expected transaction to close in the first quarter. The WT TG acquisition is anticipated to close in the second quarter. This acquisition will significantly enhanced the company's footprint in the attractive Permian Basin market, with 24 company operated unfilled convenience stores across western Texas. The company will also acquired 57 proprietary flip billing card looks like strategically located in large industrial areas in West Texas, and Southeast New Mexico and 52 Private Carlo sites. These sites service a diverse base of customers. The WTG acquisition fits very well in our business model and builds on the fleet fuelling business we acquired from Quarles in July 2022. We believe that fleet fuelling is an excellent business and the timing of the Quarles acquisition and our rapid integration could not have been better. We realize strong cash flow because of fuel price volatility in the second half of 2022 since closing. The Quarles acquisition which closed on July 22 2022 contributes incremental adjusted EBITDA in 2022 of $20 million. This exceeds our expectation based on our modelling. We closed the price convenience holding acquisition on December 6. This was our second deal for 2022. This strategic acquisition at 31 convenience stores, plus the new to industry store that broke ground in July 2022. We can expand our New England territory into Massachusetts. We are on Page three for integration efforts and look forward to adding value to the stores with a larger assortment and new promotions. In addition to this acquisition in 2022, we fully remodelled six stores, and started the planning and engineering phase of an NDI store in Atlanta, Texas. We expect construction of that project to be completed in 2024. We are also expanding our EV network. The Pride acquisition increase our total EV charging network with 18 charger installed across five stores in Massachusetts. Importantly, prior to our acquisition Pride was awarded a number of grants to expand its EV charging capacity in Massachusetts, which has aggressive EV targets. We plan to put these grants to use to expand EV chargers availabilities in these markets. As part of our overall strategy, we pursue grants and subsidies across our footprints to expand our EV charging capacity. We have six other active EV projects in various phases of development. On top of our chargers, currently in place in Marysville, Ohio, and Bertrand Michigan. We continue to identify potential opportunities to install EV charging, of course our footprint. Our goal is to offer EV drivers convenience and amenities they seek in charging destination away from their home at areas where we identify sufficient potential demand. One more note, in December, we released our Environmental Sustainability, Social Responsibility, and Corporate Governance Report for the year 2021. We are currently working on the implementation of our sustainability work plans with a focus on long-term value creation. With that I will turn it over to Don.

Thank you, Arie, and thank you for the kind words. It's no secret that I'm a convenience store fanatic. This is a great industry. And my colleagues and peers at Arko who share my passion are the reasons I enjoy coming to work every day. This is a great company, and a great company to work for. Our growth and strong performance, culminating in the company's inclusion in the Fortune 500 list is a part of my professional life that I'll always be proud of. The company has continued to record excellent results. Our in-store performance continues as our numerous initiatives gain traction. We're making, excellent progress with our integration capabilities, which is great for the company. Our other segments have continue to generate stable writable cash flows that benefit our capital allocation. Our balance sheet continues to be strong. We have a very good liquidity position as well. As at December 31 2022, we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $299 million, our outstanding debt, excluding capital leases was approximately $752 million, resulting in net debt of $453 million. We continue to realize excellent cash flow. For the quarter net cash provided by operating activities was $69.5 million and $209.3 million for the year, versus $39.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2021 and $159.2 million for the prior year. After the expected closings of the TEG and WTG acquisitions, there will be approximately $575 million remaining under our Oak Street agreement. Getting into results of our convenience stores. Merchandize revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 increased to $403.1 million versus $396.1 million in the prior year quarter. For the year, merchandize revenue increased nearly 2% to $1.65 billion from $1.62 billion in 2021. Margin percentage year-over-year increased by 110 basis points to 30.4%. Capital expenditures increase both the result of spending supporting our initiatives and other investments in our stores, including six fullstory models and other unnecessary upgrades. Total capital expenditures were approximately $98.6 million for the year ending December 31 2022, which included the purchase of certainty properties being a cup of coffee equipment, upgrades to our fuel dispensers and other investments in our stores. This is compared to net capital expenditures of $73 million for the prior year, which is composed of $226.2 million net of $152.9 million of proceeds paid by Oak Street for two transactions accounted for as deemed sale leasebacks and the purchase of certainty properties. In fuel, we continue to believe that margins have moved structurally higher given industry behind the client, increased credit card fees, higher operating expense to cost of labor. We believe our strategy of managing margin and volume while maintaining competitive pricing is key to optimizing profitability as a growing company. Retail fuel profitability, excluding intercompany charges for the fourth quarter of 2022 grew 16.3% this quarter, totaling $104.3 million. This was a $14.6 million increase versus Q4, 2021. For the year retail fuel profitability increased 19% to $416.2 million from $349.9 million in 2021. The company increased retail fuel margin to $0.414 per gallon for the year compared to $0.337 per gallon in 2021. Fourth Quarter convenience store operating expenses increased $13.6 million or 8.7% versus prior year, due to incremental expenses related to the product position, increased expenses, the same stores. Same store credit card fees for the quarter increased by $0.7 million or 3.5%, while salaries and wages increased by $7 million or by 11.5% both compared to Q4 2021. For the year ended December 31 2022, store operating expenses increased $75.9 million, or 12.8%, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. This was due to approximately $36 million of incremental expenses related to product acquisitions, and the 2021 acquisitions and an increased expenses that same stores, including $32 million of higher personnel costs of 14.2% and $10.4 million of higher credit card fees are 14.5% due to higher retail prices. The increase in store operating expenses was partially offset by underperforming retail stores that we closed are converted independent dealers. Moving to wholesale for the year. Wholesale fuel contribution, excluding intercompany charges increased approximately $9.7 million. This was primarily due to a 20.2% increase in fuel margin cents per gallon, which was partially offset by 7.7%, overall decline in volume, with gallons and gallons from fuel supply locations down 8.4% year-over-year. For the quarter wholesale fuel contributions, including intercompany charges decreased $1.8 million. Last quarter, we discussed the rapid integration of Quarles, which closed on July 22. We're very pleased with this acquisition in business. This acquisition has produced strong cash flow in the second half primarily because of fuel price volatility. The acquisition added adjusted EBITDA of $20 million for the year. We're very happy with the excellent work done by the highly skilled Quarles team. The fleet fueling business generated fuel revenues of approximately $149.9 million for the fourth quarter and $270.7 million for the year. Fuel contribution excluding intercompany charges from the fleet fueling size was approximately $16.9 million for the quarter and $27.8 million a year. Fuel margin cents per gallon excluding intercompany charges for the proprietary car locks was $0.539 per gallon for the fourth quarter and $0.078 per gallon. At the third party Quarles locations. For the year, fuel margin cents per gallon excluding intercompany charges was $0.484 per gallon at proprietary locations and 6.5% per gallon at the third-party Quarles locations. Net interest and other financial expenses for the full year decreased by $11.8 million versus the prior year to $59.4 million. Net interest and other financial expenses for the quarter were $16.3 million, compared to $16.2 million for the prior year quarter. Net income for the quarter was $12.86 million versus $12.93 million from the prior year period. Net income for the year increased 21.1% to $72 million, compared to $59.4 million for the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $72.4 million, an increase of $14.1 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. For the year, adjusted net of incremental bonuses was $301.1 million. This number has increased 64.2% Since 2020, showing the rapid pace of our progress. This has been another great year for the company. As a result of our strong results and desire to enhance returns for stockholders, Arko's board directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.03 per share of common stock to be paid on March 21, 2023 stockholders record as of March 9 2023. And now I'll turn the call back over to Arie.

Thanks, Don. I will close by saying that we believe that we have the right long term strategy in place as well as execution capabilities to deliver growth for the long-term. I want to thank the company over 12,000 employees for their hard work and dedication. I believe that our excellent results for the quarter and for the year are a great tailwind as we start 2023 and mark a decade of rapid growth at the company. Now we will take your questions.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions] The first question today is coming from Bobby Griffin of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is [Indiscernible] on for Bobby Griffin. Thank you for taking our questions. First, I just wanted to touch on kind of some of the main initiatives for 2023. Given the Oak Street partnership renews in May and assuming that the cap rate will increase given current interest rate trends. Does that change the focus for M&A to a little more focused on some of the other initiatives within the store for EBITDA growth in 2023.

Thank you, this is a great question, say hello to Bobby. No, I don't think that -- I don't think it's going to change anything. There is no question that cap rates might move a little bit given interest rates continue to rise. But, I just saying that given our size and our economy of scale, I think our transaction continued to be very lucrative. As you remember, in the past we showed 38% return on our capital in the past. And right now, in this presentation, we basically showing 59%. So, the worst can happen is we go back to the 38% return on capital, which is still a great return on capital for us. But I don't think anything will basically change dramatically over here. I think we're going to continue to grow through acquisition. And at the same time we have all of the other opportunities that I describe on the call, which include the people inside the store.

Okay, that's very helpful. And then maybe secondly, for us, just touch on the cost environment in the box a little bit. Are you currently continuing to see significant year-over-year cost pressures or our store OpEx costs starting to behave a little bit better?

I think the cost OpEx start to actually settle a little bit. As you can see year-over-year, we have an increase of almost $75 million $80 million increase in OpEx inside the stores, which that's what, by the way, what drove the CPG, or the gross profit dollars in outside the store, a little bit higher given the environment. I think we're going to see those things settled, as we enter into 2023, but I'm assuming that we're going to continue to see increase, maybe not significant, as we saw in 2021 and 2022. But we'll still see some kind of increase in 2023.

Okay, thank you so much. And best of luck here in 2023.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Hill [ph] Hogan of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. I guess two or three questions. The first one is I heard your comments on retail fuel margins being structurally higher, just given the cost environment for independence, but they were still pretty high in the fourth quarter. And maybe you could just give us a range of where you thought they might be on a on a go forward basis for the next year or two because $0.40 was pretty high.

So I think the $0.40 gets really a demonstration of basically of our capability of increasing gross profit dollars. As I tell people in this environment, I don't talk CPG anymore, I talk gross profit dollars. As I mentioned earlier, and we have a presentation out there, OpEx are up $75 million from basically from 2021. And I tell people, the only way to pay for that is actually to increase the margin outside the store. That's the only way to pay. I mean, in order for you to pay $75 million increase in OpEx, you need to almost 15% increase inside the store, which is not possible, it's just not possible. So I believe that, as we're going towards this inflation cycle, as we go towards basically interest rates rising, cost of supply rising wages, basically increases over here, I think the margin basically going to be supported up, just because all of those reasons that everybody has, by the way, the same the same issues. It's not the Arko in particular, it's actually everybody have the same issues. And I think given our size, we probably can be a little bit more flexible. But as I said, I mean, one of the things that we see in Q4, and we demonstrate that not only that CPG was up and gross profit, basically outside the world was up, it didn't impact the sales inside the stores. As you can see our same store sales as cigarettes inside the store were up 4.1%. And we continue to see this trend, by the way moving forward. And I think that just demonstrate that CPG will continue to rise across profit dollar outside the stores continue to rise, because of all of those reasons.

Got it. And then how do you balance that with the fuel volume decline in the quarter going forward? I mean, it's sort of like a tricky stabilization act, I think.

Well it's a great question. And as I always say, we believe that we have the right tools in place. And given that we believe we have the right tools in place. We always try to find the sweet spot between losing gallons on one end and basically getting margin. So yes, our gallons were down for the year 8.1%. But if you really looking on gross profit, gross profit dollars, you'll see that gross profit dollars was almost 20%. So you have a, you have to find this sweet spot. And at the same time, you need to be very careful and making sure that you continue to be competitive. I think that's one of the things that we see. And you're probably different than some others, but very similar to the accolades to the small operators, 40% of our stores are operated in cities, have population of 20,000 people or less, and an additional 20% is between 20,000 to 50,000. So we are in a lot of rural locations. And our belief is that gallons, we're just not there. It's not that we lost 8% of the gallon and someone else pick up the 8% of the gallon. That's not the case over there. We just think that people were driving last. However we are recycling right now. Almost we are in February right now we really recycling right now, the beginning of the war last year. And if you remember the volatility of fuel prices started at the beginning of March 2022. And now when basically prices, at least they are down right now dramatically from what we saw last year, we start to see increasing gallons compared to last year because of that.

Got it. And then my last question was, you made a reference in the script on M&A looking at adjacencies or adjacent categories. Just wondering if you could give us an example of sort of where you were thinking that might be accretive to the quarter?

Well, our main core is, of course, company operated stores. That's our main core. I mean, if you're really looking on our company, we continue to grow and continue to buy company operated stores. 70% of our -- if you're really looking on our operating profits, 76% of our businesses basically come from a retail segment. And as I mentioned, I mean, as we continue to grow, now we have a wholesale opportunity, which is a great opportunity for us, we have the Cardlock opportunity, which is an unbelievable opportunity for us. I mean, you see the results, I mean, we basically deliver in five months, we deliver the EBITDA that, we basically underwrote to deliver for the full year. So a great year for us. And again, this is just then, like I said that adjacent opportunity for us to continue to deliver great cash flow, while at the same time, we're going to continue to concentrate on our retail business and company operated stores, because this is where we see, the majority of the profits coming from. And I think the Handymark, the description about what we did in Handymark, adding almost 700 assortment, and then the we have three acquisitions. We just closed the Pride acquisition, and just start to reset those doors. And as I mentioned, 700 items were added in Handymark, I believe in Pride, the opportunity is much bigger. I think it's more than 700 items going to be added over there, given that those are bigger stores. The same thing goes to fuel. We're going to use our same strategy that we use in Handymark using company wide, we're going to continue to use those strategies. And I think given our size right now, I think we're going to be able to, deliver better and better results quarter after quarter. Given we implement our strategy over here. And there is a lot of opportunities that again, I can sit down for five hours and talk about all of those opportunities, especially food service. I mean, we believe food service in this environment is a great opportunity for us. When I talk food service, I'm talking more about pizza, grab and go freezers. We have opportunity to add 200 freezers in additional stores. We are adding bean to cup coffee machines into the Pride Stores. We're getting ready to close the TG acquisition and we're going to reset those doors. So again, we have a big runaway over here ahead of us.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Appreciate the question.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Alok Patel of Stifel. Please go ahead.

Hi everyone. This is Ollie Patel on the line from Mark Astrachan. I wanted to follow up regarding in short merchandise, can you talk about which categories are more or less elastic? How you think about pricing as you move through 2023 and potential benefit from higher promotional activity or just reduced pricing?

Sure, sure. First of all, I can maybe touch couple of categories that were basically, we saw a big increase or a very, very nice increase over there. I mean, the first one, of course, is candy. I mean, everybody knows that candy, countrywide candy up. So nice increasing candy. Frozen foods continue to be a big hit for us. As you know, you guys remember from the beginning of 2021, we implemented over 700 freezers into our stores, and continue to grow. I mean, this quarter, just this quarter frozen foods was up 19.2%. The same thing goes to package, sweet snacks, I mean over 14%, increase, Pack Bevs continue to grow 4.7% increase. So we believe that the big opportunity for us it's really loyalty. And as we continue to grow, and as we continue to offer great, basically great promotions to our loyal customers, not only that, their baskets increase, I mean, they're coming more often. And that I think will drive our profitability inside the stores. The one thing I want to touch of course, is that remember, we started 2020, Q4 2020, our same store sales cigarettes was around 38.9%, almost 39%. And today, the concentration of cigarettes inside our box, it's around 32.9%. This is a 6% difference, which means that we were able to increase the basket and sell 6% more of other products that their margin is probably two or three times better than the margin on cigarettes. And that's the focus of the year. The focus is to continue to increase inside sales with high margin items, which include the foodservice item and all of the other categories I just mentioned. And we see it by the way in Q1 already, I mean, Q1, I mean, the inside sales, excluding cigarettes continue to be very, very strong, similar to what we saw in Q4 2022.

Got you. And then I had a quick follow up on exit rates for margins, just any commentary on how December was stacking up compared to November or October. And whether that momentum or that level of margin has carried over into January and February, any color on that will be great.

Are you talking inside the store?

No, I was referring to fuel margins.

Fuel margin? Well, I can't really comment about what happened in q1. There is no question that Q4 was very, very strong Q compared to the rest of the year, no question about that. The only thing I can tell you that nothing significantly really changed. That's the one thing I can tell you, I think we saw maybe a little bit soft in Q1. But that's happened, by the way in Q1 2022 as well. Just for everybody's memory, Q1 2022 the CPG was a little a bit lower than Q4 2021. And we see the same thing over here. Remember, Q1 is always the cue that people drive less, weather wise, it's not great to be outside. But I don't think that this is going to demonstrate anything. Q4 to Q1, I don't think it's really provide any kind of demonstration over here. The one thing I can tell you is that we see gallons picking up basically in February, compared to basically prior year. That's one thing that we see.

Got it, thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Karru Martinson of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, when you look at adding pizza, grab and go freezers and things of that like, is there a change in the kind of the CapEx philosophy or the investment needed in the boxes here?

No, there was really no change. Like everything else, usually we when we make those changes, and usually when we add those items inside the box, we don't view the same philosophy that we use on return on capital. I mean, and I'll give you an example. When we added the bean to cup coffee machines to over 500, and almost 550 stores last year, we said yes, return on capital is very important, but at the same time, this is a must if you want to be in the business of selling coffee. And you want to tell the market that you're selling coffee 24 hours, basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week and you get the same fresh cup of coffee, you need to make the investment, because you assume that with that investment, you assume that people are going to come in, and not only you're going to become a destination for coffee, they're going to pick up some other items, or bakery items because of that. So as long as you have the item, that will be actually sold with coffee, this is an investment. The same thing goes to pizza, and the same thing goes to the rest of the food service item. You invest in freezers, you invest in grab and goes. And the assumption is that the minute someone, basically grab a sandwich, he's also going to grab a drink, and maybe a chips with that. And this is really the way we're thinking about that. We're thinking about how can we increase the basket, how we can increase actually the inside sales. And that's I call it functional remodel, which means that you actually need to invest in areas that are basically going to impact some other areas within the stores.

Okay, and how do we reconcile, we're reading the journal, and what have you is the headlines are the consumers pulling back, the consumers trading down to private label, and yet you're seeing, a 19% increase in food sales, and you're seeing people shop the insides of your stores on that front. What's the disconnect, that we're not getting in your local markets?

Well, given the market that I mentioned, and given that, as I said, 40% of our stores are actually sitting in cities that are 20,000, -- a population of 20,000 people or less, as you can imagine, in those areas, the consumer is looking for value, the consumer is looking for value. There is no question about that. And given that, given our size, and, you're talking about an industry that 75% of the industry, almost, yeah, 75, 70%, 75% of the industry, it's really small chain with 50 store or less, as you can imagine, very difficult for some of those small chains to implement the private label, very difficult for some of those small chains to basically to bring valuable items to the consumers. I think, given our size, and our economy of scale, that we know we have almost, we have over 1,400 stores going soon to over 1,500 stores, I think we have the size and the capability and the merchandising team, of course that work around the clock to make sure that we bring valuable item to those -- basically, to consumer. And by the way, that's the reason I keep saying that. That's the reason that Q4 was such a strong Q, with other item other than cigarettes. And I can, be very pleased and tell you right now that the trend right now continue to be stronger than basically than Q4 when it comes to those categories. So as long as you have the size and economy of scale, and you have the merchandising team that will sell those products. I mean, this is what the consumer is looking right now. You're absolutely correct, the consumer is looking for value. The brand is not relevant anymore. The value is very, very important, given, basically where we are at the moment.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is coming from William Reuter of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, you mentioned that M&A pipeline continues to be strong, I guess is there anything you can share with us about the attributes in terms of how big these are? Are they the same kind of general size that historical acquisitions have been? And I guess I'm talking on the retail side here?

I think nothing really changed in terms of the size. I mean, it's the same size as you guys saw, we basically did four acquisition, three of them involve retail. So I don't think anything's changed in terms of size. I think what we're seeing over here, and that's coming back to what I was basically saying since 2020, we are a very, very, very disciplined purchaser, very disciplined purchaser. And you guys didn't see double digit multiples, when it comes to our acquisition. We still basically signed 24 acquisition close 22, getting ready to close another two. We grow our store base very nicely over here. And I think what you're going to see right now, it's a lot of people that I don't want to say overpaid, but maybe paid a higher multiples. As interest rates continue to rise, I think what we're going to see is that some of those folks are going to have to try to refinance. So they're going to try to sell their businesses given that they're not going to be able to refinance in this interest rate environment. And that's why -- and it's become a little bit more difficult to operate a medium small size chain, versus what we saw in basically before the pandemic.

Okay, and then -- that's helpful. And then just as one follow up, you talked about how 60% of your stores are in relatively rural locations or smaller population locations. Historically, there have not been many large operators that have been building stores there. Have you seen that change at all over the last year or two, given that profitability of outside the store fuel margins have been so strong?

Nope, I don't see -- I don't see a lot of people building stores in this environment. And I think not only because it's hard, it's also because the cost of construction is probably 40% higher than what we saw before we actually entered the pandemic. I don't see a lot of basically a lot of big, big stores being built in our markets at all. Now this is not even something that I see over here that actually provide any kind of concern to us.

Good to hear. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Anthony Bonadio of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys, and congrats Don on your retirement. So I just wanted to ask about acquisition synergies. And I think you guys illustrated a lot of this well, in the Handymart example, in your opening remarks. I think you gave something in the range of 27% of EBITDA in synergies on the transit acquisition. Obviously, you're growing, still continues to help there. But are you finding that numbers creeping higher over time as you guys evolve the model and refine your refining our approach to things like prepared food, merchandising, and the loyalty program? And then how high could we see that go over time?

Don, I will let you take this. Don, I believe you're on mute. We probably lost Don. So Anthony. And I can't provide guidance and what's going to happen in the future. The only thing I can say and again, go back and refer to the Handymark acquisition or, the Pride acquisition that we have out there. And this is acquisition that we already closed. There's no question that given our size, economy of scale, matter, absolutely matter. But it's only not only just the economy of scale, it's also, as I mentioned on the call, it's also execution. In Handymark, those were there for over 100 years. I mean, this is a brand that we bought in November, and this is 101 year old brand. And those guys had the opportunity to basically to add products or merchandise the stores. I think what we bring to the table over here, it's really experience, experienced merchandisers. Most of those small companies don't have merchandisers and marketing team that is actually sitting behind them. And they're really relying on the quality of the wholesaler. Given our size and given that we have the merchandising team, and we have the marketing team behind the company, and when we come in and 36 stores, I mean, think about it, adding 700 items to the store, I mean, this is huge. And you see the results, and by the way, the results are coming in a very short order, I can tell you all that we started to basically to work on the planogram of the stores around June. I mean, literally just around June. And within six months, you see the increase. I mean, we went from 31.5 to 33. So we actually added to 200 basis points to the margin. And on the top of it, we actually saw an increase in sales, which was actually tremendous. And as you can see, we increased store level EBITDA by 30% over here. So I think the smaller the deal, I think the bigger opportunity. The midsize deal, I think the opportunities are going to be there. It's again, it's just we bring expertise and execution skills that some of the other companies just don't have given their size.

Hey, Arie, can you hear me now?

Yes.

Yeah. So I thought I was off mute. One of the things I think that's important, Anthony, as you saw, we did with Handymark, we're not waiting to get in to do the like the resets and things like that. And obviously, the bigger we get, the lower our cost is, the more efficient and we're also looking not only just the store level, we're also looking at the G&A structure as well, too. And we're, there's obviously more synergies to come and obviously we now well-defined three different segments. We're all operating on the same platform, and I think there's more synergies to come. It just comes naturally. So I think we'll see that, but the big focus really is to get there as soon as possible and start to do these resets and realize these synergies quickly, which will just lead us, to grow even more. So I think I don't want to give a percentage on it. But I think one of the things we if you note, like when we looked at the Corals acquisition, we exceeded our expectations with their, we exceeded our expectations, with Handymark, we exceeded our expectations with Empire. I think we're at a point now where we've really gotten the formula down, I won't say completely. But now comes the fun part where we really can start focusing in on not just what do we do as synergies, but our internal processes? And how do we -- how do we make that even better make it easier for the operators, so they can have more customer facing time, and do things like that. So the synergies not only with the acquire sites, but also with our own sites from an organic standpoint will grow.

Thank you. I'm showing up for additional questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Kotler for closing comments.

Thank you very much. First, I would like to thank you all for joining the call. Great question, a lot of questions this time, which is great. We had a hell of a quarter, we had a hell of a year, grew our EBITDA again. This is a second year that we are -- second anniversary of being a public company over here. We grew EBITDA from $256 million last year to $301 million this year. And as you can see, we have another two acquisitions that we're getting ready to close. I think we continue to perform very, very well, continue to execute. And as Don mentioned earlier, every time when we put numbers in front of our investors, we actually beat those numbers. So we're trying to be ultra conservative over here. And I'm looking forward for a great 2023 Thank you everybody for participate, and have a great day.

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