Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CrossAmerica Partners First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, May 9 of 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Maura Topper, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining the CrossAmerica Partners First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. With me today is Charles Nifong, CEO and President. We'll start off the call today with Charles providing some opening comments and an overview of CrossAmerica's operational performance for the quarter, and then I will discuss the financial results. We will then open up the call to questions. Today's call will follow presentation slides that are available as part of the webcast and are posted on the CrossAmerica website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's call, including the question-and-answer session, may include forward-looking statements regarding expected revenue, future plans, future operational metrics and opportunities and expectations of the organization. There can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs and projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please see CrossAmerica's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for a discussion of important factors that could affect our actual results. Forward-looking statements represent the judgment of CrossAmerica's management as of today's date, and the organization disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During today's call, we may also provide certain performance measures that do not conform to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. We have provided schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of our earnings press release. Today's call is being webcast, and a recording of this conference call will be available on the CrossAmerica website for a period of 60 days. With that, I will now turn the call over to Charles.

Thank you, Maura. Maura and I appreciate all of you joining us this morning as we review our first quarter results. During today's call, I will go through some of the operating highlights for the first quarter 2024. I will also provide commentary on the market and other updates similar to what I have done on our prior calls. Maura will then review in more detail our financial results. Now if you turn to Slide 4, I will briefly review some of our operating results. For the first quarter of 2024, our wholesale segment gross profit declined 14% to $27 million compared to $31.2 million in the first quarter of 2023. The decrease was driven by a decline in fuel margin, fuel volume and rental income. A significant factor in the overall decline was the conversion of certain lessee dealer sites to company-operated and commission agent sites, which are now accounted for in the retail segment. Our wholesale motor fuel gross profit decreased 13% to $14.6 million in the first quarter of 2024 from $16.7 million in the first quarter of 2023. Our fuel margin declined 5% from $0.083 per gallon in the first quarter of 2023 to $0.079 per gallon in the first quarter of 2024. The decrease in our wholesale fuel margin per gallon was primarily driven by the following factors: first, our average purchase price of motor fuel per gallon for the first quarter of 2024 was lower than our average purchase price of motor fuel per gallon for the first quarter of 2023, resulting in us receiving a lower dollar amount in terms discounts on certain gallons that we purchased during the quarter. Second, we experienced a gradual increase in crude oil prices throughout the first quarter of 2024. Historically, such a steady, gradual increase in…

Thank you, Charles. If you would please turn to Slide 6, I would like to review our first quarter results for the partnership. We reported a net loss of $17.5 million for the first quarter of 2024 compared to a net loss of $1 million in the first quarter of 2023. This loss was primarily driven by a $15.9 million loss on the lease termination with Applegreen and a decline in our year-over-year adjusted EBITDA. Regarding the lease termination charge for the Applegreen transaction, GAAP requires us to record substantially all of the price paid to Applegreen for the transaction, excluding amounts for inventory and equipment as an income statement expense as opposed to a balance sheet purchase, which drove the lease termination expense in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $23.6 million for the first quarter of 2024, a decline of $8.2 million from adjusted EBITDA of $31.7 million for the first quarter of 2023. Our distributable cash flow for the first quarter of 2024 was $11.7 million compared to $19.1 million for the first quarter of 2023. The declines in adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow were primarily due to operating income decreases in both our wholesale and retail segments, driven by the challenging fuel margin environment during the quarter and the additional operating expenses incurred primarily as a result of our higher company-operated store count. Our distribution coverage for the current quarter was 0.59x compared to 0.96x for the first quarter of 2023. Our distribution coverage for the trailing 12 months ended March 31, 2024, was 1.37x compared to 1.7x for the same period ended March 31, 2023. The first quarter historically is our most challenging of the year with 9 out of the 12 first quarters in the partnership's history having a distribution coverage ratio below 1x.…

[Operator Instructions]

It doesn't appear that we have any questions this morning. Should you have any questions later, please reach out to us, and we'll be happy to address them. We thank everyone for joining us this morning. Have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.