Joshua Kobza
Analyst · Alliance Bernstein
Thanks, Kendall. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As I begin my fourth year as CEO, I want to start with a brief reflection on what worked well in 2025. When we stay focused on the basics and make the right long-term investments, results tend to follow, and this year was another example of that. Our brands delivered solid results, reinforcing the strength of our portfolio and the impact of our continued focus on delivering quality, service and convenience to guests. This year, we also took decisive action to position us well for the next phase of growth. In China, we temporarily took control of our Burger King business, built a strong local leadership team, elevated marketing, optimized the restaurant portfolio and strengthened operations, driving three consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales. Importantly, we attracted an engaged local partner, CPE, and established a strong foundation for long-term growth. At Popeyes, we took important steps to refocus the leadership team. and begin returning the brand to the level of performance we know is capable of delivering. And at Burger King in the U.S., we continue to invest in operations, marketing and modern image, while also beginning our refranchising efforts 2 years ahead of schedule. Over the past few weeks, Tom and I spent time in the field together, road tripping from D.C. to Philadelphia, visiting restaurants, sitting in on Royal roundtables and checking in on remodeled sizzles. These restaurants are a great example of getting all of the basics right. Operations are dialed in, teams are energized and managers are focused and engaged. As a result, these stores are delivering annualized average restaurant sales of nearly $3 million, a clear tangible illustration of what strong execution looks like in practice. That same focus on the fundamentals was evident across the business in 2025. For the full year, we delivered comparable sales growth of 2.4%, net restaurant growth of 2.9% and system-wide sales growth of 5.3%. We translated those top line results into organic adjusted operating income growth of 8.3% and nominal adjusted EPS growth of over 10%. It's now our third consecutive year of delivering roughly 8% organic adjusted operating income growth, a level of consistency that remains differentiated within the industry. I'm proud of how our teams and our franchisees showed up. Our three largest businesses, Tim Hortons, International and Burger King, all outperformed their respective categories this year. Tim Hortons Canada and International have now each delivered 19 consecutive quarters of positive comparable sales. And Burger King U.S. made visible progress executing our Reclaim the Flame. While 2025 represented a low point for our consolidated net restaurant growth, we believe we've turned the corner and are excited to reaccelerate growth in 2026. Stepping back, this year reinforced the resilience of our model and the progress we've made strengthening our brands. We delivered solid top line growth and on algorithm adjusted operating income growth amid a tougher consumer backdrop, strengthen the quality and durability of our earnings and exited the year ready to build on that momentum in 2026. Lastly, I'd like to provide a quick reminder of our upcoming Investor Day on February 26. This year marks the midpoint of our long-term growth algorithm, and our Investor Day will serve as a check-in on our progress and an opportunity to address some of the biggest questions we get about the business. Tom will provide an update on Reclaim the Flame and I'll spend time discussing our path to 5% plus net restaurant growth. Sami will walk through our plans to return to a 99% franchise business model and discuss capital allocation. And you'll hear from Patrick and our brand presidents with additional time for Q&A. As a result, today's call will largely focus on our quarter and year-end results, and we'll address most of our forward-looking plans at Investor Day. We look forward to seeing you there. With that, let's turn to our segment highlights, starting with Tim Hortons, which represents roughly 42% of our operating profit. 2025 was another year that underscored the strength and durability of Tim Hortons. We started the year amid macro uncertainty and weaker consumer sentiment in Canada, yet Tim's delivered solid performance by staying focused on executing against the basics and delivering great experiences for our guests. That consistency carried through the fourth quarter, with comparable sales in Canada growing 2.8%, outperforming the broader Canadian QSR industry by nearly 2 points. Brand health continues to be a key advantage with Tim's leading in affordability, trust and relevance with guests. That connection to the communities we serve was evident during our Holiday Smile Cookie campaign, which raised approximately CAD 13 million across Canada and the U.S. for local charities and our Tim's Foundation camps. During the quarter, we kept a disciplined balance between innovation and core offerings. Breakfast food sales grew 3.5%, supported by innovation like our 100% Canadian freshly cracked scrambled eggs alongside strength in our core, such as our Farmers Wrap. Baked goods grew 2%, driven by seasonal offerings like the Biscoff Boston Cream Donut and croissant. In the PM daypart, main foods grew modestly, supported by our holiday meal offering. PM remains an important long-term opportunity for the brand, and we continue to refine the menu, value platforms and execution to drive growth. Q4 beverage sales grew 3.2% year-over-year, with strong guest response to seasonal offerings like our Biscoff and brown sugar beverages. Cold beverages remained a standout, growing 8.6% despite colder-than-usual temperatures in December and reaching nearly 27% of total beverage sales in Q4, the highest fourth quarter mix on record. This growth was largely driven by our iced espresso-based beverages platform, including iced chai lattes protein lattes. We also began rolling out our new espresso machines to support improved quality and consistency for this growing category. Tim's ongoing industry outperformance wouldn't be possible without Axel and his team's constant focus on delivering a great guest experience. Speed of service improved across dayparts in 2025 and guest satisfaction reached record levels, including in the PM. Digital engagement also continued to build with digital ordering and payments reaching all-time highs in Q4 and kiosks expanding to over 800 restaurants. We're excited to give guests even more reasons to engage with Tims and accelerate loyalty adoption through the launch of our partnership with Canadian Tire later this year. On development, Tim Hortons returned to net restaurant growth in Canada for the first time since 2021. As expected, growth this year was measured and targeted focused on suburban developments, capacity-constrained markets and urban densification. This represents a positive step forward for the system. And with a strong pipeline, we're confident in our ability to accelerate development again in 2026. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Tims delivered its highest level of new restaurant openings in the past decade, reflecting continued progress in both existing and new markets like Florida and Virginia. Lastly, I'd like to touch on franchisee profitability in 2025. In Canada, Tim Hortons delivered solid top line sales performance, which helped offset headwinds from tariffs and increased operating commodity costs, including coffee. While cost pressures impacted P&Ls, average 4-wall EBITDA proved resilient at approximately CAD 295,000. This underscores the strength of the Tim Hortons business and the durability of its franchisee economics. Overall, the fourth quarter capped another year of steady performance for Tim Hortons, supported by strong brand fundamentals, delicious menu innovation and consistent execution. That foundation positions the business well as we move into 2026. Turning now to International, which drives about 27% of our operating profit. 2025 was a standout year for this business. Across a diverse set of markets, our teams and franchisees executed a balanced operational and marketing playbook that led to another year of double-digit system-wide sales growth. While International is often viewed as a unit growth story, it's worth highlighting that this segment has also delivered strong comps and double-digit system-wide sales growth for years with a mid-single-digit average royalty rate that flows efficiently to AOI. For the full year, comparable sales grew 4.9%, including 6.1% in the fourth quarter, and net restaurant growth was 4.9%, driving system-wide sales growth of nearly 11%. Performance was strong across several of our largest markets, reflecting the quality of our brands and the effectiveness of our local strategies. In France, Burger King delivered another strong quarter, led by the Duo Mystere box, where guests receive a surprise duo for EUR 5 and our Stranger Things activation. In Australia, the launch of Jack'd Up sodas, which is Hungry Jack's Take on dirty sodas, helped drive record beverage incidents. And in Brazil, our King em Dobro platform continued to resonate by delivering compelling core value. Q4 was also an important quarter for Burger King China with comparable sales growing 9.2%, driven by improvements in restaurant fundamentals, growth in delivery and refreshed marketing. Most importantly, during the quarter, we announced a joint venture with CPE, an experienced Chinese investment firm with a proven track record of scaling consumer brands in China, under which CPE would take majority ownership of the business. The transaction closed on January 30, and CPG injected $350 million of primary capital to fund growth. Together, we share an ambition to roughly double Burger King China's restaurant footprint to at least 2,500 units by 2030. I couldn't be more excited to welcome CPE to the RBI family, and I'm looking forward to sharing more about their vision for Burger King in China at our upcoming Investor Day. We also made progress at Popeyes China, opening 55 net new restaurants in 2025, as we continue to build brand awareness. With a clear path to accelerate development in 2026, we remain focused on scaling this business thoughtfully and look forward to eventually getting it into the hands of a long-term local operator. Reflecting on 2025, International stands out as one of our strongest growth engines and a clear competitive advantage. We've now built five $1 billion businesses in Burger King, Spain, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the U.K., along with a $2 billion business in Burger King France. We're also seeing consistent success in markets just outside our top 10 that we don't always highlight like Burger King Japan, where we've beaten the industry for 11 straight quarters, delivering 22% same-store sales in 2025 on top of 19% same-store sales in 2024 and adding 84 net new restaurants this year, or Popeyes Turkey, which more than doubled its store count in the last 4 years, ending 2025 with nearly 500 restaurants. In addition, we're scaling newer markets like Popeyes in the U.K. or Tim Hortons in Mexico, where we crossed $200 million and $100 million in system-wide sales, respectively, as brand awareness and market adoption continue to build. While these markets are diverse, they're winning by executing the same fundamentals, locally relevant marketing, disciplined development and consistent operations, all managed by strong local operators. These fundamentals give me confidence that International is well positioned to deliver durable growth in 2026 and beyond. Turning now to Burger King, which represents roughly 18% of our operating profit. U.S. comparable sales grew 1.6% for the full year, including 2.6% in the fourth quarter. We have now outperformed the burger QSR industry in 9 out of the last 12 quarters, demonstrating how Reclaim the Flame is strengthening the brand and its relative value proposition for guests. Marketing and menu innovation played an important role during the quarter. In December, we launched the SpongeBob SquarePants menu, featuring the Krabby Whopper with an iconic square yellow bun alongside cheesy bacon tots, bacon tots, a strawberry short cake pie and a frozen pineapple float. The activation drove strong guest engagement and brought families back into our restaurants, with kids meals reaching their highest incidence level in the last 10 years. This is an exciting proof point as we think about the potential of our family business. Importantly, we were able to retain traffic after the promotion ended with new SpongeBob guests coming back to Burger King in January. This innovation was supported by our consistent value platform, $5 Duos and $7 Trios, which remained on the menu all year. Duos and Trios continue to perform well by offering guests choice, price certainty and consistency. In a year when there was significant noise across the industry around value, this dependable platform allowed us to focus our marketing behind Whopper-led innovation and family partnerships that attracted new guests to the brand. Looking ahead, we'll continue executing this balanced strategy. But that sales momentum only translates into sustained traffic when it's supported by solid operations. Throughout the year, the team remained focused on improving execution. Tom and his team are completing their fourth annual Royal roundtables, bringing together every restaurant manager in the country to sharpen operational focus across the system. We see the impact of consistent operations. Speed and service quality reflected clearly in the performance of our A operators, who outperformed the system average profitability by nearly $50,000 in 2025. In addition to improving operations, we remain dedicated to modernizing the asset base, and ended 2025 at 58% modern image, up from 51% in 2024. While we previously discussed reaching 85% modern image in 2028, the current cost environment is influencing the pace of remodel activity. And as a result, it will take a bit longer to reach that level. This doesn't change our strategy or the role of remodels and Reclaim the Flame. Remodels continue to deliver compelling uplifts in the teams that of control, reinforcing our confidence in the program, and we will continue to make steady progress alongside our franchisees. We also continue to modernize Carrols, completing roughly 60 remodels in 2025, including 54 sizzles. Comparable sales grew by 2.4% in Q4, slightly behind the rest of the system as Carrols restaurants were more heavily impacted by weather, given their geographic concentration in the Northeast. Finally, franchisee profitability was about $185,000 in 2025, down from about $205,000 in 2024. This was driven primarily by beef costs, which Sami will discuss shortly. While 2025 was a step back, we're well ahead of where we were just a few years ago. Fundamentals continue to strengthen, and we're confident profitability will expand as beef costs normalize. Overall, I'm encouraged by the progress Tom and team made in 2025. Burger King executed compelling marketing, offered consistent value, improved operations and continued to make progress on modern image, helping the brand once again outperform the burger QSR industry and reinforcing my confidence in the brand's trajectory as macro pressures ease. I'm excited for you to hear from Tom directly on February 26 about how we plan to further elevate the brand moving forward. Now turning to Popeyes, where net restaurant growth of 1.6% was more than offset by comparable sales down 3.2% for the year, resulting in system-wide sales growth of negative 0.7%. As a result of softer sales this year, franchise profitability declined to roughly $235,000, which remains a healthy level, but one we are focused on improving. Our performance this year reinforces a clear reality. While the chicken category remains competitive, Popeyes' biggest opportunity is improving restaurant level execution and reengaging with our core guests. We know Popeyes is capable of much more, and we're taking decisive action to put the brand back on the right path, while supporting our franchisees to deliver stronger results at the restaurant level. In November, we announced that Peter Perdue, former COO of Burger King in the U.S. would step into the role of President of Popeyes U.S. and Canada. Peter has a clear mandate to raise operational consistency, and he's moving quickly, resetting his leadership team and engaging with our franchisees. At its core, the chicken business is a service business, and winning requires consistent speed, accuracy and reliability in every restaurant every day. To support that, we're expanding field engagement and providing targeted support to our lowest performing restaurants. We've increased our field operations team by approximately 75%, launching in-restaurant coaching visits and are hosting our first-ever restaurant general manager experience rallies across the U.S. this spring. Alongside operations, we're also sharpening our core product focus, prioritizing offerings that define Popeyes and resonate with both new and legacy guests, including our incredible hand battered and fried bone-in chicken tenders and sandwich. I'm excited for Peter to share more detail at our upcoming Investor Day. In the meantime, I want to reiterate my confidence in the underlying strength of the Popeyes brand. We have a great group of engaged franchisees, a relatively modern asset base, solid unit economics and some of the best chicken in the industry. With disciplined execution and sustained focus, I'm very confident Popeyes will return to the level of performance it's capable of delivering. Finally, Firehouse Subs had a solid year with comparable sales up 1.1%, including 2.1% in the fourth quarter and net restaurant growth of 7.7%, driving 8.6% system-wide sales growth. As a result of this growth, franchisee profitability grew to over $100,000. Importantly, Mike and the team opened 104 net new restaurants across the U.S. and Canada and accelerated net restaurant growth from approximately 6% in 2024 to 8% in 2025, led by Canada. In fact, Firehouse was one of the fastest-growing QSRs in Canada in 2025. I'm excited about the growing momentum of this brand, and I'm looking forward to even more success in 2026. With that, I'll hand it over to Sami.