Operator: Good morning. Welcome to the MTY Food Group 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided for you at that time for questions. If anyone has any difficulty hearing the conference, you may press star zero for operator assistance at any time. Listeners are reminded that the portions of today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect current views with respect to future events. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on MTY Food Group's risks and uncertainties related to these forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's annual information form dated February 19, 2026, which is posted on SEDAR+. The company's press release, MD&A, and financial statements were issued earlier this morning and are available on its website and on SEDAR+. All figures presented on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. This morning's call is being recorded on Friday, July 10th, 2026, at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Eric Lefebvre, Chief Executive Officer of MTY Food Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Eric Lefebvre: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This morning, we released our 2026 second quarter results, which you can find posted on our website. The second quarter was a challenging period, with continued consumer confidence issues impacting our results, especially in the corporate location segment. Our network produced same-store sales that were sequentially better than last quarter, but same-store sales remained negative. Traffic remained under pressure during the quarter and was a primary factor driving lower same-store sales. While conditions varied across our markets and brands, same-store sales performance was more closely aligned between the U.S. and Canada than in prior periods, with decreases of 2.2% and 1.8%, respectively. Encouragingly, sales trends improved in Canada in June, with the majority of our concepts showing positive same-store sales. Despite the headwinds in the quarter, we continued to generate strong free cash flows. Our asset-light, well-diversified portfolio of banners remains highly cash generative. Cash generation remains one of the core strengths of our business model and continues to provide us with flexibility as we navigate a complicated consumer environment. Turning to our store network, we generated positive net store growth of six locations in the quarter. We are encouraged by the continued progress of our development pipeline, and we expect an acceleration of the openings in the back half of the year, similar to the seasonal lift we experienced last year. As we discussed last quarter, our pipeline remains robust, supported by a meaningful number of locations under construction and by continued demand from experienced franchise operators. We continue to see particular strength in brands such as Cold Stone Creamery and Wetzel's Pretzels, and we also expect openings across a broader group of banners in the second half of the year. Our priority remains adding high-quality stores with strong franchise partners in locations where we see attractive long-term economics. As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality and profitability of the business, we recently completed a detailed review of our corporate-owned store portfolio. Following that review, we've made the decision to close 68 underperforming corporate-owned stores. Some of the locations are scheduled to close as early as next week. We estimate it will take between six and nine months to complete the process. This was a store-by-store process where we evaluated the performance outlook economic profile of each location. Where we saw a path to improvement, we chose to continue investing efforts into making our existing assets as productive as they can be. Where the fundamentals no longer supported that path, we made the decision to close the store. During the last 12 months, the locations that are set to close have collectively lost over CAD 10 million, their performance was, for the most part, deteriorating. This is an important step for MTY. The decision will reduce our store count in the near term, we believe it is the right long-term action for the business. It will allow us to reduce losses, improve the quality of the corporate store portfolio, and focus our resources on locations and brands with stronger return potential. The estimated cost of the closures and the termination of leases is expected to be between CAD 10 million-CAD 12 million. This will affect free cash flows in the short term, will help the teams focus on healthier, more profitable locations in the future. It also demonstrates that we are taking decisive action to improve MTY for the future. We continue to operate the business with discipline and focus on the factors we can control. That includes driving strong cash generation, supporting our franchise network, advancing our new store pipeline, and taking action where we see opportunities to improve the quality and profitability of the business. With that, I'll turn it over to Renée to discuss the financials. Renée?
Renée St-Onge: Thank you, Eric, good morning, everyone. Before we begin, just a reminder that for fiscal 2026, we transitioned to a 52-week reporting basis ending on the Sunday closest to November 30th each year. This quarter reflects that 52-week period, whereas the comparable period in 2025 was based on the calendar month end basis. For this quarter, the 13-week period ended May 31st, 2026, resulted in one day less compared to the 2025 second quarter period. Normalized adjusted EBITDA came in at CAD 60.2 million for the second quarter, a decrease of CAD 9.8 million from the same period last year. The change was mainly attributable to reduced profitability from corporate operations in the U.S. and international segments, as well as lower contributions from franchising operations across both segments. These factors reflected continued pressure from commodity and other operating costs, as well as softer consumer spending in certain markets. Franchise segment profit was CAD 50.6 million in the quarter, representing a 5% decrease over prior year. Franchise revenues was CAD 98.6 million in the quarter, compared to CAD 102.8 million in the same period last year. The decrease in revenues was mainly the result of lower turnkey projects in Canada and gift card program-related revenues in the U.S., as well as a CAD 1.4 million negative foreign exchange impact. Franchise operating expenses were also down in the quarter to CAD 48 million, compared to CAD 49.6 million last year. The U.S. and international segments saw a reduction of 9%, more than offsetting the 4% increase in the Canadian segment. The reduction in the U.S. was the result of lower gift card program-related costs, which were directly related to the similar reduction in revenues, as well as the impact of foreign exchange rates. For Canada, wages increased as a result of normal inflation, and consulting fees increased as a result of our strategic review. We also benefited last year from a non-recurring provision adjustment, which impacted year-over-year results. This was partially offset by a reduction in turnkey projects. Normalized franchise segment EBITDA was CAD 50.9 million in the quarter, compared to CAD 54 million in prior year, with margins relatively stable at 52% compared to 53% last year. As we continue to add higher quality new stores to our network and capture efficiencies from our ongoing initiatives, we expect franchise EBITDA growth to outpace same-store sales growth. Corporate segment profit and adjusted EBITDA were each CAD 5.7 million in the quarter, compared to CAD 11.3 million in the same period last year, with margins of 5% compared to 9% in the period last year. Corporate segment revenues decreased by 15% to reach CAD 111.7 million, while operating expenses decreased by 12% to reach CAD 106 million in the quarter. The overall decrease in both revenues and expenses were tightly correlated to the decrease in the number of corporate-owned stores. This reflects not only the company's continued efforts to optimize its restaurant portfolio and increase the relative contribution of its asset-light franchise operations, but also is the result of the sale of a few profitable locations during the back end of 2025 and early 2026. As Eric mentioned, with the decision to close a series of underperforming corporate-owned stores, we believe we have set the stage to drive improvements in the corporate stores with a greater focus on healthier, more profitable locations in the future. This should enable us to consistently deliver corporate segment margins at the high single-digit level. Our food processing, distribution, and retail segment delivered operating profits and normalized EBITDA of CAD 3.6 million in the period, with revenues of CAD 39.3 million. Margins came in at 9% in the quarter, compared to 12% in the same period last year. The retail segment has been impacted by inflationary pressures, especially as it relates to protein. The resulting reduction in margins forced us to scale down promotional activity on certain key products in 2026, which caused further pressure on sales. We believe meaningful opportunities exist within the retail channel for top-line and margin expansion as we continue to build scale and strengthen our presence in under-penetrated markets. Digital sales were CAD 284.2 million in the quarter, which represented 21% of total sales, in line with the same period last year. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, digital sales were down 2% from the same period last year, which is in line with the decrease in same-store sales. We continue to believe that digital sales are a growth driver for MTY in the long term, and we continue to invest in this channel through in-house technology as well as partnerships with third-party aggregators. Overall, we reported CAD 15.4 million in net income attributable to owners, or CAD 0.67 per diluted share compared to CAD 57.3 million or CAD 2.49 per diluted share in prior year. This quarter was impacted not only by the reduction in segment EBITDA, but also by the impairments taken on the right-of-use assets related to the corporate locations we are planning to close and a negative variance of CAD 42.7 million in foreign exchange. As Eric mentioned earlier, our asset-light, well-diversified model continues to generate strong free cash flows with cash flows from operations of CAD 43 million compared to CAD 34.4 million in the same period last year. The improvement was mainly attributable to lower interest paid and positive working capital fluctuation. Free cash flows net of lease repayments were CAD 32.2 million in the quarter compared to CAD 17.8 million in the same period last year. The improvement was also attributable to lower interest paid and the favorable working capital variance I referenced above. We ended the quarter with net debt of approximately CAD 531 million, an improvement of CAD 49 million over prior year. Considering our strong cash flow-generating ability, our debt to EBITDA of approximately 1.9x is at a level that gives us the opportunity to take advantage of the optionality we possess to deliver enhanced shareholder return. With that, I'd like to take time to turn it back to Eric for closing remarks.
Eric Lefebvre: Thank you, Renée. Over the past 46 years, we've built a durable, resilient, and dependable business. Our asset-light model is well-diversified across geographies, brands, and formats, and we continue to invest in the business to drive long-term returns and growth. While Q2 was a difficult quarter, the business continues to generate strong free cash flows with an active development pipeline that is as robust as any I have seen during my tenure at the company, and a team that's focused on disciplined execution. The decision to close the underperforming corporate-owned stores is a clear example of that discipline. It's a decisive action following a detailed review of the portfolio, and we believe it will strengthen the business over time by improving the quality of our corporate store base and reducing the exposure to locations that are not meeting our return expectations. We remain focused on cash generation, new store development, supporting our franchisees, and taking actions required to position MTY for stronger performance as market conditions improve. Before I open the line for the question period, please note that I cannot comment on the strategic review process that is currently underway. We will provide an update or make announcements as appropriate or as required by law. We cannot provide a specific timeline or assurance that any transaction will result. At the same time, we continue to run the business with the same discipline and long-term focus that's defined the company since our founding. With that, let's open the lines for question. Operator?
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and if you would like to withdraw a question, please press star then the number two. Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We have your first question comes from Cheryl Zhang from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Cheryl Zhang: Hey, good morning, Eric and Renée. Thanks for taking our questions. My first question is on the sales trend. You mentioned that it improved in June. Do you have any color on what's changed since Q2? Any changes in consumer behavior or competition?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah, it's hard to draw conclusions after just a month, so we'll need to take a little bit more time to analyze the results. What we've seen is that early June started slowly improving, and then the back half of June it became a lot stronger, in Canada. We do see Canada has been positive for the month of June, which is really good to see. In the U.S., we saw a continued trend that's similar to the pattern we saw in Q2. If we exclude Papa Murphy's from that trend, we're relatively flat in the U.S., with Papa Murphy's in such a competitive environment for pizza is currently suffering a little bit more.
Cheryl Zhang: Makes sense. That's helpful. Then on the store closures, can you comment on which banners were affected?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah, there's a little bit of everything in the portfolio. Papa Murphy's has a bigger weight, as you might expect. You remember, two years ago, we repossessed three clusters of stores that we believe we could turn around. After nearly two years of efforts, and some successful turnarounds in those markets, but we came to the conclusion that these markets are probably not appropriate for Papa Murphy's at this time, and we chose to close a lot of these stores in these locations. There's a larger weight of Papa Murphy's restaurants. That being said, they don't account for the majority of the losses or of the costs of the stores we're going to close. There are a certain number of other locations that will cost more, and that also will draw bigger benefits.
Cheryl Zhang: Got it. Thanks for the color. Then should we expect further portfolio optimization, maybe store closures in the coming quarters?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah, it's gonna take between six and nine months to complete, so we're gonna update the markets on where we're at. We have a first series of stores that are scheduled to close next week, and then we're gonna go systematically. We don't want to rush into any of these decisions and cause further damage. We will do things in order to protect the staff also that's in the store and take the time to negotiate properly with the landlords, handle all the distribution issues that might arise from closing a certain number of locations. It's gonna happen over a six to nine-month period. Yes, you should expect that, but in terms of closing other stores, there might be other store closures that happen. There will also be probably some stores that we're selling. We've been slowly but gradually disposing of some stores where it makes sense for us. It's not fire sale, but we're also in the process where we can reduce the corporate store portfolio.
Cheryl Zhang: That's helpful. Thanks so much. I'll re-queue
Operator: Your next question comes from John Zamparo from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
John Zamparo: Thanks. Good morning. A couple follow-ups or clarifications to begin. I want to start on the corporate store closures. Can you say anything else about the expected cadence of those? Your last answer, I think, was a few in the coming weeks, but over the next three quarters, will any one quarter have a disproportionate amount of closures?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah. We expect that it's going to be heavier in Q3. We have the first few are going to be the easier ones. Then there might be some stragglers at the end. Q3, so the immediate future, is going to be where you see the bulk of those. There will be the more difficult ones to close are going to happen over time.
John Zamparo: Okay, got it. Then I think you'd referenced CAD 10 million in losses from the underperforming stores. Is that at the net earnings level, or should we think about that as a four-wall EBITDA number?
Eric Lefebvre: That's a four-wall EBITDA number.
John Zamparo: Okay. Understood. Then I wonder if you could add some color on state of the consumer, in your opinion, in the U.S. versus Canada. Do you think the performance of MTY same-store sales is more a product of your particular restaurant banners? Do you think there is a tangible difference in consumer sentiment and consumer spending in U.S. versus Canada?
Eric Lefebvre: I'm not a scientist in these fields, so it's hard for me to draw exact conclusions. For sure, we're seeing that, in the pizza space, it's extremely competitive in the U.S., and we see that brand suffering a little bit more than the others. We run different promotions, and we see that there's very little loyalty in that market, and the consumer will go where the pizza is the cheapest at any given time. The promotional activity is super productive, but we need to protect our franchisees and their profit margins. Our teams are actively seeking more data on all the promotions we run to try to adjust them to make it as profitable as possible for our franchisees. In other segments, we see that the demand is a little bit choppier. It's hard to say that the consumer is not consuming because they are going to restaurants. The consumers are out there. They're certainly, a little bit more difficult to attract to our stores at the moment. People are not throwing money at us, we really need to work for each opportunity, each meal opportunity. I don't know if the consumer has gotten a little bit more discerning. It's definitely a little bit more challenging to get consumers now. Maybe other people will draw direct conclusions, for sure, I look at gas prices in the U.S., that always has an impact. Hopefully that's a short-term pressure, the market is going to go back to normal after. That does take away consumer discretionary dollars out of the restaurant space because it's going into the gas tank. We're looking forward to see things going back to normal, we can probably measure it a little bit better.
John Zamparo: I appreciate the color. Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Anshul Agarwala from National Bank of Canada Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Anshul Agarwala: Hi. Thank you for taking my question. This is Anshul for Vishal Shreedhar. I wanted to follow up on the store closures. How many of the planned closures include the ones converted from franchise stores recently?
Eric Lefebvre: Do you mean the Papa Murphy's?
Anshul Agarwala: Yeah. In one of the calls, you mentioned 50 of the stores were converted corporate. Were there other banners as well?
Eric Lefebvre: There's other banners. I think there's, and I'll go from memory here, there's between 45 and 50 of the store closures that are Papa Murphy's. The rest is other brands.
Anshul Agarwala: Understood. How should we think about the franchise health of the remaining stores? Specifically, how many of the stores, if you're able to quantify, were below break even over the last 12 months?
Eric Lefebvre: We don't have the exact data on franchisee profitability. We do have information for some of our brands, but not for all of our brands. This is something we're working on. It's hard for me to answer exactly your question, but I can assure you that when franchisees are in situations where they no longer make money, they raise their hands. We have a pretty good handle on which ones they are. We're trying to help them as much as possible. We can try with local promotional activities. We can try to help them with their operations and rolling out different things. There are always a certain proportion of our stores that are unprofitable, but it's hard for us to quantify exactly how many that represents. It's certainly not a very large number. Most of our stores are extremely profitable. There are some in the network for sure.
Anshul Agarwala: Great. Finally, you mentioned in the back half, you expect the net store openings to accelerate. Does that include the planned store closures as well?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah. If we exclude the plan, we do expect to be positive in store growth this year. Q2 was good. We expect Q3 and Q4 to be significantly stronger. Obviously with 68 closures planned, that's going to make it difficult for us to be net store positive this year. Yeah. Long answer to your question, if we exclude the 68 stores we plan on closing in the corporate store portfolio, we're going to be net store positive. If we include the 68, we'll probably be net store negative this year.
Anshul Agarwala: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Michael Glen from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Michael Glen: Hey, good morning. Eric, can you maybe just touch on some of the broader inflationary issues that franchisees are up against? Food cost, labor, rent. What are some of the big pressure points right now?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah. Labor is no longer a significant pressure point. There are pockets out there that might be a little bit more difficult. We're not seeing major inflation on labor or shortage of labor. Labor has really stabilized now, and I think we're in a better place. Rent is what it is. You have your lease for 10 years. The renewal of your lease is always a surprise. I think most landlords are extremely reasonable because they want to protect their tenants. There is the landlord here and there that might be a little bit greedier, where we might have to abandon some stores. We have to make that decision sometimes when the math doesn't work anymore. In general, I would say the rent is too expensive to my taste, but not facing super significant inflation either because of the long-term contracts. In food, obviously, everybody's been talking about it, and it's certainly a problem at the moment, especially with the cost of proteins. You look at chicken or beef, it's gotten a lot more expensive. The availability of some of our products, for example, our ribs, is a little bit more challenging, and the cost is going up. There is inflation on the food portion. There's a few bright points here and there, but for the most part, it's challenging. We're trying to help our franchisees with different menu items, with different promotions to try to alleviate a part of that problem. Obviously, we've had to take pricing in some of our restaurants to alleviate some of the pressure. Yeah, food inflation is definitely up there in our list of concerns. We have a great team trying to source our products for better prices. We have also great suppliers that understand that they need to make money. Everybody needs to make money, and that includes our franchisees. They're trying to help us find solutions. For the most part, we get there, but there are some parts that are inevitable. If we sell a rib steak, the cost has gone up. There's nothing we can do about it other than trying to source better and sometimes increase prices where it's needed.
Michael Glen: What's the prospect for putting price through right now? You mentioned you did take some price, but can you give some sense as to what has been the response in situations where you do put some price through?
Eric Lefebvre: It always depends on what product we put price. If we put price on a rib steak, which I just mentioned, I think the consumer understands it a little bit better. In general, I would say the response is not an adverse response since people shake their heads and understand that the cost of this product has gone up. That's a choice they're making. Obviously, for a lot of our other products, it's tough to put price out there just because there's competition, there are expectations, and people have been talking about the price of restaurants being more expensive in the last few years. We need to be careful how we choose to do price, and if we choose to do price on certain items, then we need to provide consumers with a proper entry point that's going to give them a good value product, if they choose to go for the cheaper option or the more value-oriented option, that they have one in each of our concepts.
Michael Glen: Then can you just touch on how the closures will impact same-store sales growth? I'm guessing these are going to be excluded from the calculation, but maybe if you could give some insight there.
Eric Lefebvre: The 68 stores overall, it's 1% of our store base, so it won't impact same-store sales that much. All I can say is that these stores were performing significantly worse than the average. They were in a between -8 and -9 range on average for those 68 stores. Although it won't have a material impact or almost virtually no impact on same-store sales for the network as a whole, these stores were not performing well.
Michael Glen: Okay. Just on your CapEx. Is the guidance on CapEx maintained at, is it CAD 25 million? No, that's too high. What's the CapEx guidance again for the year?
Eric Lefebvre: If we do CAD 25 million, some people won't be happy with me. No, the CapEx should be around the same level as last year.
Michael Glen: Okay. Is that number too low?
Eric Lefebvre: I don't know. Do you like it?
Michael Glen: Well-
Eric Lefebvre: It's not.
Michael Glen: I guess my question is, we saw some elevated CapEx a few years ago. You took the CapEx lower, now we're seeing some elevated corporate store closures come through the network. I'm just trying to understand if there's a relationship between the two items.
Eric Lefebvre: No, there's no relationship. We're just not building stores. The elevated CapEx came from the two acquisitions we made, with Wetzel's and BBQ, where we had commitments to build stores at that time. Those commitments don't exist anymore, we're just not building locations. That's the reason for the lower CapEx. I think we're in a good place in terms of the maintenance CapEx for the existing stores. We are renovating some stores where it's needed. We've refreshed some of our Village Inns, for example. Not all of them, but a good portion. We've also tried some additional concepts in two of our Famous Dave's locations, where we introduced another concept. That cost some CapEx, but it's all built into the budget we have for the CapEx. Our plants do use some CapEx as well. It's not very large numbers, but they require some CapEx. We're in a good place in terms of CapEx. The stores we're closing, it's certainly not for lack of trying and lack of maintaining the stores in proper condition.
Michael Glen: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Cheryl Zhang from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Cheryl Zhang: Hi, Eric. Thanks. Just a couple follow-ups. In Canada, you highlighted that the decline in franchise revenue was tied to fewer turnkey projects. I wonder if you could unpack what's driving that.
Eric Lefebvre: Those are one-offs. Sometimes they increase, sometimes they decrease, but there's no driver for it. It's just those are one-offs. We try not to do turnkeys anymore. Sometimes we do have to do a turnkey here and there. I think we have one or two at the moment that are ongoing. Those are exceptions. We try to make it zero if we can. There's not necessarily a driver, it's just you're going to see them go up and down, and because a turnkey might be, depending on the brand, could be CAD 1 million or two. If you do two or three, it shows in our revenues, because as a proportion of franchise revenues, it's higher, but it doesn't mean something's going on with the business.
Cheryl Zhang: Okay. Understood. On the unit growth, you did highlight a pretty strong slate of opening for the rest of 2026. I'm curious which banners are you seeing the strength, and do you have a sense of the rough cadence of opening?
Eric Lefebvre: The banners that show strength are the same. I'd say it's Cold Stone and Wetzel's are the two champions for our store growth. Those are two incredible brands that have a lot of good tailwinds. Lots of existing franchisees wanting to invest further in those brands, and that helps always. It helps with the success of the new stores. It helps with a lot of different things. It helps with the validation as well. We do have a good number of new franchisees that are coming into these brands as well. Those are the two main ones, but we have a lot of our brands that will open between three and five stores also in the back half of this year. Those are equally valuable. We have a lot of Thai Express and Taco Time, for example, in Canada that are opening. We've just opened two Bâton Rouge, and we have some more coming in the pipeline. Even though they're not necessarily big numbers of stores like Cold Stone and Wetzel's, they are meaningful when you aggregate all the openings.
Cheryl Zhang: Okay. That's great. Speaking of Cold Stone and Wetzel's Pretzels, what do you think is driving their outperformance relative to your other banners?
Eric Lefebvre: Well, we have a great iconic brand, so that helps. We have a great team also. Great pool of franchisees, super engaged, very enthusiastic about the brand. They really believe in the product. Our team is creating miracles with very limited resources also, and maintaining the higher standards. New products are coming in also. The LTOs we're running are great. There's a combination of factors. It's not one thing that drives it, but in this case, just the iconic brand and the way our teams have been able to put the brand up there and show that we're better than any other option is certainly a good factor.
Cheryl Zhang: Great. Thank you. Just last one from me. Looking at same-store sales by concept, can you talk about the relative underperformance of QSR versus the fast casual and casual concepts? What do you think is driving that?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah. Well, in QSR for sure, you have a few brands that drove that. Papa Murphy's certainly in the U.S. has been struggling more than our other brands as of recent. That's a significant weight on QSR. We have some other brands also that have been exposed, where we have various initiatives that are coming. Nothing of the magnitude of the struggles we have with Papa Murphy's.
Cheryl Zhang: Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Operator: Your next question comes from Ryland Conrad from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Ryland Conrad: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. To start, just on Q3, we've seen some data points around the World Cup boosting restaurant spending, but it sounds like it's been somewhat mixed across formats. Curious if you've seen any noticeable impact there.
Eric Lefebvre: It's really hard to measure something like that. For sure, when the U.S. played their last game, we saw a lift in Papa Murphy's sales, which is amazing. I wish we had more games with the U.S. because that really helps sales. Those are one-offs. Other than that, it's been hard to measure the impact. The same way we had the hockey playoffs, where Montreal lasted a little bit longer in the playoffs, that was not good for our sales because we don't have the sports bar type of environment. The World Cup did help when the U.S. played, the impact of the other games is hard to measure. I'm not sure if it helps or if it hurts.
Ryland Conrad: Okay, got it. Appreciate that. Then on the international business, just acknowledging that things do remain somewhat volatile in the Middle East. Are you seeing a continuation of the Q2 trends into the back half of this year, or is there some normalization?
Eric Lefebvre: Well, we're dependent on some external factors here that we don't control. It's hard to predict. I wish I had a better answer for you, the international portion of our portfolio, and given how heavy the Middle East is in that portfolio, it's hard to give you a prediction.
Ryland Conrad: Understood. Maybe just lastly from me on the franchise margins, could you unpack the variance there between Canada, which continues to see a bit more meaningful pressure, and the U.S., which seems to be a bit less severe? Just what are the drivers there, and to what extent should we expect that pressure to continue?
Eric Lefebvre: Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily call it pressure. It's just the portfolios are built differently for the brands themselves. There's also a factor where we have a lot of our overhead that's in Canada, and that we don't necessarily allocate to the U.S. If you look at a lot of our functions, in the shared services, we have a predominant weight in Canada that we don't necessarily shift to the U.S. You will see Canada be lower than the U.S. for the foreseeable future for that reason. Doesn't mean there's pressure. Sometimes we also choose to hire in certain markets versus others when we have openings. That causes the margins to shift between one country and the other. I think in this case, it's probably something you should look in aggregate instead of looking country by country.
Ryland Conrad: Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator: There are no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
