Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to this web conference presenting Alimentation Couche-Tard's financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024. All lines will be kept on mute to prevent any background noise. After the presentation, we will answer questions from analysts asked live during the web conference. We would like to remind everyone that this webcast presentation will be available on our website for a 90-day period. Also, please remember that some of the issues discussed during this webcast might be forward-looking statements, which are provided by the corporation with its usual caveats. These caveats or risks and uncertainties are outlined in our financial reporting. Therefore, our future results could differ from the information discussed today. Our financial results will be presented by Mr. Brian Hannasch, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Filipe Da Silva, Chief Financial Officer. Brian, you may begin your conference. Thank you, Jean-Philippe, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased to announce a solid second quarter with progress across most of our key metrics. Although we did see some softening in the quarter in same-store sales in the U.S., driven by weakness in the cigarette category and cycling against a very robust second quarter last year of 5.6%. In an environment with continued inflation and high interest rates, we remain committed to offering compelling value and ease, and we believe we'll continue to grow our share in key categories as we continue to implement key pieces of our strategies. In the quarter, we substantially expanded the rollout of our Inner Circle membership program, which is providing meaningful convenience and fuel rewards to our most valuable customers. As America's Thirst Stop, we're focused on the growth of our beverage category, offering great assortments, innovation, and value in both packaged and dispensed beverages at affordable price points. We also continue to be pleased with the performance of our fuel business in terms of both volume and margins, as we continue to bring traffic to our sites through recurring promotional Fuel Days. I'll return to each of these areas with more detail later in my presentation. During the quarter, we held a very well-attended analyst investor conference, and I wanna thank those of you who joined us, either in person or online. At that time, we announced our new 10 for the Win five-year strategic plan, with winning and growth being one of the lighthouses or pillars of that strategy. Here, we're excited by the recent developments in growing our network. In the beginning of November, we closed on the acquisition of 112 MAPCO sites, accelerating our development in key markets in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and adding approximately 1,300 team members to the Couche-Tard family. We also received a very important decision by the European Commission, allowing us to now, on, in only a few weeks, complete the acquisition of TotalEnergies in four new European countries. We're excited to welcome the TotalEnergies teams into the family and begin the journey of realizing significant value for all of our stakeholders. On the organic front, we're making progress on our stated goal to build 500 stores over the next five years, having already finished 40 new stores this fiscal year, with more than 100 sites in the construction pipeline and 1,000 sites identified for future growth opportunities. We've also added 20 new Circle K branded sites during the quarter under licensing agreements, bringing that total to over 2,100 sites. Now, let's turn our results for the quarter, beginning with convenience. Compared to the same quarter last year, same-store merchandise revenue decreased by 0.1% in the United States and 0.2% in Europe and other regions. It's worth noting here that Europe really had healthy same-store sales. However, the overall results were impacted by a challenging tobacco market and cross-border traffic in our Hong Kong market. Same-store sales increased by 1.6% in Canada, driven by our growth in beverage and food offers. As I mentioned at the start, I'm especially pleased this quarter with the expansion of our Inner Circle membership program in the U.S. Circle is and will be an important tool in helping us provide consistent and high visibility value for our customers, both inside our stores and at our forecourt. Starting only five months ago, we're now in seven business units, covering nearly 3,000 locations, and we're well on our way to reaching 10 of our 13 U.S. business units by the end of this fiscal year. We continue to see steady growth in enrollments in the program, with now over 8 million members enrolled since the program launched this summer. In Florida, our first business unit with the program, we're seeing enrolled customers visiting more often than non-Inner Circle customers, and we're learning how to best personalize our offers to increase traffic, grow fuel volumes, and most importantly, reward those most valuable customers. In Europe, the updated Extra program continues to perform well and is one of the most recent... Our most recent deployments into Lithuania are showing positive volume results, matching the results we've seen in our other European markets. Across the network, Fresh Food Fast is now in over 5,500 locations globally. Our operations teams continue to improve execution in stores as we simplify assortments and increase the number of locally relevant items and trials in our markets. Our LTO sandwiches continue to perform well, as does our cookie offers. As the program matures, we're getting a better understanding of demand and controlling waste. As America's Thirst Stop, packaged beverage sales were up across the network, with energy products and carbonated waters and enhanced waters leading the way. Great assortment, exclusive product offers, innovation, and activations are contributing to our overall success in that category. As with food, we're focused here on better operational tools and procedures. In nearly 3,000 stores globally, we've introduced new cooler solutions, which greatly expands customer-facing assortment and holding capacity while simplifying the restocking process for our team members. We're well on our way to doubling the number of stores with this solution by the end of the fiscal year. As I mentioned in the opening, we continue to see headwinds on cigarette sticks globally, and we believe the belt-tightening by this consumer group has increased price sensitivity and impacted overall demand. We have initiatives underway with our supply partners and are looking at the best ways to invest in this category to make sure we stay relevant with our tobacco customers. On a positive note, pouch usage continues to grow, driving strong growth in other nicotine products in the quarter globally. Moving to our fuel business, after two positive quarters in the U.S., same-store road transportation volumes decreased 1.5% in Europe, excuse me, in the U.S. In Europe, same-store road transportation fuel volumes decreased by 0.9% and increased 3% in Canada, favorably impacted by more people returning to the office, easing the retail prices and promotional activities. Our results compare favorably to our other public comps, and we believe we're growing share in key markets. Over time, we're excited at the prospect of further growing this category with our Inner Circle loyalty. In addition, unit margins continue to remain strong, reflecting the increased margin requirements of a very fragmented overall industry. In our Circle K fuel rebranding work, we've now completed 4,300 Circle K fuel sites in North America. We also continued the promotional activities during the quarter, including our first-ever global push to our Circle K Fuel Day, with over an additional 50% locally, covering nearly 8,500 sites. These Fuel Days offer valuable discounts at the pump, as well as fuel cards to save on future visits. We're bringing increased exposure to our new brand and significant value to our customers. Our EV fast charging network now consists of almost 1,900 charging stalls. That's up over 50% from the same quarter last year. We also now have over 40 chargers for heavy trucks in Sweden and over 11,000 home and workplace chargers deployed. Also in Europe, our B2B business had a solid quarter, with truck volumes remaining very robust across both fleet and truck segments. Small fleet remains the main driver for growth, and margin performances remain very strong in the quarter. As in recent quarters, we continue to see improving labor situation globally, particularly in North America, and we're now focused on piloting comprehensive programs to improve retention and turnover at our sites, as well as positively impacting sales. We're also continuing to implement solutions that reduce administrative hours, making it easier for our teams and allowing them to focus more on serving the customers. With that in mind, we now have more than 3,250 Smart Checkouts globally, which contribute to savings on labor hours while improving the customer checkout experience. With technology at the forefront of every customer and team member experience, we're focused on market agility, quality, and reliability. In the support of these objectives, early this quarter, we established a 10-year strategic partnership with CGI for our managed IT services. Through this collaboration, we're excited about the opportunities to better support our stores and customers while enabling our internal IT organization to focus on customer-facing enhancements. With that, I'll pause and turn it over to Filipe. Thank you, Brian. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It gives me great pleasure to share that our focused efforts in managing costs are yielding tangible benefits. This quarter, we have successfully kept the growth of our normalized expense to a modest 1.5%, a figure that stands well below the average current rate of inflation affecting our operations. This is a clear indication of our team's dedication to efficiently operate and deliver value to our shareholders, even amidst widespread economic challenges. Our ability to surpass expectations on this financial indicator demonstrates our commitment to financial discipline and operational excellence, and certainly shows a great start to our Fit to Serve ambitions, one of our key focus areas as part of our 10 for the Win strategic plan. Additionally, with the recent successful issuance in Canada of seven-year senior unsecured notes for a principal amount of CAD 800 million, which followed a rating upgrade by Standard & Poor's Global to BBB+ from BBB. We've further strengthened our capital structure, ensuring it remains robust and effective. I will now go over some key figures for the quarter. For more details, please refer to our MD&A available on our website. For the second quarter of fiscal 2024, we're happy to report net earnings of $819.2 million, or $0.85 per share, on a diluted basis. Excluding certain items described in more details in our MD&A, adjusted net earnings were approximately $792 million, compared with $838 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2023. Adjusted, diluted net earnings per share were $0.82, unchanged compared with the corresponding quarter of last year. During the second quarter, excluding the net impact from foreign currency translation, merchandise and service revenues increased by approximately $37 million, or 0.9%. This increase is primarily attributable to the contribution from acquisitions. Excluding the net impact from foreign currency translation, merchandise and service gross profits increased by approximately $37 million, or 2.6%. This is primarily due to organic growth, as well as the contribution from acquisitions, which amounted to approximately $26 million. Our gross margin increased by 0.8% in the U.S. to 34.8%, impacted favorably by a change in product mix and the improvement of our Fresh Food Fast program. Gross margin increased by 0.3% in Europe and other regions to 38.6% and remains stable in Canada at 33.2%. Moving on to the fuel side of our business, in the second quarter of fiscal 2024, our road transportation fuel gross margin was $0.4956 per gallon in the US, an increase of $0.044 per gallon. In Europe and other regions, our road transportation fuel margin was $0.102 per liter, an increase of $0.0044 per liter. In Canada, it was CAD 0.1363 per liter, an increase of CAD 0.0108 per liter. Fuel gross margin remained healthy throughout our network due to favorable market conditions and the continued work on the optimization of our supply chain. Now looking at SG&A. For the second quarter of fiscal 2024, normalized operating expenses increased by 1.5% year-over-year. This is mainly driven by the impact of costs from rising minimum wages, inflationary pressures, and incremental investment to support our strategic initiatives. While being partly offset by the continued strategic effort to control our expenses, including labor efficiencies in our stores, allowing us to use less hours in the quarter this year compared to the same period last year. Our controlled expenses is evidenced by our normalized growth of expenses remaining lower than the average inflation observed throughout our network at around 3.8%. Excluding specific items described in more detail in our MD&A, the adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of fiscal 2024 increased by $26.9 million, or 1.8%, compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2023. Mainly due to the contribution from acquisitions, organic growth in our convenience operations, as well as the translation of our foreign currency operations into U.S. dollar, which had a net positive, a net positive impact of approximately $2 million, partly offset by the impact of lower road transportation fuel volume sold, excluding the impact of acquisitions. From a tax perspective, the income tax rate for the second quarter of fiscal 2024 was 22.8%, compared with 21.9% for the corresponding period of fiscal 2023. The increase mainly stems from the impact of a different mix in our earnings across the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Moving now to the balance sheet. As at October 15, 2023, our return on equity remained strong at 23.7%, and our return on capital employed stood at 17%. At the end of the quarter, our leverage ratio remained healthy at 1.52x, despite having repurchased 13.6 million shares for $672.9 million during the quarter under our NCIB. Subsequent to the end of the quarter and under our NCIB, we repurchased 0.3 million shares for $15.7 million. At the end of the quarter, we also had strong balance sheet liquidity with $1.4 billion in cash and an additional $3.2 billion available through our main revolving credit facility, net of USCP borrowings. Turning to the dividend, the board of directors declared yesterday a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.175 per share, an increase of 25%, and in line with a 10-year CAGR of 24% for the second quarter of fiscal 2024 to shareholders on record as of December 7, 2023, and approved its payment effective December 21, 2023. With that, I thank you all for your attention and turn the call back over to Brian. All right, thank you, Filipe. As we pursue our 10 for the Win strategy, we're pleased with our progress and plans to develop, deploy, and pull key levers to widen advantages versus our industry. We're significantly growing the network with our upcoming TotalEnergies acquisition, continuing to provide value needs to our customers through the expansion of our Inner Circle loyalty program, and unit margins continue to be strong in our fuel business. We've also worked hard to outperform average inflation in our operating costs. One last note, in mid-December, so two weeks from now, we're excited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Couche-Tard acquiring Circle K. You know, for me, it's humbling to think of the growth that's occurred over these past 20 years, and as I think about four weeks from now, expanding that brand into four new countries for a total of 29 countries, as we continue to pursue our vision of becoming the world's preferred brand for convenience and mobility. Now, with that, I'll turn it back to the operator to answer analyst questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks, and good morning, everyone. I was wondering if you could please just provide some more detail around what you saw in terms of consumer behavior and demand, both in the forecourt and the back court as we move through Q2 and Q3 to date. Thanks, Irene. I'll start with the forecourt. You know, during the quarter, you know, we had sequentially higher retail prices, and that showed up. Traffic on the forecourts remained positive year-over-year, but we did see a contraction in average fills. As we look at more recent weeks, we've seen prices come down along with crude globally, and we've actually seen improvement in volume. So you know, we're feeling that the volume picture has looked better in recent weeks than it did in the prior quarter. So we feel good about the fuel business. And also just building on that, you know, we just completed what probably is the largest fuel RFP ever done in North America, and very successful with our partnership with Musket. So, I think we continue to widen the advantages that we're building versus the industry. On the store side, you know, clearly, I think there's been some belt-tightening, particularly we've referenced the tobacco category. You know, we've got some headwinds with inflation and just, you know, student loans in the U.S., other things that, again, things that we think are transitory, but, you know, the drag was really, for us, tobacco combustible. If you took that away, we would have positive same-store merch for the quarter. So we're looking hard at that category. You know, it's core to our traffic, it's important to, you know, our business. So, you know, we're looking at very surgical investments to make sure that we continue to gain share in that category. But again, we view these things as transitory. We've never said we're recession-proof, but recession-resistant and, you know, feel good that with the tactics we have, both in tobacco and then also with Inner Circle, that we'll continue to grow share in our core categories. That's great. Thank you. I would add- And on that topic- Yeah, and I would add, I guess- Go ahead, yep. I can't skip Europe. As Europe grows for us, you know, I did wanna comment. You know, Europe had a great quarter, you know, both positive traffic, positive sales. If you take out Hong Kong, you know, Europe was actually up 3.5% in same-store merch. So, you know, that's a good story, and as that grows, as part of our portfolio, we'll constantly try to talk about that a little bit more. That's great. Thank you. And then just as a follow-up, back to the U.S. Any early insights from Inner Circle that you would care to share with us, just around sensitivity, you know, to pricing and value? So we truly think we've deployed not just a me-too, but a really unique program that helps us really focus in on, you know, the very valuable customers with a tiered approach. You know, I'm pleased, five months in, we've got 8 million people signed up. You know, Florida was our first market, looking at results there, you know, and we're balancing, you know, the activities of rolling out sites quickly to, you know, learning and, and doing hard, both at the same time, it's hard. But we are clearly seeing, you know, growing fuel volume versus non-Inner Circle sites, growing merch traffic and growing basket versus non-Inner Circle sites, so, and positive share growth in that state. So, you know, again, early, but we feel very good that, you know, we're off to a good start. Conversion's been solid. You know, we're in the mid-teens, both in merch and in fuel, and that's growing every week. And so, you know, we again, early, but we like where we're going. And, you know, when we started the year, our goal was to deploy about half the number of sites we're actually going to deploy. So we're pleased that, you know, the technology and the platforms proved to be very robust, and we'll be in over 3,000 sites shortly. Your next question comes from Michael Van Aelst with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Filipe, can you talk a bit more about your OpEx and some of the bigger factors that allowed Couche-Tard to keep that OpEx so much below inflation? And if any of that is kind of temporary or timing, or is that something that you expect to see occur for the next—for the foreseeable future? Hi, Michael. Yes, as we mentioned earlier, we are very pleased by the performance that we had this quarter. So, as we have, you know, announced during the Investor Day, we have launched a Fit to Serve, you know, program around $800 million, you know, costs that we are looking at finding over the next five years. And, and we see already good traction there. So, you know, on the SG&A side, so, looking hard on procurement, you know, standardization, on productivity. So I was mentioning, you know, we have seen also less hours being used at store level. So overall, and I would say across, you know, the region, at the corporate level also, we are seeing a really good, good discipline. As you know, our long-term ambition is always to outperform, at least by 1%, the, you know, the overall inflation. Of course, you know, that can fluctuate from one quarter to other. But overall, yeah, feeling pleased that this one, we did very well, and very confident, actually to, yeah, to on the long term, to beat this, you know, Fit to Serve ambition. So it's good. All right. Thank you. And then just to follow up on, I think it was Irene's question, but the... You'd mentioned in the U.K. that excluding Hong Kong, your same-store sales are up. Can you give us an idea in the U.S. what your same-store sales were up, excluding tobacco? Yeah, Michael, the low single digits, you know, kind of 2% type of number, ex tobacco, ex-- I would say, ex cigarettes. You know, when, when I talk about nicotine in general, you know, non-combustible nicotine continues to grow. We've actually got some business units now where, in terms of gross profit, you know, the poly usage of other non-combustible nicotine is larger than cigarettes. So, you know, the margin profile of the total nicotine category is strong, but, you know, again, that doesn't, doesn't belie the need to be sharp on, on making sure that, that traffic and that basket is still coming into our stores. Okay. And you talked about fresh food and beverage and private label in some areas doing well. I'm assuming they're all growing faster than that 2%. Other than cigarettes, what areas are weaker? ... The beer was relatively flat for the quarter, really globally, pack bev, so the cooler continues to grow at a faster pace. Food continues to grow at a faster pace, as you hypothesized. You know, and Europe had a great quarter in food. In particular, U.S. was maybe not at the pace we'd had. We've dramatically improved the margin profile of the food program. I think for the quarter versus prior, we were up 500 basis points in margin on the food program, but growth is more in that single digits, you know, high single digits versus we've been running double digit in past quarters. So our focus there is on trial and awareness and making sure that, you know, we're getting it out in front of customers. Great. Thank you, Brian. Please limit yourself to one, to one question, please. Your next question comes from Chris Li with Desjardins. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Maybe a question on fuel volume in the U.S. You know, Brian, you mentioned that you outperformed your peers and gained some share. It looks like you're doing it also with limited impact on fuel margins. So I guess my question is, you know, do you believe this is sustainable? And then, you know, in terms of your market share gains, you know, can you mention some of the initiatives that you're doing? I think you mentioned that in your opening remarks, but if you can elaborate a little bit about that, just to give us some sense of how sustainable this market share gain will be. Thank you. Yeah, we're committed to fuel. So, yeah, we've spent the last four years converting from our supply partner brands to ours. That's that journey is largely complete, and now the journey is to build our brand, both for the B2B and B2B, B2C customers. And we think Inner Circle will play a key part of that. You know, if you start with the supply chain, we've invested heavily in creating advantaged supply chain, our partnership with Musket, our trading, trading divisions in both Geneva and in Houston. So we think we're procuring fuel at a significant advantage versus what is mostly a globally fragmented market, and, you know, we continue to think we widen that advantage. So start with that. And then I'd say second, you know, we're investing pretty heavily in how do we price our products, using machine learning and other tools to help us make very good decisions, you know, which equates over 10,000 decisions each and every day around fuel. And so, you know, you look at both sides of that and then combine that with, you know, the guerrilla activities we have out there of just, you know, pop-up events, things like that, to provide value to our customers. You know, our goal is to continue to, you know, slowly, ratably, take share in that marketplace, and so, you know, more to come there, but, it's an area that we focus on being better than the industry in. Great. Thanks very much, and all the best. Thank you. Your next question comes from Mark Petrie with CIBC. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning. Thanks. Maybe just a quick one first on the follow-up on tobacco. Are you over or under penetrated in any of the categories of tobacco, broadly, sticks, pouch, et cetera, or do you sort of match the industry? And then my question on Fresh Food Fast, you mentioned 500 basis points of margin improvement, so thanks for that. Where does that put you in terms of where you think that margin should sit? And I'm sure it's a combination of factors, but is bridging that gap more of an operational issue, i.e., at the store level, or is it more broad about building the program across the network? Thanks and all the best. Yeah, so Fresh Food Fast, I'll take that one first. You know, we're [making] good progress on the journey, but we're still probably 10 points off of where we would like to be. And when we say where we'd like to be, that's where our Northern Tier of Holiday business has shown that program can deliver. So, you know, again, a journey there. On tobacco, you know, we've always been kind of with the industry on combustibles. And we've got good momentum, and I think we've been very much at the forefront of [pouch] usage and the other nicotine products. And so I don't have exact numbers in front of me, but, I think we would generally overindex competition on the innovation side of the equation. We can follow up with, more precise figures through, JP, if you like. Okay, excellent. Thanks very much. All the best. Thank you. Your next question comes from Martin Landry with Stifel. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. I'd like to touch on your U.S. merchandise margin. I believe they were near or at highest levels in recent years. So, you know, you did touch on the fresh food program having an impact on your merchandise margins, but I'd love to have maybe a bridge to better understand how all of the put in takes that created the expansion in the quarter. Yeah, happy to. There's really three things happening. So, you know, with the softness in cigarettes, you know, there's been a positive mix effect. And then when we convert those customers, nicotine customers, to non-combustible, that is a higher margin transaction. So that's one effect, is the mix within the category and then overall. Two, we've had growth in some high margin categories. That would include, as I said, a 500 basis point margin improvement in our food program, and then we've had great growth in car wash. So you know, that's a, it's a high margin category for us. Great product, great service, and then we've added Clean Freak to that, to that equation. And then the third, I would say, you know, beverages continue to perform very well. And, you know, that's when you, particularly, when you think about the non-sparkling, you get into energy, isotonics, things like that, you know, the margin profile is better there, too. So there's a mix effect there as we continue to perform well in the beverage category. ... Okay. And how sustainable are these levels? I mean, is there any seasonality that we should take into account, or can they be replicated on a go-forward basis? Yeah, I think category by category, very sustainable. You know, the mix can change seasonally for sure. And quite honestly, we'd like to do better in tobacco. So, you know, to the extent we're successful with our ambition to grow share there, you know, that could bring it down a bit. But But total gross profit dollars to the bank, you know, we feel very good about the journey we're on there, and we don't see any material backsliding on total gross profit. Okay. Thank you. Good luck. Your next question comes from Tamy Chen with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the question. Hi. The press release had called out, you know, lower disposable income and a tough, tougher macro environment, including inflation. And I'm just wondering, was that all largely referring to the ongoing pressure in the cigarette category, or did that also impact some of the other backcourt categories, too? And Brian, could you just remind us what is going on in Hong Kong with respect to the cross-border headwind there? It's quite significant given the underlying European business comp was quite good. Thanks. It is. It is. So Europe continues to perform well in the backcourt. So when we talk about the consumer, our business, our traffic volume, you know, continues to be good there. Hong Kong, specifically, really three things. There's been, you know, just an absence of tourism, whether that's from mainland China or from the West. So that's way, way off. Last year, they were still really locked down, and there were some significant government couponing to stimulate demand, which was beneficial to us a year ago. And then third, there was a very material increase on tobacco taxes, which has impacted demand. There's been some pantry loading that certainly happened when that, when that tax was put in place. So we're still seeing the... You know, we're still waiting to see where that levels out. But, you know, I think those certainly been. And then there's been a one-off, you know, which I hate to talk about weather, but they did have a typhoon that really... Two typhoons, I'm being corrected, that, you know, certainly impacted our sales for the quarter there. But again, it was material in the overall context of Europe. But underlying Europe is solid, and we're looking forward to having Total being brought in. In the U.S., you know, I think we've got to admit there's been some belt-tightening. You know, we see it, you know, our growth in private label has been strong. There's been trading down of from premium to lower tiers in tobacco and in alcoholic beverages. So, you know, that's something we're watching with caution, just making sure that we're communicating good value to our customers and focused on getting that loyalty program, getting people signed up so we can deliver them, you know, deliver targeted value to those most valuable customers that we have. Got it. Thank you. Your next question comes from George Doumet with Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, Brian. Can you please talk a little bit about the performance of the car wash business? I'm just curious how much more room we have for that business to contribute to margins and top line in the longer term. And is that business something that we can potentially see as being significantly bigger than the 2,500 locations that we currently have? Yeah, thanks for the question, George. So we're adding almost 1,000 car washes with the acquisition of Total here in 28 days. So we are in the car wash business, and we like that business. You know, cars get dirty. I don't care how they're propelled, they'll get dirty, and it's a great ancillary transaction for us. And so, you know, I think we'll continue to focus on growing that business both organically with our four courts. And then, you know, we like our True Blue business. We'll see where that takes us and whether we can conduct any M&A in that space. But we're going to grow that base organically as well. We're investing in some core markets where we're currently at, and then we'll look at a couple of new markets to penetrate with that tunnel offer, which we think is just a better mouse trap than the current rollover. So expect that to be a growth sector for us over time. Your next question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. All right, thank you. Good morning. I had- Good morning. question on pricing inside your stores in the U.S. You touched on this, but curious, you know, could you give us a sense of how much pricing you know you passed through to the consumer in the quarter, and then really what your expectations are for further pricing, you know, I guess, next calendar year? And then also in the context of that, could you touch on any noticeable down trading within your stores and, you know, ultimately, how your private label business is performing? I guess I'm really just trying to get a sense of any noticeable change in consumer behavior in the last few months. Thanks. Thanks, Bonnie. Yeah, I touched on earlier, private label, you know, continues to grow, you know, double digits. Canada was up 30% for the quarter, year-over-year. So our ambition is to do more of that. You know, we wanna introduce more products in the coming quarters that we think would resonate with our customers. So certainly we see that being one, a, you know, a good thing, right? It's a deflationary in terms of sales, but it's a positive in terms of gross profit for us. As I mentioned earlier, too, you know, we're seeing pressure on the premium cigarette category. You know, I think we had two things. One is your normal demand decline that we've seen year-over-year for decades. But, you know, with our the supply partners that we've had have been pretty aggressive about putting price out in the market. And I think we've that combined and or colliding with, you know, a consumer that's maybe a little more cautious, we're seeing more trade down from premium into lower tier brands in the tobacco categories than we have certainly in the past. And then I think the same thing would be if you looked at the beer category, you know, with premium brands, you know, versus trading down in the Bud Lights and others. So certainly, there's some signals of that that are out there. In terms of our activities, you know, I think our goal is to be very surgical. You know, we're not out here to throw, you know, money at everything or everyone, trying to be very conscious of what we think our customers care about, where we can be price compared very readily versus other channels or other retailers in our channel. You know, again, being more surgical than not. So I wouldn't expect to see a massive change in our gross profit, as I communicated earlier. You know, the one category that will probably get a little more investment than others is tobacco. But that's gonna be in a very structured, thoughtful way. It's not every site, and we're trying different trials to see what resonates most with our customers as we try to drive that volume. Okay, thank you. Your next question comes from Anthony Bonadio with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to ask about M&A dynamics. I know you've already got quite a lot under your belt for the year, but can you just talk about how the pipeline is evolving and how things have trended from a valuation perspective? Yeah, thanks, Anthony. Yeah, one, we're excited about the MAPCO acquisition. We've taken on, I think, 73 of the 113 locations, going very smoothly. Our teams are just really, really good at doing this, so couldn't be more pleased there, and these are great sites for us. Total in 28 days, 2,200 locations, a huge challenge for our European teams, but, you know, we've got really good talent in Europe, and I think we're bringing on some really good people. So, you know, those two are big lifts for us in the coming quarter. But again, I'll remind, I think our decentralized model really is unique and enabling us to pursue multiple opportunities. So this by no way shuts down our appetite for growth. In terms of the dynamics, you know, I think we're feeling multiples coming off, you know, and that's, you know, the math would say with higher interest rates, that should happen. There's always this lag between, you know, the customer or, sorry, the seller, you know, looking at what they could have gotten versus what they could get today, and that's a period of adjustment. But, you know, we think that's going to happen. Prices are coming down. And then also, I think, you know, the credit markets have taken away some of the people that we've competed with over the last few years. So you combine that with, you know, our balance sheet and our appetite, you know, we feel good about the prospects for M&A in the coming years. Thanks, guys. Your next question comes from John Royall with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So, so my question's on U.S. fuel margin, and, 1Q had been a big outperformance versus our expectations. But 2Q is flattish, a little bit down, and, the industry level data I'm looking at, which I know has its flaws, but, the industry level data I'm looking at is up pretty substantially. So just wondering if you had any color on the 2Q versus the 1Q fuel margin, and, you know, anything in particular between those quarters we should be thinking about? I think I touched on it earlier. You know, we feel good about the fuel business. You know, the volume we think is looking stronger in recent weeks, really in all of our markets. And, you know, the margins continue to be very solid. And as we said earlier, you know, the supply chain continues to optimize and we think extend our advantages. So again, you know, quarter to quarter, we'll have some volatility. We always will in the market. But, you know, we feel good that, you know, the gap versus the overall industry is widening, you know, that the marginal need for margin continues to be higher, with the independent competitor out there. So, you know, as we widen the, you know, the gap in how we buy, and we're very thoughtful and deliberate in how we price, you know, we continue to think that, you know, structurally, the market will deliver very, very good margins for us. Thank you. Your next question comes from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Bobby, are you on mute by chance? Go ahead, operator, the next question. Your next question comes from Luke Hannan with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just wanted to ask about packaged and dispensed beverage. Encouraging to see the growth that you guys have gotten there so far. My question is, who do you see as your main competitors here? Is it just other larger c-store operators? Is it the independents? Do you include grocery in this as well, QSRs, et cetera? Just curious to know who you see as your main competitors, and then also against that competitive set, where are you capturing the most share as of today? So really, maybe three pillars in there. You know, so in dispensed beverage, you know, the QSRs are by far our largest competitors. So coffee shops and QSRs, both for hot dispensed and cold dispensed. So you know, that's. You know, we've always had a very strong franchise in the U.S. with Polar Pop. You know, candidly, we may have taken our eye off the ball on price a little bit there, so we're looking at that to make sure that we're sharp and continuing to grow share in that category. And then packaged beverage, it's really a take-home occurrence and an immediate consumption occurrence. We think we need to be better at take home. We've got pockets of where we do really, really well. So we've kind of recommitted to being relevant in that category and being reliably priced for our consumer on those take homes. And that's not just traditional sparkling, but also take home energy and things like that. And that's, you know, certainly grocery would be our primary competitor in that space. And then immediate consumption is where our industry just continues to be unique. You know, our whole, our cold holding power, the ability to provide, you know, really unparalleled assortments as brands continue to proliferate and use cases continue to proliferate. You know, we feel good, and we're seeing continued growth in energy, enhanced waters, isotonics. You know, that's, you know, other than fuel, that's our number one trip occasion. We think that's the biggest lever we have to grow, and we'll continue to focus on being better in that space. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star, follow up, followed by the one. Your next question comes from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Sorry, sorry about that, on the air on the front. No problem. Just, Brian, just to follow up on the tobacco category. Is the weakness in the category just the weak dynamics that we've become used to with less people smoking? Or is the competitive nature of tobacco within the c-store channel changed over the last six to 12 months, where there needs to be more, bigger changes in Couche-Tard's strategy towards tobacco in general, to maintain and go after market share? Yeah, it's a great question, Bobby. If you look at, you know, BAT's results or you look at Altria's results, you can see their stick performance, and I would say it's, it's been an industry issue. We've actually held share. Our goal is to grow share, so, you know, that's the, that's the tactics I talked about earlier. But, no, I think it's been a combination of kind of normal demand destruction, attrition, if you will. You know, that 2% a year type that we've felt layering on, you know, some pretty aggressive price increases taken by the suppliers, and then third, just a more cautious consumer. You multiply all those things together and, you know, I think that, you know, that's, that's what's manifesting, you know, a steeper drop in demand than what we've seen in prior years. So is that transitory or not? I'd like to think it is, but, you know, we're going to deal with, you know, play with the hand that we've been dealt and continue to focus on, you know, good value to our customers and, you know, piling a lot of different activities on what's the most cost-effective ways to provide value and grow share in that category. Thank you. Best of luck, and have a great holiday season. You too. This concludes the Q&A portion of the conference. Mr. Lachance, back over to you. Hey, real quick, for everybody. I want to thank you for the support, but also, and for those of you that came to Phoenix for our Investor Day, and then also, have a great holiday season. JP, go ahead. Thank you, Brian, and thank you, Filipe. That covers all the questions for today's call. Thank you all for joining us. We wish you a great day and look forward to discussing our third quarter 2024 results in March. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.