Good morning. My name is Joelle and I will be your conference operator today. [Non-english content] I will now introduce Mr. Mathieu Brunet, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury at Alimentation Couche-Tard. [Non-english content] English will follow. [Non-english content] Good morning, I would like to welcome everyone to this web conference presenting Alimentation Couche-Tard agreement require a controling stake in Żabka Group. All lines will be kept on mute to prevent any background noise. After the presentation, we will answer question from analyst during the web conference, this webcast presentation will be available on our website for a 30-day period. Also please remember that some of issues the issues discussed during this webcast maybe forward-looking statement which are provided by the corporation with its usual caveats. These risks and uncertainties are outlined in our financial reporting and in our press release of July 31st, 2026 announcing the transaction and in the presentation materials made available today. Such documents also contain important information relating to historical and pro forma financial details being shared today in respect to Żabka Group and the corporation. Our speakers today are Mr. Alex Miller, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Filipe da Silva, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Tomasz Blicharski, Group Chief Strategy and Development Officer and incoming Chief Executive Officer of Żabka. Alex, you may begin your conference. Thank you, Mathieu. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This is a transformational investment for Couche-Tard and one of the most important milestones in our growth journey. I am particularly pleased to be joined today by Tomasz Blicharski, who will become the incoming CEO of Żabka Group. Tomasz is here with us today, and I am excited about what our teams can build together. We are uniting two exceptional organizations with a shared passion for customers, innovation, operational excellence, and growth. For Couche-Tard, this is a unique opportunity to invest in a business we deeply admire. One that is already operating at the leading edge of convenience in areas such as food, digital engagement, supply chain, and innovation. This partnership represents the largest acquisition in our company's history, bringing together a high-quality business, talented people and capabilities that fit naturally with our Core Plus More ambitions. Today, Żabka operates approximately 13,000 stores with roughly 4.3 million transactions every day and has established itself as Poland's leading convenience retailer with a strong track record of growth. What makes this opportunity particularly attractive is that many of the capabilities we believe will define the future of convenience already exist at scale within Żabka. At its core, Żabka has built a business that consistently delivers, anchored by highly productive stores, an engaged customer base, and an entrepreneurial franchise model with solid economics. What truly sets Żabka apart is the depth of its more. Żabka excels across food, loyalty, digital engagement, advanced data and analytics, and retail media. More than 10 million customers engage with its digital ecosystem annually, and approximately one in five transaction includes a Quick Meal Solution product. Żabka has become Poland's leading provider of warm snacks and street food, selling more than 16 million pizzas annually and continually expanding its proprietary food offer. Supporting those capabilities is a highly sophisticated operating engine. Żabka manages approximately 99% of store distribution through its own network, supported by more than 90% automated replenishment, eight distribution centers, 19 cross-docking facilities, and industry-leading service levels. In many respects, Żabka is a real-world example of where Core Plus More can go. It brings complementary capabilities that can advance our strategy, which is why we view this opportunity as much more than simply adding stores. Ultimately, what gave us the greatest confidence in this partnership was the people and culture behind the business. Throughout this process, we developed tremendous respect for the Żabka team and its franchisees. Their entrepreneurial mindset, customer focus, speed of execution, and passion for innovation are qualities we deeply admire. At Couche-Tard, we have always believed the best partnerships start with great people and a shared focus to customers. This is not about one company teaching another. It is about bringing together complementary strengths and a common ambition to better serve our customers and make their lives a little easier every day. We look forward to supporting Żabka's continued growth, while also learning from the capabilities it has built across food, digital engagement, loyalty, supply chain, private brand, and innovation. Together, we believe we can further advance Core Plus More, strengthen both organizations, and create lasting value for customers, franchisees, employees, business partners, and shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Filipe. Thank you, Alex. This partnership represents a unique opportunity to advance our long-term growth strategy through high-quality platform that complements and strengthens Core Plus More. From a financial perspective, we believe the transaction is attractive for three reasons: the quality of the business, the long-term value creation opportunity, and the disciplined framework supporting the investment. First, the quality of the underlying business. Żabka is one of the strongest retail growth stories in Europe. For more than 25 years, it has consistently expanded its network, evolved its customer proposition, and delivers strong track record of growth. Today, it generates approximately $7.4 billion in revenues, approximately $1.1 billion in adjusted EBITDA, and approximately $300 million of net profits. What stands out to us is the combination of growth, profitability, and capital efficiency. The franchise model supports attractive unit economics, strong cash generation, scalability, and significant runway for continued expansion. It is supported by a diversified set of growth drivers across retail, food, digital capabilities, sophisticated supply chain network, and customer engagement. Second, this transaction strengthens our long-term growth profile. As Alex mentioned earlier, we are not simply acquiring a store network. We are adding a differentiated platform with strengths that directly complement and advance Core Plus More. On a pro forma basis, the combination will represent nearly $84 billion in revenue and approximately $7.8 billion in adjusted EBITDA, excluding the impact of synergies. It also expands our European scale and increase our exposure to higher margin merchandise and service revenues, further diversifying the business. Importantly, we believe this combination is well-aligned with the ambitions outlined at our business strategy update. It adds a highly complementary platform and capabilities that can support sustainable long-term earnings growth. Third, we see meaningful value creation opportunities. We have identified more than $250 million of run rate synergy opportunities across cost and revenue, with the ability to fully achieve by the third year following closing, as we assume the gradual acquisition of Żabka Group. These synergies span across procurement, logistics, private label, loyalty, food program, digital data, and technology. At the same time, one of the most attractive aspect of this combination is the opportunity to leverage the strengths of both organizations. Żabka has built advanced capabilities in digital engagement, loyalty, and analytics, while Couche-Tard brings scale, mobility expertise, procurement leverage, and a proven global operating model. Together with the opportunities that extend well beyond the initial synergy plan. As always, we will remain disciplined. The transaction is fully funded through committed financing and supported by a disciplined capital allocation. While leverage will increase following closing to approximately 3x net debt to EBITDA, we have a clear path towards deleveraging and expect to maintain the financial flexibility that has long been a hallmark of Couche-Tard capital allocation approach. In fact, we expect our leverage to return within our framework range of two to 2.5 x by the second year following closing. The transaction is expected to be EPS accretive and to generate double-digit return on invested capital within a short period of time, while supporting a clear path back toward our long-term leverage objectives. Considering acquisition-related cost, higher depreciation, and incremental financing, we expect the combination to be dilutive to our earnings per share in the first year, but accretive by the second year following closing. We also expect the return on invested capital to reach double-digit return by the third year following closing. This is based on a few assumptions today, including the ownership percentage we will acquire in Żabka Group and at which pace we do so based on the voluntary tender offer. As such, when this completes, we'll be able to firm up the impact on our earnings per share. Finally, we see that the overall framework is entirely consistent with how we have always approached capital allocation. We look for opportunities that strengthen the business, improve our long-term growth profile, and create attractive returns for shareholders. We believe this transaction accomplishes all three. With that, I turn it over to Tomasz. Thank you, Filipe, and thank you, Alex. Good morning, everyone. This is a special moment for me personally. I first got involved with Żabka more than 16 years ago when it was a much smaller business with roughly $25 million of EBITDA. In fact, my kids were born after I joined the company, so my wife always jokes that Żabka is actually my first child. Watching this company grow has been one of the great privileges of my career. I'm incredibly proud of what we achieved together. But what excites me most is what is ahead of us, the next chapter and opportunities ahead. For nearly three decades, our team, franchisees, and partners have worked to build a business focused on making everyday life easier for millions of customers. What makes this partnership important for Żabka is that it brings us together with a company that understands retail, understands operators, and understands the importance of serving customers every day. From our first conversations with Couche-Tard, what stood out was the respect they showed for our business, our brand, our franchisees, and our people. Their approach was humble, curious, and highly collaborative. We felt that the Couche-Tard team came in not only to understand what Żabka is, but also to listen carefully how and why we built the business the way we have. That was very important to us. I remember meeting Alain and Alex for the first time and thinking, "These guys are a lot like us." We're both obsessed with customers and focused on making everyday life a little easier. We discovered that our companies have even independently landed on almost exactly the same mission about making life easier. When businesses on different continents arrive at the same idea on their own, it usually says something about the values behind them. For me, that was an early sign that our teams would work well together and that we have a real opportunity to build something special together. Żabka has a very strong identity. Our brands, franchise model, customer relationship, innovation culture, and local expertise remain at the heart of our business. Becoming part of the Couche-Tard family gives us access to broader global platform, additional expertise and new opportunities to accelerate the growth further. We see many areas where both organizations can learn from each other. Żabka brings deep experience in digital engagement, loyalty, food service, analytics, and the new retail formats. Couche-Tard brings global scale, operating expertise, mobility leadership, supply chain reach, and proven ability to grow across many markets. Together, we believe we can create even more value for the customers, franchisees, employees, partners, and shareholders. Most importantly, this partnership allows us to continue building on what has made Żabka successful while opening new possibilities for the future. We are proud of where we are and energized by what we can achieve together. I thank you all for your attention. I will turn the call over again to Alex. Thank you, Tomasz. I'll leave you with a few final thoughts. This is a growth partnership. It accelerates Core Plus More, expands our European platform, and brings together two organizations with complementary strengths and a shared ambition to better serve our customers. Together, we believe we can create long-term sustainable value for customers, franchisees, employees, business partners, and shareholders. We are excited in the opportunity ahead and look forward to sharing more as we move through the process. Let's open up the line for 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 touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. 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. Your first question comes from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Thanks, good morning, and congratulations on the transaction. Just wondering, clearly, you've been looking at a lot of things for quite a while. Understand what you've outlined with respect to Żabka in terms of the appeal. Can you just talk about how long you've been speaking in the background, how the transaction came together, and then how to think about, it's going to be operating independently, but there's a lot of things to learn over time. How should we think about the integration, the evolution over the next, let's say, two to three years? Hi, Irene. Thanks for the question. I think Alain and Brian and I have been looking at Żabka for 15 years, at least. Over the years, we have seen the journey they've been on. I can tell you recently, within the past couple of years, Alain visited here, when he was on vacation, and he came back, and he said, "You guys need to go look at Żabka again." From our perspective in our Core Plus More strategy, I don't think there's a better fit for the more part and the enablers, the growth trajectory that they've shown and delivered on over many, many years. There was nothing that was more attractive to us. When we understood that private equity was potentially looking to exit, we engaged with Tomasz and the private equity companies, and we worked through that process, arriving today with this announcement, and very pleased to get to that state. I think when you talk about the tender offer, I think we have Irrevocable commitments for 57% of Żabka as it exists today. We'll put the tender offer out. Obviously, we don't know the outcome or the timing of that. I think regardless, whether it's through arm's lengths agreement with Żabka continuing to run as a public company on the Polish market, or whether we reach the 95% threshold and delist them and bring them inside of Couche-Tard, I think we will get after I don't really view this as integration like we normally would, Irene. This is really about capabilities and how we share those capabilities, and bring value to both Żabka and into Couche-Tard. That's really helpful. Timing? You asked for timing. Yeah. Yes, please. You asked for timing, Irene. I think we've got time between now and our December close. I can tell you we're going to spend that time to further hash out our priorities and where we see the best benefits. Then we'll have a plan together, and I think in upcoming quarters and calls, as we get closer to that date, we'll be able to provide you some more specificity. Just to build on Alex, Irene. You have heard talking about the $ 250 million synergies. We are clearly taking into account what Alex was saying about the voluntaries and the offer and the fact that yes, we are taking control, but we don't know at which level we'll be in terms of stake. The synergies actually ramp up, take that into account. We've, I would say, a slow start and ramping up and expecting to deliver the $ 250 million synergies on year three. That's how we see also the combination of the two platforms. Thank you. Your next question comes from Chris Li with Desjardins. Your line is now open. Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the deal. I was wondering if you can please talk a little bit about how the business has operated in the last few years through the macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, and what is sort of the outlook going forward. Maybe a related question is if you can also talk a little bit about the competitive dynamics within the Polish market. I know Żabka is number one, but who are your key competitors and how has that evolved over the years? Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for the question. Tomasz here. If you look at the entire history of the company, the last 28 years now, we always grew top-line double-digit, and we always increased our EBITDA. We've been very consistent in growth in the last, well, the whole 28 years, but also in the last several years. Throughout COVID, we continued to expand, continued to open new stores, continued to grow like for likes on average, and continued to increase our EBITDA. During the inflationary period that followed the COVID and also the energy crisis a few years ago, we always managed to come out on top. There are multiple reasons behind it, but we're effectively one of the most known and loved brand in Poland, like 90%+ brand recognition. We touched millions of lives on a daily basis with millions of customers coming to our stores for their small shopping or their hot food or their services on a daily basis. Of course, we've executed incredibly well throughout the years. Two years ago, when we IPO'd on Warsaw Stock Exchange, we gave out a midterm or guidance as to the growth, which was to more than double the sales of the company within the next five years, three years to come on top of that. To slightly increase our profitability. Obviously to invest capital with the benchmarks that we historically have. Two years on that forecast, we are exactly bang on all the key aspects. In fact, we have managed to accelerate slightly the growth pace in terms of store numbers. Last year, we opened more than 1.3 thousand stores. This year also, we're going to open a similar figure. Our original forecast was roughly 1,000 per year. In summary, we are a predictable growing business with very stable business model and we are on track to achieve our forecast that we gave. To finalize, maybe, the last part of your question was around the competition. Certainly, we have close to 13,000 stores in Poland in modern convenience. The second closest competitor, which is Carrefour, has less than 500, and it is actually not opening stores. If you look at our broader competitive peer set, it's certainly the mom-and-pop store operators, which still roughly 40,000-50,000 of them exist in the marketplace. Hopefully that answers your questions. Thanks very much. I hope to be able to visit your stores one day. All the best. Thank you. We very much welcome you to do so. Thank you. Your next question comes from Derek Lessard with TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Yeah. Good morning, everybody, echo the congratulations on the deal. Maybe just more of a strategic question to start. Just wanted to get your view on whether Żabka remains a highly successful local platform, or is it really a potential playbook that you guys think you can export across the network? Then maybe how should we think about the franchise economics and some additional color maybe on the franchisee profile, and the prospective pipeline of franchisees you have? I'll take the first part, Tomasz, why don't you take the second part? Żabka has been growing very consistently over many years, as you heard Tomasz say, they recently entered Romania in 2024. I believe they just hit their 250th store in Romania. They have quite a bit of runway, both still here in Poland and in Romania. To answer your question, we absolutely believe the model will travel, as do they. I think part of what we'll do over the coming months is determine that plan and how we might be able to accelerate the growth of Żabka, the plans that they have today. With that, Tomasz, I'll hand it over to you on the franchise model. Yeah. One of the things that we really have in common with Couche-Tard is the growth mindset. As I mentioned before, we've always been growing and we've always been developing and trying to improve our business, never satisfied with the status quo. I think that really is a complementary and same mindset that we share. That's why we're so excited about this partnership because you rarely find someone that has very similar thoughts to yours in business. Specifically answering your question around the franchisees, obviously, for us, the success of franchisee is fundamental for success of the business. Inside of our company, we have a saying for employees, saying that we have two hearts. One is beating for the customers, and the other one is beating for the franchisees. We're very mindful about creating a win-win model with our franchisees. Over the years, we have done a lot to do so, last years especially. The churn has been declining. Churn of franchisees has been low single digits, voluntary churn, around 7% per annum. We see that the pipeline of franchisee candidates is high, it's sufficient for our growth plans, and more. In fact, the situation there is favorable and conducive to achieve our plans. The model that we have to give more color with the franchisee is that typically a franchisee has one store or sometimes two stores if they're close to each other. These are micro operators. The model is not dissimilar to what you see in some convenience operators in Asia, generally speaking. Effectively, it relies on the franchisee being present part of the time in the store. With their engagement, with the training that we provide to them, with the support that we have of them throughout the digital tools. Alex mentioned about the automated replenishment, but we have apps for them to run the store. I think we create a great support and a great combination for them to thrive. Thanks for the color. Congrats, everybody, and looking forward to visiting myself. Always welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Your next question comes from Luke Hannan with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open. Thanks. Good morning. I'll echo the congratulations as well. It seems like a really good deal. I just wanted to unpack, if we can, the levers for the like for like growth that Żabka would've seen over the course of the last two or three years. Also just for my second question as well here is if we can just unpack the new growth engine segment. What exactly is in there, and then how do you plan to leverage the two entities, or rather Couche-Tard and the history, the information, the data, et cetera, be able to leverage that in order to accelerate that growth trajectory going forward? Yeah. Great questions. First, let's touch upon like for likes. If you look at our long-term like for like trends, we always grew like for likes in almost all the quarters other than maybe one or two in the last 10 years ahead of inflation. Now, when you analyze last few years, we've been coming off inflationary periods. The inflation in Poland, 2023 was closer to 20%, and then it's been coming down to 2% in the last quarter or so. Effectively, you've seen a period that makes analysis of like for like more challenging than a regular moment because there was a lot of noise in the numbers. Having said that, in all these quarters, we've been able to grow the volumes and grow ahead of the inflation. The main reason behind this is really our push with Quick Meal Solutions. This is something that we started 10 years ago. It's effectively fresh daily food, as well as the hot food and fast food combined, into one kind of name that we use, Quick Meal Solutions. We started from zero 10 years ago, or roughly zero, and we're now getting to a level of every fifth transaction is about this assortment, right? That enabled us to grow ahead of the wider market, so to say. That is effectively a derivative of changing consumer mega trends. People not cooking at home anymore, eating out. There is obviously a correlation between the wealth and convenience, and Poland has been the fastest-growing country in Europe in the last 20, 30 years, right? I think of the bigger global countries, only second to China. In fact, we've benefited from that. We've benefited from the changing trends, we benefited obviously from the actions that we took, especially in this side of the assortment. The other things that we're very well-known for in the market is product innovation. We introduce a lot of new products, several hundred. Last year, I think 600 new products. We have 2,500 products on average in any given store. Think about it like we always innovate with respect to new products. We have private brands that we develop constantly. We have exclusive products that we bring in from other markets. We've worked with CPGs. We've branded CPGs to create new products. We're trying to create excitement for the customers to come more often. I think these two are really the key, and both of them are leveraged through our digital capabilities. Our app is one of the most downloaded and used app overall. Up to 2 million people on a daily basis use the app for the loyalty program, for individualized promotions, for the service that we have in the app. All of that enables us to grow the 12x faster than what the market sees. The second part of the question was around, I think, There was a second part around, I can't recall now what it was. Sorry. Yeah. Long day. It was just on new growth engines and how— New growth engines. Yeah. Got it. Sorry. New growth engines is a separate business units that effectively are focused on driving longer-term bets or businesses that we grow with a view to stimulate growth of the entire organization in the longer term. These comprise of two buckets at the moment. One bucket is the Romania business. As Alex mentioned, we opened the first international country for us two years ago, Romania, in which we now operate 250 stores after two years. We accelerated growth there with the view in the very long term to get to roughly 7,000 stores in the market. That's number one. Number two is the digital retail businesses that we have. We're one of the leaders in e-commerce and the rapid delivery commerce in Poland, certainly in terms of number of orders. Secondly, we're the leaders in meals. We produce our meals, so we're actually vertically integrated, but we also sell the meals in a subscription basis, like ready meals for customers that want to come to stores. This is a bit of a specific business for Poland, but it enables us into vertical integration. Those businesses are growing fast and we believe in the longer term, they create a lot of value for us. That's great. Thanks. I'll pass the line. Congratulations. Your next question comes from Martin Landry with Stifel. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning. I just want to touch on the financing. From what we can read, I assume this is all a debt. If you can confirm that, is there an intention at some point to issue equity, or if this is all going to be financed with debt? Then for our modeling purposes, is it fair to assume that you're going to repay all of Żabka's debt and you're going to use your own credit facilities? If that's the case, what kind of interest rate should we assume on the new debt? Filipe, you got that? Yeah. I have it. I was on mute. We are, yeah, fully financing this transaction through debt, Martin. As I mentioned earlier, so we expect at closing to have our leverage close to 3 x. And I would say within the three years, we will come back to our leverage comfort zone between 2x and 2.5x. On your question regarding the debt at Żabka level, we'll continue to refine our strategy there. The idea for now is to keep it at Żabka level, and we'll see if we finance it at Couche-Tard or at Żabka level in the future. For now, don't expect any change there. More to come, I would say, in the next coming month in that respect. Okay. Just to be clear, which interest rate should we use in our modeling for your new debt that you're going to issue? I would say it's in line with what we have done in the last quarter, a few quarters. It's It's roughly in line with that. You should not expect something very different to that. Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes from John Zamparo with Scotiabank. Your line is now open. Thank you very much. Good morning. I kind of wonder, thinking more holistically, sometimes on Couche-Tard's deals historically, elements of the acquired business that are considered best in class move across the rest of the Couche-Tard business. I wonder if there are components of the Żabka deal that you see that are ripe for that strategy, either across Europe or across North America, whether it comes to food service or digital. I wonder if you could share thoughts you've had on that. I know it's early, but any color would be helpful. Yeah, sure. There's a number that we will be exploring and that we see opportunities to move across the broader Couche-Tard geography, both certainly here in Europe, but also that's very relevant for North America. We talked about food, and you heard Tomasz talk about quick-serve meals. Their food delivery is not dissimilar to our Fresh Food, Fast. There is some differences in how they create products and how they procure products, a little bit in their oven settings, but the core base is very similar. We think we have plenty to learn there and to apply there. Their ready-serve meals and the way they produce them, the way they create them, the way they work with suppliers, we see as potential large upside both within our European business as well as our North American business. Private brand, private label, right? We've talked with you about that for many years. We have more to do in that space. Żabka is absolutely winning in own brands and private label. You heard Tomasz reference those. I think how they go about that practice is absolutely applicable, again, here in Europe and in North America. You heard me in Core P lus More talk about our desire to take ownership of our merchandise supply chain. Żabka has full control of their entire merchandise supply chain, supplying well over 99% of their own products to their stores. Here, we think we have applicability and learnings across both Europe and North America. I think digital tech data, another area you hear me speaking to often in our quarterly calls and in our results. I'm very proud of the progress we've made. Żabka is very good at those things, has some very strong tools that they are leveraging in that space. I think we're both really excited to get our digital, our data, our AI tools together and see where best practice lies and how we can apply those across our broader business. That's very helpful. I appreciate the color. I have just one other one. I wonder if you could talk a bit about the sales mix difference at Żabka versus Couche-Tard business. I know there's not much of a fuel component. I wonder how you think about that, and can you share the exposure to some of your higher growth categories, in particular nicotine and energy? I think obviously Żabka has no fuel, and we like that diversification. Żabka, you heard Tomasz say that one in every five transaction includes a quick-serve meal. They skew much higher on food and food service. You heard Tomasz talk about innovation, which you've heard me talk about. A lot of that is in thirst, which is in our core. Those are very applicable to us. Their product mix is different than us. They skew much younger on the consumer side than we do. That is because of the innovation and the digital tools and how they're attracting young customers. Some of it's also the geographies and the urban density that they have. They skew much more heavily towards food than we do, heavier towards thirst, and a younger customer profile. I'll let Tomasz kind of give you their breakdown by large category, if you can provide that, Tomasz. Yeah. We look at it on a kind of a mission basis, right? What brings the customers in, certainly, obviously, historically for us, we were first good in our traditional convenience categories. I mean, we've transformed the business over the last years. Historically, if you asked this question 20 years ago, it was more towards the tobacco and beer and alcohol type of situation with grocery products. We've evolved the business tremendously. We've built the Quick Meal Solutions. We've added a process innovation, private brands, ready solutions like bakery products, grocery, breakfast type of solutions as well. On top of it, we also have services, and every customer is actually coming for the services, parcel pickup and return, potential services, these kind of things. Overall, if you look at our mission business, I think closer to 20% is Quick Meal Solutions. Around 12% is tobacco and alcohol, around 30% is beverages. There's grocery. I can't recall off the top of my head, I think there's grocery, we still have some traditional groceries and the mentioned other services. Yeah. That's great. Thank you very much. All the best. Thank you. Your next question comes from Vishal Shreedhar with National Bank Financial. Your line is now open. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the deal. I just have one question with two parts, and the first part is, if this deal is debt-financed, why isn't this accretive in the first year if it isn't? The synergies relative to the EBITDA generated are lower than historically Couche-Tard has generated. Is that because the fuel mix is different, or is there just more upside as we look forward? Filipe, why don't you take the first one, and I'll take the second one? The reason why it's not immediately accretive, Vishal, is for a couple of reasons. The first one, it's fully financed through debt, you have the financing cost, you have the transaction cost on year one, but you have also the purchase accounting. The fact that you need to take those impacts on year one, related to intangibles, depreciation, and so on. I would say that's quite typical to many transactions. What we expect is, in year two, already being accretive, and this accretion will continue to accelerate on year three and year four. That's what we envision. From synergies, you're right. Actually, today we are talking about $250 million synergies. We believe that there's potentially more, and Alex can elaborate on that. To your question, with that there is definitely upside. We need to continue to learn the business and revenue synergies particularly, we believe that there is a huge potential there. Alex, do you want to go further on this please? Sure. Thank you, Filipe. I think your comment that there is no fuel, traditionally we do realize fairly significant synergies on fuel is accurate. This transaction, candidly, is like none I've ever done in the 14 years I've been here in that, this capability set that Żabka, that we see and you've heard us talk about, we see. Usually it's us looking and what we can bring to someone. In this example, we see a lot of things that we think can be brought to us. To really hash that out, we need teams to spend time together to do that. I just highlight that it's 25% rough on Żabka's EBITDA. The $250 million is 4% on our EBITDA. We're always conservative in our financials and in our estimates, I think you guys know that, we remain highly optimistic in our ability as we get our teams together to be able to identify additional synergies, hopefully, we will. If we can, we will update you on what we're learning as we go. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jacob Aiken-Phillips with Melius. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning, and congrats on the acquisition. A two-parter. First, you could end up owning a range from 57%-100%. How would EPS accretion, synergies, other economics, access to cash flow change, given the difference in the ranges? Could you help bridge the path to that double-digit ROIC in year three, between Żabka's earnings, the synergies, financing costs, et cetera? I guess, what would the return be before synergies? Thank you. Filipe? Yeah. Let's start with the returns. I would say this transaction is quite typical in terms of return, financial discipline that Couche-Tard has deployed throughout its history. We expect, as we mentioned earlier, this transaction and this deal to generate double-digit returns by year three. Actually, the returns will start to be quite interesting on year 2. That's where ATD, as we'll be ramping up the synergies. As Vishal was pointing out, I think just before, we are being quite conservative on the synergy side. Even if you exclude the synergies, the profile and the financial framework of this transaction remains quite attractive for us. Feeling good, again, this transaction is really within the financial discipline that you have seen Couche-Tard delivering across the year and believe that we are on the conservative side with very attractive returns for our shareholders and a lot of value creation opportunity across the year. From a ramp-up and on the synergies, I was mentioning earlier that considering that we are still uncertain on what will be the level of stake, ownership stake that we'll get on this company. We have been actually also conservative in the way that we're approaching the ramping up of the synergies. With a low level of synergies expecting on year one, starting to accelerate on year two. I would say where we believe that we'll be reaching the 1% synergy will be more on the year three. Think about a very low start and acceleration of synergies across the three years. To your question about EPS and how does that look like depending on the ownership stake, I would say, let's see where we land after the VTO. I think it's too early here to tell you that because we need to understand where we land and we'll provide, I would say, as we get more visibility on that, we'll provide you the exact impact on our financials. Here, all the things that we are providing to you are based on the 57% ownership and we'll see how it evolves across the next coming quarters. Thanks. Congrats again. Your next question comes from Chris Li with Desjardins. Your line is now open. Oh, thanks for the follow-up. I noticed that Żabka has very high free cash flow conversion of more than 100%. Is that mostly a function of the franchise structure, which makes it quite capital light? I will take this. Effectively, the way we operate is we do not own real estate, we don't own the real estate, but we do fund the entire CapEx of the store. The reason why we're so successful in our cash flow generation is that the return on the CapEx on the store is very quick, right? The stores are profitable from month one and the payback on the capital invested, the payback on CapEx that was the fit out of the store et cetera, is around one year and it's very consistent. All right? In a way, we have a very efficient engine and we drive that engine very fast, opening more than 1,300 stores, right? That is the source of this strong cash flow generation, which is the payback on the stores. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. That's my segue to the other question is just if I look at the state of your stores and your supply chain, it sounds like it's pretty modernized. Is it fair to assume there won't be any sort of big incremental investments that Couche will need to make to kind of bring them on par with Couche standard? Well, I'd have to ask Alex for it, to give their perspective. From our perspective, I can tell you that we invested a lot in our stores. We don't neglect the maintenance. Five, six years ago, we remodeled the entire chain into new formats. We spent several hundred million dollars of that. Most other stores, is less than five years old because we open 1,300 stores per year and we have 13,000. If you think about it from the mathematical perspective, most of the stores were opened in the last five years. The distribution centers are pretty new as well. Majority of them were opened in the last five, six years as well. Some of them are fully automated, actually state-of-the-art automation. I believe that we have very well invested asset base. Alex, I think I concur. Perfect. My last question, just a follow-up. You mentioned that Żabka has been growing sort of double-digit growth for many years. Is that mostly organic and new store openings or was there some M&A in between that supported that double-digit growth? 99% of that was organic. Like-for-like plus organic store opening, 99% of that growth. We've made one or two M&A, small ones, in the last 10 or 15 years, but we have opportunity to deploy the capital at 100% return on capital employed from new stores that I described, like one-year payback, and applies it to the maximum, right? On top of it, with the actions that we do, we increase through like-for-like sales increase. Great. Thanks again. Thank you. Your next question comes from Derek Lessard with TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Yeah, thanks for the follow-up. Just a couple from me. How is the $250 million synergy split between your costs and revenue opportunities? Maybe just highlight some of the bigger buckets there. The other one is how do you guys position the nearly, I guess 400 Circle K sites alongside Żabka? How about I take the second, Filipe, and you take the first, if that works. We definitely see value in Żabka's capabilities in the store, applying into our 400-store network, in Poland. All the things you've heard us talk about, the supply chain, the food, the enhanced digital solutions. We definitely see value there, and that is in our synergies. Filipe, you want to provide kind of a high-level breakdown of the synergies in the buckets? Yeah, definitely. On the synergy side, we see this file as really synergetic on the revenue and the cost side. It's not really a cost takeout integration. It's more about how we can accelerate Żabka revenue, and here we are convinced that we can help them in some of the categories. But there is also, and we have been talking at length about that during the call, is all the capabilities also that Żabka can bring to us. We believe that there are opportunities, on the food, on the digital capabilities as well, how to engage digitally with customers. Of course, supply chain. Alex was mentioning earlier, and Tomasz as well. We have been very impressed by the supply chain capabilities. And you know that, during our Core Plus More strategy update, we want to accelerate our supply chain integration. We see a lot of synergy happening in that side as well. The other component also would be on the price level. Żabka have been doing a great job there, and that's a piece of offer that we believe that, yeah, we can do better on the ACT. Of course, are the most classical, I would say, synergies buckets, that's just related to the scale and on the procurement side. Both GFR and GNFR, we believe that very significant synergy and value creation opportunity there. That would be, today, the big buckets that we have identified and, of course, more to come as we continue to learn and to work together with Tomasz and the team there. Thanks, everybody. This concludes the Q&A portion of the conference. Mr. Brunet, back over to you. Thank you, Alex, Filipe, and Tomasz. That covers all the questions for today's call. We thank you all for joining us, and we wish you a great day and look forward to discussing our first quarter 2027 results in September. [Non-english content] Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.