Good morning. Welcome to the 2026 Annual Stockholders Meeting of ARKO Corp. I would now like to turn the conference over to Arie Kotler, CEO. Please go ahead. Good morning, and welcome to the 2026 Annual Stockholder Meeting of ARKO Corp. I'm Arie Kotler, Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of ARKO Corp. We have again elected to hold our annual meeting virtually because doing so allows us to reach a greater number of our stockholders. First, we will conduct a formal meeting and vote on three proposals. Following that, I will give a brief update on our business and then answer questions at the conclusion of the official business portion of the meeting. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible. It is now 10:01 AM Eastern Time on June 4th, 2026, and this meeting is officially called to order. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Maury Bricks, who is our Corporate Secretary, and he will act as Secretary of the meeting. Thank you, Arie. We're also joined here today by Ben Proffitt, a representative from our independent registered public accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP. He will be available during the question and answer session after the meeting to respond to appropriate questions from our stockholders. Finally, the company has appointed Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. to act as inspector of election. Barbara Howland, a representative of Broadridge, is with us here today and has taken the oath of inspector of election, which will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. Only stockholders of record as of April 10th, 2026, which was the record date for this meeting, may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. Out of consideration for others, and as stated in the rules of conduct, please limit yourself to one brief question. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending via the webcast or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording device. You will find the proxy statement, our annual report, and the rules of conduct available on the web portal. The board of directors fixed April 10, 2026, as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to attend and vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered to us attesting to the fact that notice of this meeting, dated April 20, 2026, was sent to all stockholders entitled to vote as of the record date and will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. The stockholder list shows that as of the record date, there were 112,183,702 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. Each share of common stock is entitled to one vote on each proposal to be voted upon at this meeting. We've been informed by the inspector of election that there are represented in person or by proxy more than 96,713,000 shares of common stock, representing approximately 86% of the voting power of our outstanding shares of common stock as of the record date. Because this represents more than a majority of the voting power of all issued and outstanding stock entitled to vote as of the record date, a quorum is present. This meeting is now duly convened for the purposes of transacting business properly before it. Now I will present the matters to be voted upon. Proposal one is for the election of six directors to hold office until the annual meeting of stockholders in 2027 or until their respective successors are duly elected and qualified. Additional information about the nominees is included in the proxy statement previously disseminated. Proposal two is the non-binding advisory resolution regarding the compensation of our named executive officers, as described in the proxy statement. Proposal three is the ratification of the appointment of Grant Thornton LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year. There are no other matters to be voted on at this meeting, nor are there any nominations for other director candidates before the meeting. It is now 10:05 A.M. Eastern Time on June 4th, 2026. There being no other proposals properly brought before the meeting, the polls are now open with respect to each of the three proposals just described. Any stockholders who have not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for all of the proposals brought before the 2026 annual stockholder meeting closed as of 10:06 A.M. Eastern Time today. We've been informed by the inspector of election that based on a preliminary vote report received from the inspector of election immediately preceding the commencement of this meeting, that the nominees for election of the board have been duly elected, the compensation of the named executive officers has been approved by advisory vote, and the appointment of Grant Thornton LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year has been ratified. We will be reporting the final vote results in a current report on Form 8-K, which we will file with the SEC within four business days following the close of this meeting. Before turning it over to Arie, I will note that any forward-looking statements made during this meeting by management reflect our current views with respect to future events. ARKO is under no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements made on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. With that, I turn the meeting back over to Arie Kotler. Thank you, Maury. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the annual meeting of stockholders of ARKO Corp is now adjourned. As we close, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on where we are in our journey and how we're positioning the business for the future. 2025 was a defining and transformational year for ARKO as the company strengthened its foundation and repositioned itself for sustainable growth. We continued to execute on our multi-year transformation plan, driving operating efficiency, optimizing our retail footprint, and relocating capital to stores and segments where we have strong potential. We continue our dealerization efforts, converting 409 retail sites to dealer locations from mid-2024 through the end of 2025. On our retained retail stores, we made progress on remodels and new-to-industry locations, implementing our fas Craves food program. We exited 2025 as a leaner, more disciplined, and structurally stronger company. The momentum we saw towards the end of 2025 continuing to 2026, where we delivered 65% adjusted EBITDA growth in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. Same-store sales, excluding cigarettes, turned to growth, and our same-store fuel gallons had the strongest year-over-year trend in two years. Importantly, in our efforts to deliver value to our stockholders, we closed on the IPO of our subsidiary, ARKO Petroleum Corp, or APC, which garnered excitement for quality institutional investors and shined a spotlight on our highly profitable wholesale fuel distribution and fleet fueling business. The proceeds of the IPO additionally strengthened an already strong balance sheet for ARKO, and we continue to have tremendous liquidity to pursue our goals for growth in the year to come. We believe 2026 is well-positioned to be a year of continued execution with continued dealerization, remodel of our strong core retail stores, and execution on our merchandising strategies and loyalty program to grow same-store sales, merchandise margin, and same-store gallons. In parallel, we plan to roll out new-to-industry stores in our retail segments and advance our new-to-industry cardlock location to hit our target of 20 new cardlock locations. In closing, we started to see the benefits of our transformation plan in 2025, and our team remains dedicated to build upon that momentum to deliver value to our stockholders. Now, we would like to open the floor up for appropriate stockholder questions and comments. This can be directed to either company management or Mr. Proffitt, who is here, representative of our independent auditor. Please enter any question you may have through the web portal. Please note we will attempt to answer as many appropriate questions as time allows. I am monitoring the web portal, and we don't have any questions. We thank you for your attendance today and continued support. Thank you and have a great day. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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