Well, good morning. Thank you very much for all, all, all of you for joining us. So this is our third day of our Oppenheimer Consumer Growth and E-Commerce Conference. My name is Brian Nagel. I work at Oppenheimer as a senior equity research analyst, covering consumer growth and e-commerce. So again, thank you all for joining us this morning. So I'm very pleased to have with us our first presenting company of the day, that's Monro, and two of the company's executives. So Brian D'Ambrosia, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Felix Veksler, who is the Senior Director of Investor Relations. So, gentlemen, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having us, Brian. Thanks a lot. Very much appreciate it. So we're gonna structure this as a rather informal fireside chat, with me asking questions, and the Monro team responding to those questions. To the extent there are questions in the audience, just please send them through the chat, and I'll be happy to work them into our conversation. So with that, you know what, guys, I've been starting off, you know, doing a number of these fireside chats over the last few days, and where I'd like to start, you know, and before we jump into the more specifics on your business, you know, just given the focus of investors on consumer, and your unique positioning within the market, and your, you know, your perspectives in the consumer, I would love to hear what you view... How you view the consumer backdrop at this point, what you're seeing, you know, kind of puts and takes, you know, how this may relate to what you've seen historically. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again for having us, Brian. We really appreciate it. So what we're seeing in our consumer base, and we serve a low to middle-income consumer primarily. If you remember, our vehicles that we see are typically six years old or older, and we see vehicles in our sweet spot of six to 12 years, and certainly plenty of vehicles 12+. And the type of consumer that's typically driving those aged vehicles is a lower to middle-income consumer, and we're seeing that consumer strained, really pressured by the cumulative effects of inflation, you know, higher costs on things such as shelter, food, other essentials, and certainly higher interest rates on their borrowings, weighing on their ability to spend. So, where that really shows up in our business is in our higher ticket categories, and I would say that really means tires. Tires, we've seen a deferral cycle that's lasted longer, I think, than most of our industry would've expected. And we're seeing that the price increases that have been passed on through MAP pricing increases by the manufacturers in Tier 1 through 3 is really forcing a strained consumer to trade down into opening price point tires, where there really is no minimum advertised pricing, and retailers can get a little more aggressive there to cater to that value and low price point consumer. So that's where we see the consumer right now. I think, you know, there's a few things that could happen to ease that. Obviously disinflation, deflation, could be a piece of that. Real wage growth, lower interest rates, potentially on borrowing, so freeing up some money for low-income consumers. Also maybe some different pricing dynamics, relative to our Tier 1 through 3 versus Tier 4. I'm sure we'll get into some of the conversation around that. No, it's very helpful, Brian. So I guess before we jump in, it, it's... You've been in the business for a while. You know, is what we're seeing from a consumer's perspective now new, you know, or is it unprecedented, or is there a period where you could look and say, "Look, this looks like that," if we look back historically? Yeah, I think, you know, a good example would maybe be in the 2012, 2013 period, where the cumulative kind of recessionary impacts of the great financial crisis had put a strain on the consumer. It was really driven primarily by unemployment at that point, right? It was recessionary reaction to affordability, and we saw a trade-down dynamic there. What ultimately ended that cycle, primarily, was a tariff, anti-dumping tariffs on some of the Tier 4 tires that re-rationalized the price discrepancies between Tier 1 through 3 and 4, and, you know, put arguably more pressure on the consumer because it brought up Tier 4 pricing. We could see that again. Certainly, you know, we've heard about potential tariff conversations out there, but ultimately, either that or a disinflationary pricing in Tier 1 through 3 will likely cause what happens over time, which is the mix to kind of go back. The Tier 1 through 3 manufacturers aren't gonna sit there and lose share forever. And the Tier 4 will likely have to raise prices at some point. You know, and once they get their share, they'll have to focus more on profitability. That tends to rationalize it over time, but I would say it is lasting longer than we would've expected. These cycles, you know, this is probably three quarters now of this cycle as we see it in our business. Yeah, it's very helpful. So let's, let's focus a little more on tires, 'cause I know this was a, you know, a key topic of conversation when, you know, you and your team reported your quarterly results just recently. So, you'll hear coming clearly, you know, there's this dislocation within tires, as, as you've been describing. So again, the question I guess I wanna ask is, you know, how does... let's maybe step back. I mean, how, how significant are tires for Monro? You know, how did, how does- what is, what do tires do for the overall business? And then, you know, given this, what we're seeing now with this, this tier four disruption, I think we've talked before about, you know, this, I would- I maybe use an inventory glut out there. I mean, how does, how does Monro react to this? I mean, what, what are the levers Monro can pull, to, you know, just so to say, play more effectively within the space? Yeah. So tires represent 50% of our overall business. And they're also so tires stand on their own, obviously, as a driver of tire sales, but at the same time, they're a traffic driver for us as well, and lead to other attachments. Those other attachments include tire attachments, obviously the installation of the tires, but road hazard protection for that tire, which is profitable, alignments to make sure the tires are properly aligned to protect the investment. These are higher margin add-ons that come with tires. Typically, Tier 1 through 3, see there's a much higher attachment of those additional services. First of all, the tires are at a higher price point, so there's more of a willingness or desire to protect the investment. And also, if you're buying tires in that price point, you typically have a little more disposable income to be able to attach. So we see less attachment when we mix up more towards Tier 4, which we talked about in the quarter, us mixing from low 20s to mid-20s to high 20s as the quarter went on. Typically, that would come with some lower attachment and put some pressure on our overall attachment for tires. Tires is also a big driver of inspection. So when we... When somebody comes in for any service for us, we take the tires off, inspect the brakes, and do a visual 32-point inspection of the vehicle. So we tend to see other things like brake needs or chassis, or even if we're testing battery. But, you know, we also see less attachment of those other services as well on Tier 4. And that's really why we've been really focused on maintaining a healthy mix of Tier 1 through 3 and Tier 4. We haven't raced to the bottom like we've seen, you know, the industry has really, you know, embraced this Tier 4 price point. For us, we recognize that for our model and our profitability to work, especially against an increasing technician labor cost backdrop, we need to make sure that we have our mix appropriate. So we're continuing to have strong offers, buy three, get one free, supported by manufacturers in our Tier 1 through 3. But at the same time, through labor rationalization as well as, you know, making sure we're getting a low-cost supply, we feel that we can lean into Tier 4 a little bit more than we maybe were able to a year ago, and still make a good, good margin, even if our mix tends to, to move towards Tier 4. So that, that's generally how we're viewing the tire industry. We wanna support our manufacturers, we want them to support us, but we're not, I guess, timid about moving into Tier 4, if that's continues to be where the consumer shops. Got it. Maybe this is overthinking it, but if a consumer is purchasing these, what you were describing as these Tier 4 tires, I assume they're gonna wear down faster than a better tire. So does that produce... Is there some type of replacement demand that comes as a result of this? There is, there is. The warranties tend to be not as long on them. They tend, you know. And it's a great point, and one of the reasons why we don't want to over-index with Tier 4 also, or put value-conscious consumers into Tier 4 when we can try to keep a Tier 3 or a Tier 2 offering through a buy three, get one, or you know, even have a buy one, get one right now, to keep them in those, is because they're gonna like the feel and like the ride of that higher-end tire, even though we can give it to them at a value. And we think that'll ultimately, you know, build credibility and trust with the consumer, and have them come back to us for their next tire purchase. We don't want them to drive off and not be happy with the tires they're on because that's all they could afford. Yep. So maybe taking a, you know, shifting a bit, just to take a larger picture view of the business. I mean, so I followed Monro for a while, and I know you've been with the company for a while. You know, there's been this ongoing repositioning. You know, the question I wanted you to elaborate upon is, you know, kind of where are we on that? I know, you know, lately, or lately under, with Mike now as the CEO, you know, there's been much more of a focus on improving that consumer offering, particularly in your stores. So if we could talk about that, I mean, what Monro has been doing, you know, kind of where you are in that effort. I think also, one of the questions I get a lot, too, from our clients is, you know, just in the whole scheme, in the whole sector, right, and it's still a large, very fragmented space. Where does Monro compete? You know, who is the primary competition for Monro? And then, you know, has that shifted over time? Yeah, it's two great questions. Maybe I'll start with the second part first, you know, Monro is... We're an aftermarket, obviously, one of the largest aftermarket tire and auto service companies in the country. We operate in 32 states, so we have 1,300 locations in those 32 states. Varying formats, primarily, out of our locations, we offer both service and tires. There's a couple formats, less than 100 stores, that do tire only. So when we compete, we compete with the full complement of fragmentation in the industry. There's over 100,000 locations in the auto aftermarket of installers and service providers, and the top 15 only have about, or the top 10 only have about 15% market share. So it's highly fragmented, and the competition is hyper-local. Really what, where the consumer comes to the aftermarket for, relative to the dealer, is to find value. Their car's aging, with that, rational economic behavior kicks in, and, "I'm not gonna, you know, spend X for this service when I could go to here and spend... and my car's only worth Y," right? And so that's really why, why, why people turn to the aftermarket as their car depreciates, and they're the second or third generation owner of that vehicle. So really what it comes down to is our ability to compete on convenience, ease of doing business, good guest experience. We've got the tires and the assortment that they want and we've got the technicians to do the job right the first time. You know, you differentiate from your competition based on experience. We compete against a broad range of those in the aftermarket. It ranges from mom-and-pops to regionals to national chains, but also we certainly compete with online tire sellers. We actually install for them because tires don't, many can't install their own tires, so we install for them, and we also compete against big box, the club stores and the discount chains. So, a pretty wide range, in addition to competing with dealers for that marginal customer that's, you know, maybe got a foot in both camps of whether they could go to the dealer or turn to the aftermarket. So, that's where we compete, and so we do hyperlocal price scrapes across all of our marketing areas to make sure that our pricing is relative to where we want it to be relative to the competition at all of our tiers for all of our offerings, as well as our service offerings, because we need to be sharp on price, particularly at our opening price points. As it relates to where Monro is and the positioning of the business, to your point, we embarked on something we called Monro Forward, that really began the modernization of the business, I would call it. It involved implementing technology and a lot of tools. We had grown. Monro's grown to 1,300 locations through really a roll-up strategy, and that, you know, involves, you know, hundreds of acquisitions and bolt-ons, and with that, you have to take times in your growth cycle to pause and consolidate some of the gains that you have acquired, and really get a platform put together that you can then grow for the next 1,300 stores, and that's really been where we've been at. Monro Forward was putting in place technology solutions like labor and scheduling, like standardized phone systems, and like category management tools. And really, to your point, since Mike's been here, it's really been the operating of those... I'm sorry, operationalization, that's the word, of those, of those tools, and making sure that we're driving that standardization across all of our, all of our chain. And so we're in that operational excellence phase. We feel we're in later innings of that. We're seeing some good traction, across our chain. When we start to see, I think, this tire dynamic subside, on the other side of that, we'll really see the benefit of the foundational progress we've made in our tire mix optimization, our labor optimization and non-productive labor costs, our productivity improvements through our scheduling, training, attachment selling. And I think we'll start to see some of the benefit as the cycle turns on the work we've done on our 300 underperforming stores and small and underperforming stores as well. All of that keeps us really kind of excited for the future of Monro, but we do know we've got to navigate this, this tire dynamic over the short term. So, you know, some great points there. So, I wanna ask a question just competitively. And again, it's oftentimes for us as investors, you know, it's difficult to understand, you know, markets are very, very fragmented, and to use your word, hyperlocal. Yeah. So if in any given market, you know, if a consumer is not going to Monro, going somewhere else, why would that be the case? Why, what would be, you know, the competitive advantage that someone else may have over Monro? Well, you know, there, there's two things. First is they're gonna try Monro, or they're gonna try another location, you know, try Monro after having visited a different installer or service provider, or try a different service provider after visiting Monro if they didn't have a good experience. And that... You know, we are constantly looking to root out the dissatisfiers of our experience, whether it's ease of setting an appointment with us, our ability to be staffed and scheduled to be able to really honor that appointment when the guest comes in, 'cause we do have walk-in traffic and other fleet work that comes in and can distract our store team. So we wanna make sure that when you make an appointment, we're honoring that appointment. Making sure that we really have a high education, low pressure, selling environment, where we're informing the guest of what their car needs, based on additional inspection. Doing what they came in for right the first time, and then doing any additional work right the first time, and making sure they're leaving feeling that they got value, and they'd wanna come back to Monro, even if they didn't do everything that we recommended that day. That's what differentiates at the local level. Now, what a national chain like Monro brings versus a mom-and-pop is, we have convenience 'cause we have multiple locations in the area. We typically have, you know, Saturday, Sunday hours in all of our markets, which provides the ability to do business with us when it's more convenient for the guest. We also have wider selection. Most mom-and-pops, for example, do not, you know, carry a large selection of tires there, and therefore, their pricing on tires is higher because their volume is lower and they're buying everything on a just-in-time basis versus stocking common sizes because they just don't have the ability to invest in that type of inventory model. And they don't have the relationships with national providers to be able to get the parts that we have. They also don't have necessarily all the technology that we invest in, related to our alignment machines, scanners, ability to diagnose check engine light, things like that. Related to the national chains, it's the same competitive set. It's just who does it better, right? Who really delivers the better guest experience is what's gonna keep most close. We feel like we're, from a pricing standpoint, we're in the bunch, positioned where we wanna be relative to the group. And it really comes down to who serves the customer better. We're a retailer, but really, we're a distributed service model, that it all comes down to how well our people execute and satisfy the guest. ... So going back to the point you made about Monro Forward, and the initiatives that are part of that broader effort. You know, are you seeing any type of spread between the performance of the stores that, you know, those initiatives have been rolled out versus those that maybe have not been rolled out yet? Yeah, I think, I mean, the biggest thing right now, I would say, that we've got and just have launched, which we feel is gonna be really supportive of the next leg of top-line growth for Monro, is the digital courtesy inspection. The digital courtesy inspection is that 32-point inspection that I talked about before. It's a paper-based form. It was a paper-based form. We updated the form to be, you know, color-coded red, yellow, green, across 32 different points of inspection on your vehicle, measurements of brakes, measurements of tires, but it was still a paper form. We've now moved that into a tablet, so that it is... We've used one of our large technology partners to implement this, and it really brings the different capabilities, because now, first of all, we're able to sell to the guest through a much more polished process. In the past, you might have grease on the form, chicken scratch, things that make it difficult for the guest to really gather and understand what they're looking at. And now, it's done, you know, through the point where we can email it to them. We can show them and walk through it with them on the tablet, and really explain to them through pictures that are now being able to be taken of their vehicle, so they don't have to walk out to the dirty bay and look at their vehicle. We can take pictures of what we're showing them of their vehicle, or video, and it helps to really enable that selling process. Just as importantly, it helps to formalize the declined work and allows us to better market back to the guest, because now we can actually, when we market back to them, we can send them a postcard or an email that actually has a screenshot of that report that is highlighting for them the area that we saw was yellow or red, and likely they need service on now. So we can continually bring them back to that structured data. And then finally, we're able to manage our teams better, because now we know exactly who's doing a courtesy inspection on every single vehicle and who's not, how quickly they're doing the courtesy inspections to make sure they're thorough, what's coming out of them, how many times are we finding brakes or oil or other services that are needed on a vehicle relative to what the industry specs are, and how well we're selling those. We can have a much more structured view from a senior management standpoint and field management of the most important store process, which is that inspection and selling, and selling process. And so, how long until this is fully rolled out? Yeah, it was rolled out at the end of March completely. We're happy with the results, early results, and we're gonna be sharing more about that now that we're gathering more data to be able to share, because, you know, in the past, we necessarily didn't have that data. It was just paper-based. But now that we're gathering that data, we'll be sharing more with on future calls. Perfect. So you mentioned, you know, just a moment ago, that historically, Monro has grown primarily through acquisition, kind of, you know, a roll-up strategy. So at this point, you know, it sounds like the commentary you're making, you know, suggests you're really focused on improving, you know, the operations of the existing stores. But the question I have is, is Monro still focused on... You know, should we still view this as an acquisition story that's, you know, at that point? Then, and then to the extent the answer is yes, I mean, how does the acquisition landscape look at, at this juncture? Yeah, I think the answer is absolutely yes. If you look, like I said, we are taking a slowdown right now, and it's been actually a good time for us to be a little more internally focused. We continue to evaluate and we have visibility to every, you know, opportunity out in the market for growth through M&A. But we're really looking at it, have not missed out on anything that we wanted to get done. It's been a slower period of M&A just because of economic dynamics, of high cost of capital, and a little bit of a bid-ask spread that's opened up between sellers' expectations and buyers' expectations. But at the same time, as we look at the strong balance sheet of Monro, the real core competency of doing acquisitions, a lot of white space on the map. Like I said, we're only in 32 states with attractive geographies like Texas, Arizona, and Colorado, still wide open, as well as a lot of infill opportunities in states that we've just recently entered. So I think that it's still gonna be a big part of our growth going forward. You know, ultimately, our goal is to really grow top line double digits. To do that, you need to have a healthy complement of comp store growth and M&A growth, and so we've been very focused on the comp store piece of it. But we expect both of those legs of the stool to be contributive, contributing to, to a double-digit top line, over the medium to long term. And right now, I'd say, you know, it's still a slower M&A environment. Some larger deals have gotten done, with some of our peers, but, you know, we don't feel that we're, you know, it's costing us to miss out. There's still 100,000 locations, nationally, with plenty of opportunity for us moving forward. Yeah, to that point, I mean, is there... So you're at 32 states now. Is there, is there anything that prevents Monro from eventually being in, I mean, I'd say 48 states? No, I don't think at all. I mean, I think that is our goal. Obviously, there's certain states that are more attractive to us than others, and we've got them circled on the map, and there's certain states that we're already in. The infill may be more attractive than moving into some of those 48 states. But ultimately, you know, we wanna be a full coast-to-coast national player. We do a lot of. You know, one of the strategic reasons for that is, you know, we've seen the importance and the growth of fleet as we move forward. The consumer is certainly very important, but also the growth of fleet businesses, where there's a business owning multiple, you know, hundreds if not thousands of vehicles. It's important to be a national player with that national footprint, because from an ease of doing business standpoint, you just become more relevant to their national footprint. So we're focused on building that out, you know, as appropriate. ... And how significant, on that point, how significant is the fleet business for you at this point? Yeah, we've talked generally that it's, you know, between 10%-20%. We haven't given specifics. It varies, you know, somewhere between there. But it certainly is been, I think, a key focus of ours, too, 'cause we do see the changing landscape of vehicle ownership. You know, it may have been started a little bit by the rideshare conversation, but certainly, delivery miles are a bigger part of the vehicle miles traveled, so we wanna make sure that we're relevant on those larger fleets. And along these lines, I know, you know, in the past, we've talked about rebranding or, you know, more cohesively branding the Monro. And again, you know, especially against the backdrop of the chain being built largely through acquisition. So where are you on the branding right now? And again, as consumers, this helpful note, maybe, as we travel the country, you know, what are the primary brands right now you operate under, and then how are you continuing to rebrand this? Yeah, our primary brands are obviously Monro Auto Service and Tire Centers, the Tire Choice Auto Service Centers, Mr. Tire Auto Service Centers, and then in the Midwest, you'll find us operating under Car-X. We still have about 50 Car-X franchisees as well in the Midwest. So those are our primary brands. Some of those tire-only brands I mentioned, Tire Warehouse up in New England, Tire Barn in the Midwest as well. What I would say is that our focus is the really delivering the guest experience. People will come back to a location based on their trust and experience with that location. The brand on the building is secondary. So what we view the brand as is more about, it's more about efficiency of marketing, efficiency of having a single brand, more than it does, more than the brand itself, needing to be changed or consolidated, for consumer reasons. And so because of that, we've, you know, we've really been focused on that consumer experience with a little bit of a longer-term plan to consolidate some of our less relevant brands or smaller footprint brands that we've acquired over time. Even from an advertising, again, you know, I recognize, and this is, this is what you're saying is very local business, but whether... Are there, are there greater synergies to having fewer brands from an advertising perspective? There are, for certain, obviously, certain channels when you have radio or when you have television. But we're doing a lot of our digital advertising through channels that are very easy to kind of change the skin on. So the message is the same, but we're changing the digital skin on the advertising so that it's relevant for the brands. And in most cases, we only have max about two brands in a geography. So, and we've. And that, it's been a strategic reason for having multiple brands. And the reason is, when we go in and potentially acquire a competitor, and they've got stores that are already in proximity to ours, by being able to have a second brand, we don't need to necessarily close down one of those locations. We can operate both locations, but do it through one of our sister brands, and it preserves our ability to be a better buyer. And that's historically how we've leveraged and actually strategically gone to market with at least two brands. But it doesn't, it does create some efficiencies, and that's where we would see, you know, the need to change if we wanted to capture some of those efficiencies. I know our time is starting to wrap up here. I did wanna, you know, just talk about the financials. You know, and get really to your wheelhouse as CFO, but, you know, recognizing, you know, that the Monro right now is contending with these cyclical pressures, potentially significant cyclical pressures. But how should we think about, you know, the, you know, intermediate longer-term growth and profitability algorithm for Monro, you know, particularly as these cyclical-