Restaurant Brands International Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • First-quarter systemwide sales grew 2.8% and organic adjusted operating income increased 2.6%, with management reaffirming a full-year target of at least 8% organic AOI growth in 2025.
  • Burger King China has been classified as held-for-sale, creating a roughly $9 million quarterly headwind to revenues and AOI and an expected $19 million drag on AOI for the full year until a new partner is in place.
  • Tim Hortons Canada delivered flat comparable sales in Q1 but reported improved April trends, driven by new menu promotions like the 100% Canadian scrambled eggs and ongoing restaurant remodels, with further momentum forecast for summer.
  • U.S. Burger King saw a 1.1% comparable sales decline (flat excluding leap day) yet continued to outperform the broader QSR category, plans 400 remodels in 2025 and targets over 85% modern image by 2028 to boost franchisee economics.
  • Popeyes U.S. and Canada reported a 4% comparable sales decline (2.9% adjusted) alongside 3% net unit growth and is deploying its “Easy to Love” strategy—higher ad spend, kitchen upgrades and remodels—to drive a sales rebound.
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Earnings Conference Call
Restaurant Brands International Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Restaurant Brands International First Quarter 2025 earnings Conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone to confirm that you are in the queue. To exit the question queue, you may press star, then two. All callers will be limited to one question. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Kendall Peck, RBI's Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kendall Peck
Kendall Peck
Head of Investor Relations at Restaurant Brands International

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Restaurant Brands International's earnings call for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2025. Joining me on the call today are Restaurant Brands International's Executive Chairman, Patrick Doyle, CEO Josh Kobza, and CFO Sami Siddiqui. Following remarks from Josh, Sami, and Patrick, we will open the call to questions. Today's discussion may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks detailed in the press release issued this morning and in our SEC filings. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which are available in the press release and trending schedules available on our website.

Kendall Peck
Kendall Peck
Head of Investor Relations at Restaurant Brands International

As a reminder, following our acquisition of Carrols Restaurant Group, which closed on May 16th, 2024, and our acquisition of Popeyes China, which closed on June 28th, 2024, we introduced a sixth reportable segment, Restaurant Holdings, which comprises the Popeyes China business and the Burger King Carrols restaurants. The consolidated growth metrics discussed on this call, including organic adjusted operating income growth and organic adjusted EPS growth, exclude results from the Restaurant Holdings segment. In addition, on February 14th, 2025, we acquired substantially all the remaining equity interests in Burger King China from our former joint venture partners. Commencing with our first quarter 2025 results, BK China has been classified as held for sale and reported as discontinued operations in our financial statements, as we are actively working to identify a new controlling shareholder. That said, BK China KPIs continue to be included in our international segment KPIs.

Kendall Peck
Kendall Peck
Head of Investor Relations at Restaurant Brands International

A breakdown of BK China's KPIs and its impact on our 2024 financial statements can be found in the trending schedules available on our website. And now I'll turn the call over to Josh.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Through the first few months of 2025, we've been navigating a highly dynamic macro backdrop, one that's evolving differently across each of our key markets. As a global franchisor offering convenience and everyday value for guests, we're certainly better positioned than many others to navigate this evolving environment, but we're not immune, and our Q1 results reflect that. First quarter consolidated comparable sales were 0.1%, or just over 1% excluding the impact from leap day, and net restaurant growth was 3.3%. This translated into system-wide sales growth of 2.8% and organic adjusted operating income growth of 2.6%. We anticipated that Q1 would be our softest quarter of the year and believe that some of the macro noise may have driven further softness.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

That said, we continue to perform reasonably well compared to many of our global peers, reflecting the underlying strength of our brands and the quality of the plans we are executing to improve on the fundamentals that our guests care about most. We know relative performance alone isn't enough and doesn't pay the bills for us or our franchisees, though, which is why we're focused on delivering improved absolute results through the balance of the year. In any environment, our guests are focused on quality, service, and convenience at a fair price. And our teams are focused on exactly that: improving the value proposition for our guests at each of our brands and making that experience better each time they come in.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Whether that is newly remodeled restaurants at Burger King and Popeyes or improved service standards at Tim Hortons and the PM daypart, we're spending our time on what matters most. That's why, despite the slower start to the year, we were encouraged to see improved sales momentum in April. Combined with our continued discipline on costs, which Sami will address later, we're confident we'll deliver at least 8% organic adjusted operating income growth in 2025. With that, let's turn to our results, starting with Tim Hortons in Canada. Tim Hortons Canada experienced relatively flat comparable sales of 0.1%, or approximately 1.2% after adjusting for leap day, while lapping one of our strongest first quarter nominal sales results ever last year. While our results were masked this quarter by the tougher comparison, the leap day impact, and macro pressures, it's clear the underlying plan is working.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

The Tims team executed thoughtful calendar initiatives like the introduction of our 100% Canadian freshly cracked scrambled eggs, the $1 donut with a coffee promotion, and the return of physical roll-up rim cups, a much-loved Canadian tradition. Importantly, although Canadian consumer confidence remains challenged, trends have improved in April as year-over-year comparisons normalize, and we build momentum with a strong marketing calendar and continued operational improvements. Looking ahead, we will continue providing Canadians great everyday pricing for their favorite Tims products while innovating across dayparts and categories. For example, in breakfast, we recently launched our Scrambled Eggs Loaded Breakfast Box in collaboration with Ryan Reynolds. In the PM, we expect to expand share through new Loaded Platform and Flatbread Pizza flavors like our Hat-Trick Pizza, as well as innovation in sandwiches and sides.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Axel and team just wrapped up spring regionals in Canada, and there's a ton of enthusiasm from restaurant owners around the opportunity to continue growing in the PM daypart through strong menu initiatives and execution. We also continue to enhance our beverage portfolio, particularly cold and espresso-based beverages, to complement our leading market share position in hot brewed coffee. We're excited about our summer beverage lineup, including the introduction of Frozen Quenchers in April. Later this year, we'll begin rolling out new espresso machines to further elevate our espresso quality and credibility. Operational excellence remains a cornerstone of Tims success, and our restaurant owners continue to demonstrate this with average morning drive-through times improving year-over-year for nine consecutive quarters and reaching one of the highest guest satisfaction levels of all time in the first quarter. Finally, we're accelerating our development efforts in Canada.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We're on track to return to positive net unit growth in 2025 with a focus on under-penetrated regions such as Western Canada, where we have approximately one restaurant per 13,000 Canadians versus the national average of one per 10,000. In summary, despite a noisy start to the year, Tim Hortons continues to build on its strong foundation, and its underlying plan is clearly working. With its number one brand love, affordable everyday pricing, engaging marketing, and relentless commitment to operational excellence, we are confident the brand will deliver solid growth in the quarters and years ahead. Shifting now to international, we're pleased with our relative performance this quarter, delivering 2.6% comparable sales, a roughly 3.7% excluding the headwind from leap day, and 8.6% system-wide sales growth. We saw solid growth in many of our largest markets, including the U.K., Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Australia.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

These markets share a few common traits: compelling everyday value, exciting menu innovation, modern restaurant image, strong digital capabilities, and a focus on restaurant-level execution. In the U.K., Burger King continued to take share through growing delivery, expanded core value platforms like the GBP 4.99 King Box, and premium innovation with products like the Memphis BBQ King Double. In Germany, operational improvements and product innovation, including the launch of our new tortilla platform, helped drive both sales momentum and industry outperformance. I had the opportunity to visit several key international markets this quarter, including France and Spain, two of our largest businesses. I'm always impressed when I spend time with the Burger King France and Spain teams. They have beautiful, modern, and well-run restaurants and demonstrate the power and importance of having well-capitalized local partners.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Both have done a great job navigating more difficult consumer backdrops in recent quarters and have set their businesses up for continued success. Thiago, Sami, and I also spent time in India, one of our most important growth markets. Burger King India recently crossed the 500 restaurant milestone just 10 years after market entry. Raj Varman has run that business from the beginning, and it's an incredible accomplishment, but I still believe the brightest days are ahead for BK India with a huge runway. We also spent time with the Popeyes team in India, which is earlier in its growth journey but is benefiting from a wonderful partner in Jubilant, which has deep local knowledge and a committed long-term mindset. In China, our teams have acted quickly since taking over the Burger King business in mid-February, solidifying a strong local leadership team and implementing early sales driving initiatives.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Sami and I were in Shanghai in March and were encouraged by early signs of progress, including an improvement in comparable sales. We expect to close a number of unprofitable restaurants over the next 12 months in order to have a more sustainable base for restarting growth. While we don't have a final count yet, the average sales volumes of these restaurants are relatively low, less than $300,000, which means the impact to system-wide sales will be limited. Importantly, we view this portfolio cleanup as a critical and a necessary step to reposition the business for long-term success. In parallel, we've engaged Morgan Stanley and are actively working to secure a new local partner within the next year. Shifting now to Burger King in the U.S., where we saw a 1.1% decrease in comparable sales, or relatively flat results adjusting for leap day.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Burger King US continued to outperform the broader Burger QSR category, reflecting the ongoing progress of our Reclaim the Flame plan in capturing share. Tom and the team are staying disciplined in their approach to marketing, balancing value, premium, and family while protecting franchisee profitability. This quarter, strong value offerings like the $5 Duos and $7 Trios were complemented by premium innovation, including the Steakhouse Bacon Whopper, which achieved one of our highest product satisfaction scores to date. Looking ahead, we're excited to launch a bold new family activation that taps into our flame-grilled heritage and broadens the brand's appeal. We're also making progress on operations. We just finished franchisee road shows, and it's clear there's strong alignment across the system around raising standards.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We're continuing to take steps to transition restaurants into the hands of more engaged operators, and we're seeing those efforts translate into improvements across key metrics, not just at underperforming stores, but across the system. These improvements, coupled with an ongoing effort to expand hours of operation, are driving better guest experiences and contributing to the outperformance we've seen relative to the industry. Importantly, as we sustain this momentum over time, we believe it will result in stronger unit economics for our franchisees. Modernizing our restaurant base will be another important driver of franchisee profitability. We expect to complete about 400 remodels this year, including many with our new Sizzle image, and average sales uplifts are holding in the mid-teens net of control. Between remodels and the net impact of openings and non-modern image closures, we're on track to reach over 85% modern image by the end of 2028.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Our Carrols refranchising efforts are also underway. We're in the process of placing restaurants with more engaged, smaller owner-operators, whether that's high-performing existing franchisees, strong new entrants, or internal talent within the system ready to take on ownership. The team and our franchisees remain focused on navigating the current environment with discipline and doing all of the right things to build a healthier, more competitive Burger King system. Turning now to Popeyes in the U.S. and Canada, we saw net restaurant growth of 3% and comparable sales decline 4%, or down roughly 2.9% adjusted for Leap Day. This followed a 5.7% increase in comparable sales in the prior year, which benefited from the brand's first-ever Super Bowl ad. While results were softer than we would like, we just returned from Popeyes Convention in Orlando, where Jeff and the team reiterated their Easy-to-Love strategy to build a healthier, higher-performing system.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

The plan is focused on delivering our world-famous fried chicken more consistently to our guests. We will continue to bring exciting innovations like our pickle menu and relevant partnerships like our Don Julio collaboration from February. These messages are being supported by a step-up in national advertising spend that began in April and will continue for the next three years if performance targets are met. Over the medium term, our incredible food is going to be increasingly paired with foundational work we're doing to strengthen the system. We know modern, well-run restaurants deliver much stronger results with remodeled restaurants that achieve an A grade, generating 30% higher profitability than the system average. That's why we're going to roll out our Easy to Run kitchen upgrades over the next few years while we're remodeling our stores to reach a consistent modern image by 2030.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We'll focus on moving more of our restaurants to an A operations level. Much like we have at Burger King, we're being more intentional about prioritizing operational consistency over new development by prioritizing top operators who share our focus on operational excellence. Our field teams are raising the bar on operations, and our company-owned restaurant portfolio has expanded to approximately 100 locations, which we aim to make the example for the entire system. There's a lot of energy in the Popeyes system today. The chicken segment of QSR has compelling growth dynamics but is increasingly competitive, requiring us to raise the bar again on how we bring Popeyes' amazing chicken to our guests. With a sharper focus on fundamentals, better marketing support, and a more modern, high-functioning base of restaurants, we're confident in our ability to perform in the quarters and years ahead.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Finally, Firehouse Subs in the U.S. and Canada grew comparable sales by 0.6%, or nearly 2% excluding Leap Day. Net restaurants grew 5.9% and system-wide sales 7.3%. We continue to outperform the broader sub sandwich category in Q1, supported by fan favorites like our delicious French Dip Sub and our recent Hot Ones collaboration. Digital remains a strength for the brand, with a digital mix of over 45%, the highest of our home market brands, and on the development front, we're building on the momentum we created in 2024 with hundreds of new store commitments from both new and existing franchisees. It's encouraging to see that energy translate into a growing pipeline, and it gives me confidence in another year of improved unit growth in 2025. With that, I'll turn it over to Sami to walk through our financial results for the quarter. Sami?

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Today, I'll discuss our Q1 financial results, capital structure, and 2025 financial guidance, and I'll also provide an update on our Burger King China acquisition, but before that, I want to address the long-term growth algorithm we introduced last year. While we exceeded our 8%+ AOI growth target in 2024, we came in below expectations on NRG. This reflected a more complex operating environment than we had initially anticipated, one that has only intensified in 2025. As a result, we believe it's prudent to reframe our long-term outlook to better reflect today's realities. We're maintaining our targets for 3%+ comparable sales and 8%+ organic AOI growth on average through 2028. However, we're updating our net restaurant growth expectations in the near term, primarily due to Burger King China. As Josh mentioned, since acquiring China in February, we've seen encouraging early results.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

The sales at BK China have improved under a refocused marketing plan and an energized local management team. That said, the portfolio needs some cleanup to set the business up for success long-term in the hands of a new partner. Because of this transition at Burger King China, we expect total reported 2025 NRG growth to be slightly down from last year in the ±3% unit growth range, down a bit from the mid-3% growth we reported in 2024. Once this transition is behind us, we're confident BK China will return to positive growth, allowing us to ramp back to 5% global NRG growth towards the end of our algorithm period, which will equate to around 1,800 net new restaurants per year. When we think about the building blocks to this 1,800, we continue to believe in the path that we laid out last February.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

While the makeup of our growth in North America has shifted slightly, we remain confident that our home market businesses will reach roughly 400 net restaurants per year, driven by positive net restaurant growth at Tims in both Canada and the U.S., stabilizing and returning to modest growth at Burger King U.S., steady development at Popeyes North America, and accelerating momentum at Firehouse. Internationally, we're targeting about 1,400 net units per year. There may be puts and takes over time, but based on where we sit today, we continue to expect roughly 600 net units from EMEA, including higher ARS markets like the U.K., France, and Italy. APAC outside of China will contribute around 300, with India, Korea, Japan, and Australia as important drivers, and LAC is expected to deliver roughly 200 per year, with Mexico and Brazil as strong contributors.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

For perspective, these levels are generally in line to slightly ahead of what we delivered over the past few years in each region, so very achievable, especially as we add new brand market combinations for Popeyes, Firehouse, and Tims around the world. The remaining 300 units will come from our brands in China, with Popeyes accelerating, BK China returning to its growth potential in the outer years, and Tims making a positive contribution as well. China is the primary swing factor, and if we're firing on all cylinders, meaning all three businesses are on the right path, we believe 300 net new units per year is the surface of our potential. Now, shifting to Q1 results. As I mentioned on our year-end call, we expected the first quarter would be the lowest in terms of absolute comparable sales, AOI, and EPS.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

While our performance came in softer than anticipated, we've been encouraged by a stronger start to Q2 and remain confident we will deliver improved top and bottom line results for the balance of the year. In Q1, comparable sales were relatively flat. Global system-wide sales grew 2.8% year-over-year, and organic AOI grew 2.6%. There are a couple of items that impacted our year-over-year results, which I'll walk through now. First, we estimate calendar timing, including Leap Day, and tougher weather in North America reduced our AOI by about $10 million in the quarter, or just over 150 basis points, and second, as we're actively working to find a new partner for the Burger King China business, we are treating it as held for sale, with results recorded in discontinued operations. Our international segment will therefore not recognize revenue from BK China until a new partner is in place.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

In Q1, this resulted in a $9 million year-over-year headwind to revenues and to AOI, and for the full year, assuming no change in ownership, we expect a $37 million impact to revenue and a $19 million impact to AOI on a year-over-year basis, given that we recorded approximately $18 million of bad debt expenses in 2024. We offset these headwinds in Q1 through system-wide sales growth, $10 million of organic gross profit dollar growth in our Tims supply chain business, and continued cost discipline, including a $7 million reduction in segment G&A. I'd also note that we recorded around $7.5 million in net bad debt expenses in line with the prior year period, primarily related to international royalties and cost of sales within the Tims supply chain business tied to coffee sales to certain international partners. Now, turning to EPS.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Adjusted EPS increased to $0.75 per share from $0.73 per share last year, representing nominal growth of 3.3% and organic growth of 9.9%, excluding RH and a $0.04 FX impact. The increase was primarily due to a decrease in adjusted net interest expense of approximately $11 million year-over-year, reflecting the benefits from our upsized cross-currency swaps, our 2024 refinancings, and our interest rate swaps. We continue to expect that 2025 adjusted net interest expense will be in the $500 million-$520 million range, assuming an average SOFR rate of 4.1% flowing through approximately 15% of our debt. Our adjusted effective tax rate was approximately 16.5% in the quarter and included a one-time benefit of over 2 points from discrete non-cash tax items. For the full year 2025, we continue to expect our tax rate to be in the 18%-19% range.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Now, turning to free cash flow and our capital structure. We generated $89 million of free cash flow, inclusive of approximately $35 million in cash benefits from our hedges. Q1 is typically our smallest cash flow quarter, largely due to working capital seasonality, including the timing of advertising payments, gift card redemptions, and cash tax payments. This quarter, our free cash flow was further impacted by $77 million of cash tax payments, largely related to new EIFEL Canadian interest tax deductibility rules. During the quarter, we spent approximately $10 million on Reclaim the Flame-related investments, while returning $262 million of capital to shareholders through our dividend. In February, we acquired the remaining equity interest in Burger King China for roughly $150 million.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

We also capitalized the business with approximately $105 million to fund operations, hire an experienced local management team, and enhance marketing efforts, as we work closely with Morgan Stanley to find a new local partner. Overall, we ended Q1 with $2.1 billion of liquidity, including approximately $900 million of cash and a levered ratio of 4.7 times. Looking ahead, we remain focused on investing in our brand and businesses while continuing to deleverage. I'll now wrap up with four additional topics: our long-term capital intensity, FX exposure, tariff impact, and our G&A guidance. First, we've had several questions about our capital intensity, so I'd like to offer some perspective. We expect total CapEx, tenant inducements, and remodel incentives, what we refer to as CapEx and cash inducements, to be in the $400 million-$450 million range for 2025 and 2026, up from over $330 million in 2024.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

From 2027 to 2028, we'd expect this amount to step down to the $350 million-$400 million range, as we find long-term partners for Popeyes China and Firehouse Brazil, and we refranchise Carrols Restaurant Group. After 2028, with Reclaim the Flame complete and Carrols Restaurant Group largely refranchised, we expect to settle at around $300 million of CapEx and cash inducements. This should generate a nice tailwind to our free cash flow growth, as we reduce capital intensity and realize returns from the investments we're making today. Second, given recent fluctuations in FX rates, I'd like to remind you that for every $0.01 change in the USD CAD and USD EUR, we see a roughly $8 million and $4 million annual AOI impact, respectively. Last quarter, we told you we expected a $45 million FX headwind in 2025.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

We're now expecting that to improve to a headwind of $15 million based on current rates. Third, we wanted to provide a preliminary view on the potential impact from tariffs. The vast majority of our COGS are localized, and we are working closely with our suppliers and franchisees to localize for those inputs that are not. Based on what we know today, if our efforts pan out, we will see a COGS impact of around 100 basis points or less in most cases across our home market franchise businesses and our company-owned restaurants. This is a point-in-time estimate and will continue to reassess as needed. Finally, as CFO, one of my priorities has been driving operating leverage across our P&L while continuing to invest in our business to build sustainable sales.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

As we've integrated Carrols, redeployed capital behind new growth initiatives, and assessed the current operating environment, we've taken a closer look at our resources and identified opportunities to run our business more efficiently. As a result, we now expect 2025 segment G&A, excluding RH, to be in the $600 million-$620 million range, down from the $650 million-$670 million range previously. We think this is a healthy baseline that allows us to continue investing in our people and strategic plans while driving operating leverage and delivering 8%+ organic AOI growth in 2025 and beyond. And with that, I'll hand it over to Patrick.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

Thanks, Sami. We can't control the macro environment, but we can control our complexity. We're operating in a moment of peak complexity, but our business will get simpler from here. What does that mean?

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

First, we've started the process of refranchising Carrols to internal candidates from within Carrols, to existing strong franchisees, and to great external franchisees. We will only put these restaurants in the hands of people who we believe will run them very well. While it will take a number of years to complete the process, you will start to see our owned restaurant count decline this year. We took on BK China. We've made great progress in the three months since we bought it, and we've now hired Morgan Stanley to help us find a great new partner. Third, we're making real progress on BK in the U.S. We've moved on from some partners who weren't the right long-term answers. Our operations are improving, and we're on track to have the vast majority of our restaurants be modern image by the end of 2028.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

It has taken meaningful investments and tough decisions, and it won't always be a straight line of progress, but we are on track. And finally, the net effect of what will be decreasing complexity is decreasing capital commitments from us over the coming years and a more stable cost structure that drives operating leverage, as Sami just spelled out. In the end, success is defined by franchisees generating great returns from committing their time and capital to our brands. And I'm confident our franchisees' success will happen when they consistently make great food, deliver great service in an attractive, clean restaurant, all at a good value. Tim Hortons and its restaurant owners in Canada are a great example of this winning formula. All the complexity we've taken on has been about setting us up everywhere to be able to do just that.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

Where we felt like there wasn't a convincing path to get that done, we've made changes and committed capital when needed. As our investors, we appreciate that we've asked for some patience as we make these investments, and the return on those investments is coming. It came in 2024 by generating adjusted operating income growth of over 8%, and we believe it will continue this year and into the future as we've set ourselves up to continue delivering adjusted operating income growth of 8% or better. We've been managing through the hard stuff to unlock a much stronger, more resilient business in the future. And when I look across our organization, I see the right people working on the right priorities for all the right reasons. I'm excited for what's ahead and grateful to our franchisees and teams who are consistently providing better experiences to our guests every day.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

With that, let's take our questions.

Operator

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Please note all questioners will be limited to one question at a time. Our first question comes from Dennis Geiger from UBS. Your line is now open.

Dennis Geiger
Dennis Geiger
Executive Director at UBS

Morning, guys. Thank you. Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about what you're seeing with Tim Hortons in Canada, how much you think you're being impacted by the Canadian macro environment right now, and maybe expectations for the brand's resiliency in the market if the challenging backdrop persists.

Dennis Geiger
Dennis Geiger
Executive Director at UBS

I don't know if there's anything to kind of share on the value proposition, how the back-to-basic strategies will help you take share, or just overall remain resilient in the market. Thank you.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Morning, Dennis. It's Josh. Thanks for the question. I think you hit on a lot of great points. For me, it really does go back to the back-to-basics plan that we've been executing for, I think, five years or more now, and I think Axel and the team are doing an incredible job across all the fundamentals, and that's why you've seen Tims in Canada perform so well over the last few years, and it's why we're so confident that it's going to continue performing well in the coming quarters and years. In Q1, I think we had more of an inline quarter with the other big brands in the market.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

I think, to your point, we did see a little bit of a dip in consumer confidence if you look at the Canadian Consumer Confidence Index. Importantly, we've seen that come back in the second quarter to date so far. You've seen a bit of an improvement in consumer confidence. I also mentioned that Tims sales have come back really strong. We've got some awesome things going on in the business. You just saw us launch a new Loaded Scrambled Eggs Box with Ryan Reynolds. That's doing great, and we have a lot of exciting stuff for the rest of the year. We're feeling really good about the Tims business. It's been doing wonderful, and we're very confident it will continue to do that in the future.

Dennis Geiger
Dennis Geiger
Executive Director at UBS

Great. Thanks, Josh.

Operator

The next question is from David Palmer from Evercore ISI. Your line is now open. Great.

David Palmer
David Palmer
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Thank you. Good morning. Looking outside the U.S., rest of the world markets, how are trends in the informal eating out market in your key markets coming out of the first quarter? And as you look out to the year, just how do you view the consumer in your key markets? And then separately, how are you looking at your market share trends in key markets and geographies around the world? Thanks so much.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Morning, Dave. So a few thoughts on the international business and some of the trends there. Maybe a few kind of stepping back thoughts on the international business too. I would tell you that we were really pleased with the result in Q1. We had same-store sales of positive 2.6%, and that gets up into kind of the high threes, excluding the impact of Leap Day.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

So I think that's a pretty good absolute result and also a pretty good relative result when you look at some of the other global brands out there. It's really an incredible business that we have and a very diversified business. We're in around 200 brand country combinations, and our top 10 markets are about 60% of our international system-wide sales. So a lot of different dynamics in each of those countries. I think when you look at the Burger King brand in international, it's a bit different. It has some really great qualities that position it to grow so well. We've got a strong brand positioning. We've got modern restaurants in almost all of our markets. We have a lot more digital business as well.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

And because of a lot of those things, we have pretty great brand perception and really good food quality perception in those markets where we balance some of our favorites like the Whopper with strong localization that each of our teams bring. We also have a different level of execution and guest service. I think we're much more consistent across our international markets. That allows us to perform much better. And we have some incredible partners. I mentioned a couple of them earlier, but across the globe, in places like France, Spain, and so many others, we have some of the best international master franchisees that you could ask for. If we kind of go through a couple of the major markets, I'll do it by region and share a few thoughts on what's going well and what needs some work.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

If we start with EMEA, which is by far our biggest market, we performed particularly well in Germany and the U.K., where we had really good both menu innovation and some good value proposition. So I think we outperformed a bit in those two markets. And on the other hand, places like France probably underperformed a little bit. But I would say the business in France is incredible. I was just there a few weeks ago with Alex Simon and Olivier Bertrand, who run the business. They're terrific. They've built a wonderful business, and they're doing all the basics right. So I'm very confident we're going to get back to the right place in terms of same-store sales performance in France. Moving to APAC, a couple of the standout markets there where I think we're taking share are places like Australia, Japan, and Korea.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

So those have been some of the biggest performers for us. Australia, in particular, has been very consistent over the last few years. I think Chris Green and the team there are doing awesome. So that's been good. And then over the last couple of years and in recent quarters, we've had a softer performance in China. That's a lot of the reason that we stepped in and took over the business here in February. And as I mentioned, we're already seeing some progress. So I think we're making progress on the underlying fundamentals, kind of fixing the business, getting a local team in place, but we're actually already seeing some improvement in sales trends there as well. And then finally, there are two biggest markets in Latin America: Brazil and Mexico. And in Brazil, performance has been really good.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

The team's done a really nice job increasing our share of voice and media and bringing some pretty compelling value propositions there. Things like our 2 for 25 AIS promotions have allowed us to perform well on a relative basis. Mexico has been a little bit softer. I would attribute that more to kind of a market-wide softness, though we're doing some good things, and for me, one of the greatest highlights there that I had a chance to see a month or two ago was our Tims business, which is just doing fantastic, growing really quickly, and taking a lot of market share. Stepping back a little bit from BK, just one last thought on international business performance is that when we talk about international, as I just did, we tend to talk about our Burger King business, given it's our biggest global brand.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

And I think we're going to be talking increasingly about Popeyes over time. We've grown that business tremendously since we acquired it. We're now at about 1,500 international restaurants, and we think that's going to keep growing at a really rapid clip over the next few years. We've got some fantastic markets, places like the U.K., increasingly places like Brazil and Spain. So we've got some great and fast-growing markets across the globe, and I think that's going to be an increasingly large part of our business mix and our growth mix over the next few years. So overall, I think good performance. As we mentioned with the rest of the business, we've seen further improvements as we stepped into Q2. So their national business has been and continues to do well. Thanks, Dave.

Operator

The next question is from Brian Bittner from Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Brian Bittner
Brian Bittner
Senior Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thanks.

Brian Bittner
Brian Bittner
Senior Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer

Good morning. As it relates to Burger King US, it was very encouraging to see the first quarter same-store sales, much better relative performance versus your peers. I realize this is the culmination of a lot of work, but is there anything more specific that allowed you to win more clearly in the first quarter? And how would you frame your outlook for Burger King US for the rest of the year, just given the challenges from low and middle-income consumers that we've heard a lot about from your peers?

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

Hey, Brian. It's Patrick. Let me step back a little bit, answer around BK, but also broadly around the business. I mean, outperformance over the medium and long term is driven by consistently improving your guest experience, not just from promotional activity. And across our business, I know we're making really strong gains on execution.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

Tims is the best-run restaurant chain in Canada, and it continues to get better. It's why I'm incredibly confident about it. But in the case of Burger King in the U.S., it's winning by running restaurants better. And that has often been through new ownership. It's through now rapidly remodeling our restaurants to a great new image. It is really through executing the fundamentals. And as you look at, we've talked about with kind of the mid-teens lift from remodels, you're starting to see enough of those being done on a consistent basis, essentially one a day, getting remodeled in the U.S. And I think you're starting to see execution flow through into results. And I think that's the big reason you've seen relative outperformance from BK in the U.S. over the last year and in the first quarter.

Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
Executive Chairman at Restaurant Brands International

And you look at international, as Josh was just talking about. I mean, on average, it's really well-run. And where we don't see a path, we make a change, like we did with BK China, where we're already making progress. And it's the same path ultimately at Popeyes and Firehouse. And so the foundational work is being done, and that's why I'm more optimistic about our business than ever. And I think that's really the foundational work that you're seeing being done in Burger King in the U.S. is what's starting to show up on our relative performance.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

If I can, the only thing I would add to. I agree very much with what Patrick said. I think we've made significant progress on operations, and we've started to make progress on remodels. I would say I still think we have a long way to go.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We still have a lot of remodels to get done. We've got a lot of restaurants that aren't at the modern image, and while we have pockets of restaurants that have dramatically improved operations and are doing much better than the average there, we still have some pockets of operations that aren't where we want them to be that we need to turn around, and so I think those couple of things will continue to be the undercurrents that can drive relative outperformance, but as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we want to see absolute performance too, and we need to get better from where we were in Q1, and I've been happy to see that we have seen improvement in the absolute same-store sales coming into Q2, and we'll look to build on that as we get through the rest of this year.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We've got some really exciting calendar stuff coming up, including one of these really great family promotions that we're going to launch here in the next month or so, and some great additional focus on the Whopper, some refreshes on value. So we've got a very thoughtful and comprehensive calendar approach for the rest of the year that can help us continue to build on that momentum.

Brian Bittner
Brian Bittner
Senior Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Patrick.

Operator

The next question is from John Ivanko from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

John Ivanko
John Ivanko
Research Analyst at JP Morgan

Hi. Thank you. So a couple of questions. So you're firstly on the capital intensity that you gave through 2029, and thank you so much for that. Certainly, that's going to be very helpful for the model. But let me ask a couple of things. I have in my notes you're expected to do 3,000 Burger King remodels.

John Ivanko
John Ivanko
Research Analyst at JP Morgan

I think that's the number through the end of 2028. So it's obviously a pretty big number from 2025 to 2028 on a per-year basis. So can you give us the number of remodels that you're expecting at least in 2025 and 2026? That's the first question. And the related question, in the longer term, $300 million of CapEx in 2029 and beyond, is that just kind of a placeholder number, or can you help us think about where some of the major buckets of that $300 million will be? And I guess I'm going to make the assumption that new company store development isn't a major part of that number.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey, John. It's Sami. Good morning. And thank you for the question. And thank you for a similar question in the push on the last earnings call.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

I think as we sort of reflected, we thought it would be helpful to give everyone a little bit more long-term visibility into kind of what the CapEx looks like. So kind of to take some of the pieces of your question, first on the Burger King remodels, I think as we think about the pace, we think we'll do about 400 remodels this year in 2025, and we think that number will accelerate in 2026. I think your aggregate number of remodels, I think when you do the math, I think the way to think about it is we're today at around 50% modern image in our system, and we want to be at 85% modern image by the end of 2028. So there's a couple of puts and takes to that. Certainly, the number of remodels we do in a year adds to that.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

The number of new restaurants we open gross in a year will add to that. And then the closures of older image restaurants will kind of take that percentage up. So I think that's sort of the bridge to getting to around 85% modern image by 2028. I think it's more like 2,000 remodels versus maybe the 3,000 remodels that you had in your notes, but that's the bridge. And Kendall and I can show that with you later. As you think about what the $300 million looks like on a run rate basis after kind of the guidance period in 2029 and beyond, I think for $300 million, I think a good chunk of that actually continues to be our Tim Hortons system. So our Tims system, we're on a healthy pace of remodels. We're sort of caught up with our modern image percentage.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Every year, if you kind of think about the way that system works, if it's roughly 4,000 restaurants and you want to be remodeling a restaurant every 10 years, call it, give or take, that means you're doing about 400 remodels every year. And those are typically a little bit smaller because they're more frequent remodels. But keep in mind, we have property control in about 80% of those situations. So there's an ongoing capital commitment, and we think that's the right investment to make to keep our Tims brand strong and the restaurants looking really appealing to guests. I think the other piece of the Tims business that we play in, as I mentioned, is the real estate. So as we think about new units at Tims accelerating a little bit, there is some capital that goes into new leases and being on head leases.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

So I think a good chunk of that $300 million is related to Tims. As you think about the other buckets in that number, we do have a larger company ops portfolio than we had in the past. We do think that this will rationalize over time, though we want to make sure that that portfolio stays up to date and we're doing the right repairs and maintenance. And then as you think about kind of other buckets, sort of the natural other buckets that exist, corporate buckets, IT buckets, things like that. But we think the right kind of long-term run rate for the business is around $300 million, and that'll start in 2029 and beyond.

John Ivanko
John Ivanko
Research Analyst at JP Morgan

Extremely helpful. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Gregory Francfort from Guggenheim. Your line is now open.

Gregory Francfort
Gregory Francfort
Managing Director and Senior Restaurant Analyst at Guggenheim

Sami, not to throw another one your way, but can you maybe just expand on the cost savings that you mentioned in your prepared remarks? Kind of when you looked at the organization, what you're doing strategically from what departments maybe that'll hit or what the reorganization looks like. Thanks.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey. Good morning, Greg. Yeah. I think as we took a step back and about sort of nine months or so into our Carrols acquisition, and we looked to integrate Carrols as well as Popeyes China, Firehouse Brazil, which we recently launched. And then as we kind of looked at the current operating environment, it seemed like a natural time to evaluate opportunities to run our business more efficiently. I think the major areas that kind of this exercise covered was headcount, some technology and services contracts, things like stock-based compensation, taking a fresh look at that.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

It ultimately drove approximately around $20 million of year-over-year savings. As you think about kind of ending last year, around $630 million of G&A, and then the midpoint of our guidance range being around $610 million. As you think about that, it's kind of low single digits in terms of a year-over-year decline. I think around $600 million, that number, it's a healthy baseline level of G&A for our business, a good baseline for us to kind of grow off of. I think if you take a really big step back, if you think about five or six years ago, our business was running at around $400 million of G&A in the kind of 2019 timeframe. If you think about going from $400 million to kind of low $600 million, that's a 50% increase in G&A over the last five or six years.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Most of that has been headcount. I think as you think about that, that's a very healthy level of growth. I think now at this kind of low $600 million G&A level, we think we're able to invest in the right areas, do the right things, and ultimately position our business to drive operating leverage over the long term.

Gregory Francfort
Gregory Francfort
Managing Director and Senior Restaurant Analyst at Guggenheim

Thanks. Thanks, Sami.

Operator

The next question is from Danilo Gargiulo from Bernstein, your line is now open.

Danilo Gargiulo
Danilo Gargiulo
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

Thank you. Sami, one more for you. So can you help us understand maybe the comp sales contribution in the past quarter and in the past year, perhaps, due to the remodels at Burger King US, and how much are you expecting that to be for 2025? And then if you don't mind, Josh, you also mentioned that you're planning to invest in value more for Burger King US.

Danilo Gargiulo
Danilo Gargiulo
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

We heard from one of your competitors that the other promotions are not matching the results generated by the $5 meal deal, which is no longer available at Burger King. Has the $5 Duo, $7 Trio performed to the level that you expected, and how are you planning to evolve your value offering? Thank you.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey, Danilo. Just quickly on the question around sort of the comp sales impact of remodels. At this point, it's going to be relatively small, I think, as you think about the number of kind of remodels we've done. We want to do 400 this year. I think last year we did closer to 300. But it takes a little bit of time for these to settle down and to sort of normalize from a sales impact perspective.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

I think most of sort of the sales upside from the remodel impact is sort of to come down the line. We are still really pleased with the mid-teen sales uplift we are seeing. As that starts to flow through the system and you think about remodeling 400 or 500 restaurants per year, it is kind of the math sort of flows through that proportion. Hopefully we have more to update as kind of we do more of our remodels.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Thanks, Sami. Danilo, maybe I can try to clarify a little bit what I meant on the value side for BK US. What I intended to say was less that we are going to invest further into value than we have been currently.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

But rather, what I think you should expect to see from us over the course of the year is just continue to refresh some of those value offerings. So we might have new promotions like you saw us move from the $5 meals to the $5 Duos and $7 Trios. We'll look to continue to refresh some of those mechanics and bring new ways to talk about it and new offerings to guests. So that's more of the plan than kind of pushing further in terms of the relative weight in the business.

Danilo Gargiulo
Danilo Gargiulo
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

Great. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Andrew Charles from TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Andrew Charles
Andrew Charles
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Great. Thank you. You talked about returning to 5% portfolio net restaurant growth towards the end of the 2024 through 2028 timeframe.

Andrew Charles
Andrew Charles
Managing Director at TD Cowen

And so I'm curious if the message is this can be achieved beginning 2027, or is it more prudent to assume this will take place beginning 2028? And then relatedly, I'm just kind of curious about the confidence in returning to this, just given it requires a contribution from BK China, which hasn't yet found a permanent owner. Thanks.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey. Morning, Andrew. Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think as we think about sort of the path to 5% unit growth, we talked about getting there towards the end of our guidance period. And I think at this point, sitting in 2025, I don't think we can predict exactly if it'll be in 2027 or 2028, but around that timeframe. I think as we think about the confidence levels, actually, we're very confident in our ability to hit 5% over time.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

I think when we take a step back and look at sort of where the buckets of growth will come from, I kind of look at it in sort of three categories. I think the first category is our home markets and what we're doing in our North American markets. We want to do around 400. As you think about the total build to 1,800 units, we want to do around 400 units by the end of that forecast period from our home markets. I think as you peel that back, you look at Firehouse and you look at Tims, particularly Tims in Canada, accelerating, that will lead to a nice tailwind in our home markets. BK will likely go from a negative net unit position to flat to modestly growing, which would be a nice tailwind.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Then as you look at Popeyes in the U.S., we've stepped back a little bit as we've really focused on fortifying our operational capabilities in our restaurants. But we think we can get back to 150 units plus over time. So I think when you take all of those together in the home markets, you see a path to around 400 net new units there. As you kind of think about the second big category of restaurants, I would say it's our international business excluding China. And we want to be able to do around 1,100 net new units per year in that buildup. And I think as you think about that, a good chunk of that can come from Popeyes, right? I think historically, Burger King, due to the strength of the international business, has been the big driver of NRG. And it will continue to be.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

It'll be about probably 50% of that, but Popeyes will be over a third of it, and as you think about where we're growing at Popeyes, it's markets like the U.K., it's markets like India, and it's really exciting. If you actually look in our trending schedules that we post online, the system-wide sales growth in international from Popeyes is just off the charts. We did 60% in 2023, 50% in 2024, 35% in the most recent quarter, so we're really excited there, and then to your question on Burger King, in the model, we have around 300 restaurants from China in aggregate, so as you think about 300 restaurants from China in total, we think that's very achievable by the end of this forecast period.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Just for context, even without all our brands firing on all cylinders in China, in 2022, 2023, we were already at 300 restaurants from China. And Burger King alone in 2019 did close to 300 units in China. And so we think there's a ton of potential here. We have some cleanup to do in the short term, particularly at BK China, which Josh talked about. But once we move past that, we see a very clear path to acceleration in the business.

Andrew Charles
Andrew Charles
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Sara Senatore from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you. I guess two parts. One is, could you just talk? You talked about the backdrop. Could you talk about the consumer and whether you're seeing any broadening of weakness from low income to middle income? Just that was something that we've heard referenced.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

I wanted to know if that's something you've observed too. But then one of the, I guess, the question on Tims, you mentioned is growth in the core market. It optically looks like just as unit growth is stable or positive, your same-store sales are slowing. And I know some other QSRs have cited strength in Canada. So do you have any evidence that there's a trade-off between unit growth and same-store sales? Maybe looking at regional trends, like where the unit growth is, what same-store sales looks like, just some confidence that you don't have to trade those two. Thank you.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Thanks, Sara. Good morning. I'll take both of those. So just in terms of consumer environment and behavior of different cohorts, we actually aren't seeing in our data, at least, a big difference in the performance, like directional performance of different income cohorts in the U.S.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We haven't seen that pattern as much, at least in the data that we have. What we did see is that consumer confidence, if you look at kind of the main indices, whether in Canada or in the U.S., it did take a bit of a dip from Q4 into Q1. That seems to have correlated with some overall market softness. We definitely want to see that go the other way. I think the good news is that we're seeing some of that in Q2. There's some early signs of Canadian consumer confidence coming back a little bit in the last couple of weeks. That does seem to correlate with some improvement that we've seen in our overall business in Canada and the U.S. so far in Q2. Your second question on Tims, we don't see that trade-off of same-store sales versus units stabilizing.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

So I don't have any data that suggests that's what's happening. I would just zoom out again and tell you, I just think this business has done so well over the last few years and for all the right reasons. And we're very confident it's going to continue to do well. And like I said, we're seeing that again in Q2 so far. We've had a lot of really compelling things going into market, and we have a lot more to come over the summer. So we're pretty confident in the direction of the Tims business.

Operator

The next question is from Jon Tower from Citi. Your line is now open.

Jon Tower
Jon Tower
Director of Equity Research at Citi

Thanks. Hey, Sami, I was hoping. I know you guys had spoke to earlier on the fourth quarter call that the 1Q is going to be the low point for the year for growth.

Jon Tower
Jon Tower
Director of Equity Research at Citi

I was hoping maybe you could walk us through kind of the puts and takes for how you get to that 8% adjusted operating profit growth for the year, obviously knowing first quarter was kind of that low point. How much of a contribution you expect from this lower G&A growth on the year and maybe other factors as we should think through the model?

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey. Morning, Jon. Thanks for the question. Yeah. As we think about it, first off, I'd say we feel good about our ability to deliver 8%+ AOI growth this year. I think it's sort of a combination of top and bottom line. I think Josh mentioned it, but I'll reiterate. We are seeing improving sales trends in the business, and we are hopeful those continue.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

From a unit growth perspective, we think it'll be around plus or -3%, which I think both translate into kind of a healthy system-wide sales top line. Then as you think about driving operating leverage in the business, yeah, a big chunk of that is the G&A. I think we're going to see kind of a low to mid-single-digit year-over-year decrease in segment G&A, call it roughly $20 million or so year-over-year at the midpoint of our guidance range. But then we also have a structural tailwind of around $60 million of ad spending that rolled off at Burger King US that kind of moved over to our franchisees investing in the ad fund. And so that $60 million kind of rolling off also helps drive the operating leverage year-over-year.

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

And I'd say the only other thing to call out is there's a partial offset there at BK China. I talked about it kind of now sitting in discontinued operations until we find a new partner. So with that kind of accounting treatment, there was a $19 million headwind from the loss of royalties and fees at Burger King China. They were in the prior year in 2024, but they won't be in 2025. So when you kind of take all those together, we feel good about the ability to drive 8%+ AOI growth this year and beyond. Got it.

Jon Tower
Jon Tower
Director of Equity Research at Citi

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Eric Gonzalez from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Operator

Hi. Good morning. This is Chris on for Eric.

Operator

Could you maybe expand a little bit more on the recent performance you've seen at Popeyes and the implementation and progress of the Easy to Love strategy? And maybe specifically, can you talk a little bit more on operations maybe ahead of the step-up in advertising, Josh, I think you cited earlier? Thanks.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Hey, Chris. Good morning. Happy to chat a little bit about Popeyes. So we did have a bit of a softer same-store sales quarter. We expected that to some degree given what we knew we were lapping over with our first-ever Super Bowl commercial in the prior year, which we didn't repeat this year. That said, we're very focused on driving improved momentum in the business across a number of fronts that are covered in the Easy to Love plan. I think part of that is an increase in advertising spend that started now in April.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

So we're stepping up our national advertising, which will give us increased share of voice. And we definitely think that should be helpful. We're also starting to remodel our restaurants. And we talked about our plan to have fully modern assets by 2030. And as we've seen with Burger King, that definitely starts to give you a tailwind in the business. But on top of that, we think increasing operational consistency of guest experience is also a very important part of the path forward for Popeyes. And I think we're making some progress there through rolling out our Easy to Run kitchens. And we're now in a couple hundred restaurants, and we'll be progressively rolling that out over the next few years to have a more standardized operating system in the kitchen, both the layouts, the operational flows, and the technology.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

So we're very encouraged by that, and we know we'll make progress there. And lastly, as I mentioned, we're going to be raising the bar a bit on operating standards across the franchisee base. Similar to what we've done at Burger King over the last few years where they've made a lot of progress, I think we're going to be stepping up standards at Popeyes. I think those are all the things that drive the fundamentals of the business. And I think add on top of what is already by far the best culinary team and the best food in the chicken space. So I think if we can bring all that together, we should see progressively better performance over the coming quarters and years of Popeyes.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

The last question we have time for today is from Christine Cho from Goldman Sachs.

Operator

Your line is now open.

Christine Cho
Christine Cho
Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Thank you so much for taking my question. So I was wondering if you can provide some more details on the sales growth and share trends in the various categories in Tim Hortons between breakfast food, PM, cold beverage, etc. And are you seeing any signs of elevated pressure in any particular part in the Canadian market and the kind of the macro backdrop? Thank you.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Yeah. In terms of the market share trends, we're still doing well in terms of market share in hot brewed coffee. We actually grew our hot brewed coffee dollar share year-on-year. So things are going pretty well in that part. We might see a little bit of softness in things like breakfast sandwiches, but I think we'll see a lot of progress with that now here as we get into Q2 and the rest of the year.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

We brought a lot more focus now in the calendar with things like our new promotion with Ryan Reynolds. So those are some of the kind of the main trends. And I think what you'll see us focus on for the rest of the year is as we get into summer, we're going to be focused a lot on cold beverages. We just had some new launches there, and you'll see more over the course of the summer. And we're also going to be very focused on some of our PM food. So you'll see a lot of that in the calendar over the next couple of months and into the back half of the year. That'll help us to take more share in PM food. Anything that, Sami, you want to add to that?

Sami Siddiqui
Sami Siddiqui
CFO at Restaurant Brands International

I would just add that the PM food share did increase in the quarter as you saw the impact of Flatbreads and Loaded. So going to Josh's point, we continue to build that day part and are pleased with the market share increases we've seen in that category.

Christine Cho
Christine Cho
Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Thank you so much.

Operator

This is the end of today's Q&A session. I'd now like to hand the floor back to Josh for closing remarks.

Josh Kobza
Josh Kobza
CEO at Restaurant Brands International

Thanks. Just to close, I'd like to extend our sincere thanks to both our franchisees and our teams for doing a great job this quarter in a tough environment. I'd like to thank you all for joining us today for the call. And we look forward to updating you again with our Q2 earnings. Thanks.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Executives
    • Kendall Peck
      Kendall Peck
      Head of Investor Relations
    • Patrick Doyle
      Patrick Doyle
      Executive Chairman
    • Sami Siddiqui
      Sami Siddiqui
      CFO
    • Josh Kobza
      Josh Kobza
      CEO
Analysts
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