Restaurant Brands International Inc (QSR) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Restaurant Brands International Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

早上好，歡迎參加 Restaurant Brands International 2021 年第四季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Stephen Lichtner, RBI's Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

請注意，正在記錄此事件。我現在想將電話轉給 RBI 投資者關係主管 Stephen Lichtner。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Restaurant Brands International's earnings call for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2021. As a reminder, a live broadcast of this call may be accessed through the Investor Relations web page at investor.rbi.com, and a recording will be available for replay.

謝謝你，接線員。大家早上好，歡迎來到 Restaurant Brands International 的截至 2021 年 12 月 31 日的第四季度和年度的收益電話會議。提醒一下，可以通過 Investor.rbi.com 上的投資者關係網頁訪問本次電話會議的現場直播，並且錄音將可供重播。

Today's earnings call contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks set forth in the press release issued this morning and in our SEC filings.

今天的財報電話會議包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述受到今天上午發布的新聞稿和我們提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中規定的各種風險的影響。

In addition, this earnings call includes non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are included in the press release available on our website.

此外，本次財報電話會議還包括非 GAAP 財務指標。非公認會計原則財務指標的對賬包含在我們網站上的新聞稿中。

During portions of the call today, we will be referencing 2-year comparisons for system-wide sales growth and comparable sales to provide a cleaner indication of how the business is trending versus a more normalized period. These 2-year comparisons are calculated on a geometric stacked basis by using the 2020 and 2021 disclosed growth metrics.

在今天的部分電話會議中，我們將參考 2 年系統範圍內的銷售增長和可比銷售額的比較，以更清晰地表明業務的趨勢與更正常的時期。這些 2 年的比較是使用 2020 年和 2021 年披露的增長指標在幾何疊加的基礎上計算的。

In addition, consolidated system-wide sales, digital sales, net restaurant growth and organic adjusted EBITDA growth do not include the results of Firehouse Subs, which we acquired on December 15, 2021.

此外，綜合全系統銷售額、數字銷售額、餐廳淨增長和有機調整後 EBITDA 增長不包括我們於 2021 年 12 月 15 日收購的 Firehouse Subs 的業績。

And now I'll turn the call over to Jose.

現在我將把電話轉給 Jose。

Good morning, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. Joining me on the call this morning, as usual, are Josh Kobza, our COO; and Matt Dunnigan, our CFO. I'm also excited to have Tom Curtis, the President of Burger King in the U.S. and Canada, as a special guest this quarter to share what he and his team have been up to since he took the helm in August.

大家，早安。我希望你們一切都好。像往常一樣，今天早上和我一起參加電話會議的是我們的首席運營官 Josh Kobza；和我們的首席財務官 Matt Dunnigan。我也很高興漢堡王美國和加拿大總裁湯姆·柯蒂斯作為本季度的特邀嘉賓，分享他和他的團隊自 8 月掌舵以來一直在做的事情。

We made significant progress over the course of 2021 on key near-term initiatives, including opening over 1,200 net new restaurants, seeing early progress at Burger King U.S. and good momentum exiting the year at Tim Hortons in Canada. As we look to 2022, we have a number of clear objectives for the year ahead and remain focused on: first, continuing to build sales momentum in our home markets and around the world, while driving franchisee profitability and unit economics. Second, accelerating global unit growth through our best-in-class franchise network. Third, leveraging recent investments in our field teams, training and equipment to improve restaurant operations.

在 2021 年期間，我們在關鍵的近期舉措上取得了重大進展，包括開設 1,200 多家淨新餐廳，看到美國漢堡王的早期進展以及今年結束時在加拿大蒂姆霍頓的良好勢頭。展望 2022 年，我們為來年制定了許多明確的目標，並繼續專注於：首先，繼續在我們的國內市場和世界各地建立銷售勢頭，同時提高加盟商的盈利能力和單位經濟效益。其次，通過我們一流的特許經營網絡加速全球業務增長。第三，利用最近對我們現場團隊、培訓和設備的投資來改善餐廳運營。

Fourth, utilizing technology initiatives, including our growing loyalty and e-commerce platform to enhance the guest experience. And finally, making meaningful strides in our restaurant brands for good plan, including executing against our climate strategy and furthering what sustainability means for our brands. I'm confident we're well positioned to execute on these priorities as we work towards our big dream of building the most loved restaurant brands in the world.

第四，利用技術舉措，包括我們不斷增長的忠誠度和電子商務平台來提升客戶體驗。最後，在我們的餐廳品牌方面取得有意義的進展，以製定良好的計劃，包括執行我們的氣候戰略，並進一步促進可持續發展對我們品牌的意義。我相信，在我們努力實現建立世界上最受歡迎的餐廳品牌的宏偉夢想時，我們已經做好了執行這些優先事項的準備。

I want to thank our restaurant team members, franchisees and employees for their continued dedication. Our people are the lifeblood of our business, and for that reason, I was incredibly proud to see us earn the Great Place to Work Certification with our strongest scores ever, reflecting our commitment to our team and culture.

我要感謝我們的餐廳團隊成員、特許經營商和員工的持續奉獻。我們的員工是我們業務的命脈，因此，我非常自豪地看到我們以有史以來最出色的成績獲得最佳工作場所認證，這反映了我們對團隊和文化的承諾。

Turning to a few highlights from the quarter and the year. During the fourth quarter, year-over-year comparable sales accelerated sequentially from the third quarter, driven by all of our brands and across the world. This includes Tim Hortons Canada, which saw year-over-year comparable sales improved to 11.3% positive from 9.5% positive in Q3 and Burger King's international business, which grew comparable sales positive 19.4%, a 320 basis point sequential acceleration. In addition, Burger King U.S. started to narrow the gap to industry performance and saw comparable sales improved to plus 1.8% from a decline of 1.6% in Q3.

談談本季度和本年度的一些亮點。在第四季度，在我們所有品牌和全球範圍內的推動下，與第三季度相比，同比銷售額環比增長。其中包括 Tim Hortons Canada，其可比銷售額同比增長從第三季度的 9.5% 增長至 11.3%，漢堡王的國際業務可比銷售額增長 19.4%，環比增長 320 個基點。此外，美國漢堡王開始縮小與行業表現的差距，可比銷售額從第三季度的下降 1.6% 提高至 1.8%。

On the development front, we opened nearly 600 net restaurants in the fourth quarter, returning to over 1,200 net new restaurants for the full year. And what excites us even more is the excellent work our teams delivered in 2021, entering into new high-quality master franchise development agreements for Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes in building pipelines that position us well to accelerate unit growth in 2022 and beyond across all brands. The combination of comparable sales and unit growth helped drive year-over-year system-wide sales growth of 14%, with organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 15%. This contributed to strong free cash flow generation that enabled us to capitalize on an exciting strategic opportunity with the acquisition of Firehouse Subs.

在發展方面，我們在第四季度淨開設了近 600 家餐廳，全年淨新增餐廳超過 1,200 家。更讓我們興奮的是我們的團隊在 2021 年交付的出色工作，與 Burger King、Tim Hortons 和 Popeyes 簽訂了新的高質量主特許經營開發協議，以建立管道，使我們能夠在 2022 年及以後加速單位增長所有品牌。可比銷售額和單位增長相結合，推動全系統銷售額同比增長 14%，有機調整後 EBITDA 增長 15%。這促成了強勁的自由現金流產生，使我們能夠通過收購 Firehouse Subs 把握激動人心的戰略機遇。

As the year came to a close and as we look forward to 2022 and beyond, I could not be more excited to have welcome Firehouse Subs' brand and its seasoned team to our family of iconic and loved restaurant brands. We also returned over $610 million to shareholders during the quarter and over $1.5 billion for the year through a combination of dividends and open market share repurchases. Our capital allocation this year was consistent with our overall philosophy that allows us to dynamically allocate capital between reinvesting in our business, returning capital to shareholders, executing on strategic M&A, or all 3.

隨著這一年的結束以及我們對 2022 年及以後的展望，我非常高興地歡迎 Firehouse Subs 的品牌及其經驗豐富的團隊加入我們標誌性和喜愛的餐廳品牌家族。我們還通過股息和公開市場股票回購相結合的方式，在本季度向股東返還了超過 6.1 億美元，全年返還了超過 15 億美元。我們今年的資本分配與我們的整體理念一致，即允許我們在業務再投資、向股東返還資本、執行戰略併購或所有三者之間動態分配資本。

In addition, our continued commitment to our restaurant brands for good framework helped drive a notable improvement in our ratings this year from leading ESG rating agencies. For example, we improved our S&P score by 37 points year-over-year and achieved a strong inaugural score of B- on our first public CDP disclosure, which was anchored by our strong governance and ambitious climate targets.

此外，我們對餐廳品牌的持續承諾有助於推動領先 ESG 評級機構今年的評級顯著提高。例如，我們的標準普爾得分同比提高了 37 分，並在我們的首次公開 CDP 披露中獲得了 B- 的強勁得分，這以我們強有力的治理和雄心勃勃的氣候目標為基礎。

Before we dive into brand results, I want to address a few industry headlines relating to staffing and inflation that I'm sure are top of mind for everyone listening in. Our brands have not been immune to these challenges, and we're hyper focused on alleviating near-term pressures by driving sales and traffic in conjunction with recommending staffing initiatives and pricing strategies. On labor, we're taking a proactive approach to improve the situation, including providing toolkits for hiring and retention, expanding the support from our field and training teams and working on simplifying back-of-house processes to make it easier and more rewarding for our franchisees', restaurant staff to work in their restaurants.

在我們深入研究品牌結果之前，我想先談談與人員配備和通貨膨脹有關的一些行業頭條新聞，我敢肯定，每個人都在關注這些頭條新聞。我們的品牌也未能倖免於這些挑戰，而且我們非常專注關於通過推動銷售和流量以及推薦人員配備計劃和定價策略來減輕近期壓力。在勞動力方面，我們正在採取積極主動的方法來改善這種情況，包括提供用於招聘和留用的工具包，擴大我們現場和培訓團隊的支持，並致力於簡化後台流程，使其更容易和更有價值我們的加盟商，餐廳員工在他們的餐廳工作。

On pricing, we took price in 2021 at each of our brands and given the level of commodity cost and labor inflation we're seeing, we expect additional price increases in 2022 and are working closely with franchisees to make the best decision for guests and our franchisees' P&Ls.

在定價方面，我們在 2021 年對我們的每個品牌進行了定價，鑑於我們看到的商品成本和勞動力通脹水平，我們預計 2022 年價格會進一步上漲，並正在與加盟商密切合作，為客人和我們的加盟商的損益表。

Turning now to our brand performance. Let's start with Tim Hortons Canada. We are 2 years into our back-to-basics plan and continue to see encouraging proof points that our focus on elevating core quality, innovating for growth and modernizing the brand is positioning Tims well for long-term growth in Canada. For the fourth quarter, as I mentioned, we saw an 11.3% year-over-year increase in comparable sales, a 180 basis point acceleration relative to the third quarter.

現在轉向我們的品牌表現。讓我們從加拿大蒂姆霍頓斯開始。我們的回歸基礎計劃已經進行了 2 年，並且繼續看到令人鼓舞的證據表明，我們專注於提升核心質量、為增長而創新和品牌現代化，這使 Tims 能夠很好地在加拿大實現長期增長。正如我所提到的，第四季度我們看到可比銷售額同比增長 11.3%，相對於第三季度增長了 180 個基點。

As compared to 2019 levels, we saw a 2% decrease in comparable sales, which is a 360 basis point improvement versus Q3. These results were driven by broad-based momentum, including in the underlying core business, the impact of our digital initiatives and well-executed promotions. During the quarter, we continued our journey of core quality enhancements in both breakfast and coffee. In breakfast, we built on our fresh cracked eggs platform with the introduction of the stake and egg breakfast sandwich, which helped drive overall morning daypart sales ahead of 2019 levels for the first time since the start of the pandemic. We also made progress enhancing our hot beverage offerings, extending our prior work on brewed coffee into a successful platform relaunch of handcrafted espresso beverages, including lattes in November. We saw the benefits of our richer and bolder recipes, dairy alternatives and equipment [to nuts] with these great tasting espresso-based beverages contributing to positive sales growth and helping drive a sequential improvement in hot beverage sales.

與 2019 年的水平相比，我們看到可比銷售額下降了 2%，與第三季度相比提高了 360 個基點。這些結果是由廣泛的動力推動的，包括基礎核心業務、我們的數字計劃的影響和執行良好的促銷活動。在本季度，我們繼續我們的早餐和咖啡核心質量提升之旅。在早餐方面，我們在新鮮碎雞蛋平台的基礎上推出了股權和雞蛋早餐三明治，這有助於推動早間時段的整體銷售額自大流行開始以來首次超過 2019 年的水平。我們還在改進熱飲產品方面取得了進展，將我們之前在煮好的咖啡方面的工作擴展到了一個成功的平台，重新推出了手工製作的濃縮咖啡飲料，包括 11 月的拿鐵咖啡。我們看到了我們更豐富、更大膽的食譜、乳製品替代品和設備（堅果）的好處，這些美味的濃縮咖啡飲料有助於積極的銷售增長，並有助於推動熱飲銷售的連續改善。

In October, we took the next step in innovating for growth around our food-led occasions with freshly grilled wraps. This successful launch built off our established credibility in craveables and helped drive mid-single-digit growth in our lunch and afternoon snack dayparts versus 2019 levels. It's encouraging to see our focus on enhancing food quality and taste translating to strong sales growth with breakfast foods and main foods up a combined 14% versus 2019. Building new ownable platforms across food-led dayparts remains an ongoing focus for the team, and you can expect to hear more from us on our initiatives throughout the year.

10 月，我們在以食品為主導的場合用新鮮烤製的捲餅進行創新以實現增長。這次成功的發佈建立了我們在食物中既定的信譽，並幫助推動我們的午餐和下午點心時段與 2019 年水平相比實現了中個位數的增長。令人鼓舞的是，我們對提高食品質量和口味的關注轉化為強勁的銷售增長，早餐食品和主要食品與 2019 年相比增長了 14%。在以食品為主導的時段建立新的可擁有平台仍然是團隊的持續關注點，而您可以期待聽到更多關於我們全年舉措的信息。

We're also making important strides modernizing the brand through restaurant technology enhancements and continued growth in our Tims Rewards loyalty program. For example, a roll-up to win 2.0 helped propel digital sales to over 1/3 of system-wide sales. In addition, Tim's rewards maintained its position as the #1 food and beverage app in Canada with 4.5 million monthly active users during the quarter, over 50% growth year-over-year. On top of these underlying improvements, we also drove special visits and sales during the quarter through impactful promotions, such as our NHL trading cards and our collaboration with Justin Bieber. Timbits, which included exclusive merchandise in 3 delicious Timbits created together with Justin Bieber, was one of the more successful traffic-driving initiatives in recent memory and outperformed our internal expectations. We've seen early signs of brand loved benefits from this partnership through unprecedented social engagement and increased appeal with younger guests.

我們還通過餐廳技術的改進和我們的 Tims Rewards 忠誠度計劃的持續增長，在品牌現代化方面取得了重要進展。例如，贏得 2.0 的匯總幫助推動了數字銷售額超過系統銷售額的 1/3。此外，Tim 的獎勵在本季度保持了其作為加拿大排名第一的食品和飲料應用程序的地位，每月有 450 萬活躍用戶，同比增長超過 50%。除了這些潛在的改進之外，我們還在本季度通過有影響力的促銷活動推動了特別訪問和銷售，例如我們的 NHL 交易卡和我們與賈斯汀比伯的合作。 Timbits 包括與 Justin Bieber 共同創作的 3 款美味 Timbits 中的獨家商品，是近期記憶中最成功的流量驅動計劃之一，其表現超出了我們的內部預期。通過前所未有的社會參與和對年輕客人的吸引力增加，我們已經看到了這種合作夥伴關係對品牌喜愛的好處的早期跡象。

I'm a believer, and you can expect to see more from this exciting partnership in the year ahead. We were pleased to see the positive impact of our initiatives translate to growth in our brand health metrics as well across nearly all metrics and ahead of competitors with notable call-outs in both food and coffee quality and taste and all brand connection attributes.

我是一個信徒，你可以期待在未來一年從這個令人興奮的合作夥伴關係中看到更多。我們很高興看到我們的舉措帶來的積極影響轉化為我們的品牌健康指標以及幾乎所有指標的增長，並在食品和咖啡質量和口味以及所有品牌聯繫屬性方面均領先於競爭對手。

I should point out that our efforts in the quarter, alongside the tremendous work of our owners, drove sequential improvements in comparable sales each month, culminating in the month of December with positive low single-digit comparable sales versus 2019. We also saw sequential improvements on a 2-year basis across all product categories, all dayparts, all formats, all our vanities and all regions during the quarter. While temporary restrictions and lockdowns in January naturally had some impact on mobility and hence performance, we were pleased to see that the impact of this latest surge and resulting restrictions has proven to be less severe than prior impacts, a reflection of the strength of our underlying business and brand connection and the fact that Canadians, like people everywhere, are keen to safely return to their normal mobile lives.

我應該指出，我們在本季度的努力以及我們所有者的巨大工作推動了每月可比銷售額的連續改善，最終在 12 月份達到了與 2019 年相比正的低個位數可比銷售額。我們還看到了連續改善本季度所有產品類別、所有時段、所有格式、我們所有的梳妝台和所有地區的兩年期。雖然 1 月份的臨時限制和封鎖自然會對流動性和性能產生一些影響，但我們很高興地看到，最新的激增和由此產生的限制的影響已被證明沒有之前的影響那麼嚴重，這反映了我們潛在的實力商業和品牌聯繫以及加拿大人與世界各地的人們一樣渴望安全地恢復正常的移動生活這一事實。

In Tims, we have a beloved brand, dedicated restaurant owners and a strong multiyear plan in place to build on the momentum we're establishing in the attractive categories of food, specialty beverage and cold beverage. And we're confident that thoughtful and steady category innovation combined with improved core execution and unmatched digital reach will unlock a better experience for our guests and more opportunities to grow sales and owner profitability across Canada. What's more, there's also a very attractive path to expand the Tims brand around the world. We already have an established presence in 13 countries and are actively adding to this footprint through our robust development pipeline.

在 Tims，我們擁有深受喜愛的品牌、敬業的餐廳老闆和強大的多年計劃，以鞏固我們在有吸引力的食品、特色飲料和冷飲類別中建立的勢頭。我們相信，深思熟慮和穩定的品類創新，加上改進的核心執行力和無與倫比的數字影響力，將為我們的客人帶來更好的體驗，並有更多機會在加拿大增加銷售額和業主盈利能力。更重要的是，還有一條非常有吸引力的途徑可以在全球範圍內擴展 Tims 品牌。我們已經在 13 個國家/地區建立了業務，並正在通過我們強大的開發渠道積極增加這一足跡。

The team achieved the highest level of unit growth since we acquired the brand, delivering 342 net new restaurants in 2021 with notable strength in China where we exited the year with 390 stores and opened our 400th restaurant in January, less than 3 years after opening our first. In the U.S., we achieved our best year of restaurant growth since 2016 and signed development agreements to expand to new markets, including Houston, which will open its first store this summer. Our new U.S. openings leverage a smaller footprint, faster build times and an optimized menu offering focused on beverages, baked goods and hot breakfast sandwiches, all leading to more compelling unit economics. We're seeing encouraging results from these formats and are excited to see the overall business get back to growth. We look forward to sharing additional progress of the Tims U.S. business later in the year.

團隊實現了自我們收購品牌以來的最高單位增長水平，2021 年淨新增餐廳 342 家，在中國擁有顯著的實力，我們以 390 家門店結束了這一年，並在 1 月份開設了第 400 家餐廳，距離我們開業不到 3 年第一的。在美國，我們實現了自 2016 年以來餐廳增長最好的一年，並簽署了拓展新市場的開發協議，包括將於今年夏天開設第一家門店的休斯頓。我們在美國的新開業利用了更小的佔地面積、更快的建造時間和專注於飲料、烘焙食品和熱早餐三明治的優化菜單，所有這些都帶來了更具吸引力的單位經濟效益。我們從這些格式中看到了令人鼓舞的結果，並且很高興看到整體業務恢復增長。我們期待在今年晚些時候分享 Tims 美國業務的更多進展。

Now before I walk you through the rest of our results, I'd like to pass it over to Tom to give you an update on the encouraging progress we're seeing at Burger King U.S.

現在，在我向您介紹我們的其餘結果之前，我想將其傳遞給湯姆，讓您了解我們在美國漢堡王看到的令人鼓舞的進展。

Thank you, Jose, and thank you all for having me here today. Over the past 6 months, I've had the pleasure of traveling throughout the U.S., meeting with and learning from our dedicated franchisees and doing important foundational work with our BK team and franchisees to build a multiyear plan to reclaim the flame at Burger King. While we intend to share additional details of this plan later this year, I'd like to take this opportunity to walk you through some of the near-term initiatives we recently shared with our franchisees.

謝謝你，何塞，謝謝大家今天讓我在這裡。在過去的 6 個月裡，我有幸在美國各地旅行，與我們敬業的加盟商會面並向他們學習，並與我們的 BK 團隊和加盟商一起開展重要的基礎工作，以製定一項多年計劃，以重振漢堡王的火焰。雖然我們打算在今年晚些時候分享該計劃的更多細節，但我想藉此機會向您介紹我們最近與特許經營商分享的一些近期舉措。

I've been an operator for most of my career, including 2 decades as the franchisee. So I'm going to start with our initiative to improve operations, which is an important unlock for driving comparable sales. The opportunity is evident when we look at performance across our top operators compared to our bottom operators as measured across a number of metrics, including hours of operations, staffing, speed of service and average complaint ratios. In 2021, for example, comparable sales from this top quartile operators outperformed bottom quartile operators by over 400 basis points, and this is why we are focused on working with our franchisees to implement initiatives that will improve operations.

在我職業生涯的大部分時間裡，我一直是一名運營商，其中包括 2 年的特許經營權。因此，我將從改善運營的舉措開始，這是推動可比銷售額的重要解鎖。當我們通過一系列指標（包括運營時間、人員配備、服務速度和平均投訴率）衡量頂級運營商與最低運營商的績效時，機會是顯而易見的。例如，在 2021 年，前四分之一運營商的可比銷售額比後四分之一運營商高出 400 多個基點，這就是為什麼我們專注於與我們的特許經營商合作實施能夠改善運營的舉措。

At the end of December, we rolled out our first of 2 waves of menu simplification, removing low-volume items so the team members can focus on serving our most loved products and providing guests a fantastic Burger King experience consistently. The first wave had no material impact on comparable sales, and we are confident that the improved execution we're starting to see will drive guest retention and frequency for our restaurants. In addition, we're streamlining some product builds across the menu and simplifying our menu boards to make production and ordering easier for team members and for guests. These measures and the renewed focus on operations are welcomed by our franchisees and starting to drive progress in several key operational metrics, including order accuracy and overall satisfaction.

12 月底，我們推出了兩波菜單簡化中的第一波，移除了小批量的項目，以便團隊成員可以專注於為我們最喜愛的產品提供服務，並始終如一地為客人提供美妙的漢堡王體驗。第一波對可比銷售額沒有實質性影響，我們相信我們開始看到的改進執行將推動我們餐廳的客人保留率和頻率。此外，我們正在簡化菜單中的一些產品構建，並簡化我們的菜單板，以便團隊成員和客人更輕鬆地製作和訂購。這些措施和對運營的重新關注受到了我們的加盟商的歡迎，並開始推動幾個關鍵運營指標的進展，包括訂單準確性和整體滿意度。

Next, on digital. I spent many years at another company that has been an industry leader in the digital guest experience. There's no doubt for everything that I've seen at Burger King that we have a lot of opportunities to make it easier for guests to order from us online with way fewer clicks to complete an order and consistent, easy-to-enjoy pickup experience. Becoming a leader in this digital space also involved completing the rollout and effective utilization of our outdoor digital menu boards, where over 70% of our guests order with us today. We are well on our way to equipping 100% of our drive-throughs in the U.S. and Canada with these boards by mid-2022. And as we continue to expand our Royal Perks loyalty program, we expect to see synergies from integrating loyalty into these dynamic digital boards.

接下來，關於數字。我在另一家一直是數字客戶體驗行業領導者的公司工作了很多年。毫無疑問，對於我在漢堡王看到的一切，我們有很多機會讓客人更輕鬆地從我們這裡在線訂購，只需更少的點擊即可完成訂單和一致、易於享受的取貨體驗。成為這一數字空間的領導者還涉及完成戶外數字菜單板的推出和有效利用，今天有超過 70% 的客人通過我們訂購。到 2022 年年中，我們正在為美國和加拿大 100% 的免下車通道配備這些電路板。隨著我們繼續擴展我們的 Royal Perks 忠誠度計劃，我們希望看到將忠誠度整合到這些動態數字板中的協同效應。

Shifting to our menu. We are leaning into our iconic brand equities and assets starting with a more purposeful highlight on what has made us special over the decades, flame grilling and having it your way. We were the first in the industry to do both at scale, and they're very much core to our future growth. And also core to our growth is leaning into our strongest brand equity, The WHOPPER. The WHOPPER is a multibillion-dollar brand, and we need to treat it as such. You should expect to see new extensions and innovations around The WHOPPER, some of which are already proven winners in our international markets. We expect they will test and perform well here in the U.S. as well.

轉到我們的菜單。我們正在關注我們標誌性的品牌資產和資產，首先是更有目的性地強調幾十年來讓我們與眾不同的原因，即火焰燒烤和隨心所欲。我們是業內第一個大規模進行這兩項工作的公司，它們是我們未來增長的核心。我們增長的核心還在於我們最強大的品牌資產 The WHOPPER。 WHOPPER 是一個價值數十億美元的品牌，我們需要這樣對待它。您應該期待看到圍繞 The WHOPPER 的新擴展和創新，其中一些已經在我們的國際市場上被證明是贏家。我們預計他們也將在美國進行測試並表現良好。

And while we always strive to provide excellent value for money on a full menu basis, going forward, we will be purposeful and targeted when we choose to promote this iconic asset. On chicken, you can expect us to optimize our platform so that we ensure unique offerings that we can execute on consistently. This includes a thoughtful menu architecture that features our premium chicken sandwich and extensions, celebrates our original chicken sandwich and offers a fun new approach to our unique fan favorite chicken fries.

雖然我們始終努力在完整菜單的基礎上提供物超所值的服務，但展望未來，當我們選擇推廣這一標誌性資產時，我們將有針對性和針對性。在雞肉方面，您可以期望我們優化我們的平台，以確保我們可以始終如一地執行獨特的產品。這包括一個周到的菜單架構，其中包含我們的優質雞肉三明治和擴展，慶祝我們原來的雞肉三明治，並為我們獨特的粉絲最喜歡的炸雞薯條提供有趣的新方法。

Value also remains important to our guests and core to our business. One of our key priorities is to establish a strong value menu that will drive incremental traffic, specifically by creating a powerful Have It Your Way value menu and addressing its rightful place in our overall menu architecture.

價值對我們的客人和我們業務的核心也很重要。我們的主要優先事項之一是建立一個強大的價值菜單，以推動增加流量，特別是通過創建一個強大的 Have It Your Way 價值菜單並在我們的整體菜單架構中解決其應有的位置。

Now to execute on our initiatives, we've been building strong capabilities with our new analytics and insights team, bringing additional rigor to all areas of the business, utilizing guest insights, operations analytics, performance analytics and digital analytics. We are implementing better testing protocols to ensure our advertising and our initiatives are well chosen and more impactful. And given the increased rigor of our new processes, it's fair to expect more of an impact from our initiatives in the back half of 2022.

現在，為了執行我們的計劃，我們一直在與新的分析和洞察團隊一起建立強大的能力，利用客戶洞察、運營分析、績效分析和數字分析，為所有業務領域帶來額外的嚴謹性。我們正在實施更好的測試協議，以確保我們的廣告和我們的舉措經過精心挑選並更具影響力。鑑於我們的新流程越來越嚴格，我們可以期待我們在 2022 年下半年的舉措產生更大的影響。

On branding and advertising, the team is working on our brand positioning and how we build relevance with all audiences. I won't go into the detail on that today, but I would note that we recently announced our decision to put our creative and accounts into review. Another crucial part of our brand positioning and relevance is reflected in our systems image, where currently we have nearly 30% of our system equipped with the latest BK of tomorrow image and technology element. The path toward a fully modernized fleet of restaurants is a key part of our longer-term plan, and we're committed to doing what we need to, including making investments in both the brand and its physical assets to get there. We are working side-by-side with our franchisees to develop a bold and thoughtful investment plan, which we'll share with you later this year.

在品牌和廣告方面，該團隊正在研究我們的品牌定位以及我們如何與所有受眾建立相關性。我今天不會對此進行詳細介紹，但我要指出，我們最近宣布了對我們的創意和帳戶進行審查的決定。我們品牌定位和相關性的另一個關鍵部分反映在我們的系統形像中，目前我們有近 30% 的系統配備了最新的 BK of tomorrow 形象和技術元素。通往完全現代化的餐廳車隊的道路是我們長期計劃的關鍵部分，我們致力於做我們需要做的事情，包括對品牌及其有形資產進行投資以實現目標。我們正在與我們的加盟商並肩合作，制定一個大膽而深思熟慮的投資計劃，我們將在今年晚些時候與您分享。

We are also investing in the support of our franchisees and restaurants so that operators execute well on our proven business model, especially in this challenging operating environment. First, we increased our corporate field and training positions across the U.S. and Canada by over 50% since the start of 2021. Second, we're developing our Burger King employee value proposition, and also we'll start providing franchisees with market insights on competitive wages and benefits to help them attract and retain great talent.

我們還投資於對我們的加盟商和餐廳的支持，以便運營商能夠很好地執行我們經過驗證的商業模式，尤其是在這個充滿挑戰的運營環境中。首先，自 2021 年初以來，我們在美國和加拿大的企業領域和培訓職位增加了 50% 以上。其次，我們正在製定漢堡王員工價值主張，並且我們將開始為加盟商提供市場洞察力有競爭力的工資和福利，以幫助他們吸引和留住優秀人才。

And third, we plan to pilot new training methods for restaurant team members like in the moment QR codes that can help them learn and grow as well as complete their everyday tasks more efficiently. And finally, it will come as little surprise that inflationary pressures coupled with near-term sales headwinds have had an impact on franchisee profitability. We've developed and tested a list of opportunities, many of which came directly from our top operators, which we expect will make a meaningful difference going forward. We already started to selectively implement some of these profitability initiatives in 2021 and plan to execute on more over the course of this year with a clear path to improved profitability in the coming quarters.

第三，我們計劃為餐廳團隊成員試行新的培訓方法，例如二維碼，幫助他們學習和成長，更有效地完成日常任務。最後，通脹壓力加上近期的銷售逆風對加盟商的盈利能力產生影響也就不足為奇了。我們已經開發並測試了一系列機會，其中許多直接來自我們的頂級運營商，我們預計這將在未來產生有意義的變化。我們已經開始在 2021 年有選擇地實施其中一些盈利計劃，併計劃在今年內執行更多計劃，並為未來幾個季度提高盈利能力提供明確的途徑。

And now to touch on our results for the fourth quarter. We saw a 1.8% year-over-year increase in comparable sales, a 340 basis point acceleration from Q3. This was driven primarily by the impact of simple, more powerful messaging around our key core platform initiatives for the quarter as well as increases in both delivery and digital sale. These improvements offset a modest impact from reduced operating hours, continued headwinds from our measured transition away from paper coupons and lapping last year's 2 for $5 per core discount promotion.

現在談談我們第四季度的業績。我們看到可比銷售額同比增長 1.8%，比第三季度增長 340 個基點。這主要是由於圍繞我們本季度關鍵核心平台計劃的簡單、更強大的消息傳遞的影響，以及交付和數字銷售的增長。這些改進抵消了營業時間減少帶來的適度影響、我們從紙質優惠券過渡到去年的 2 美元核心折扣促銷的持續逆風。

I was especially pleased to see our Italian Original Chicken Sandwich and Ghost Pepper Nugget promos benefit from our improved media testing and our purposeful decision to reduce the number of messages in the quarter. These were direct outcomes of opportunities our team identified early on to enhance our media firepower. I'm also excited to see that our efforts help to close the gap to our peers by a few hundred basis points last quarter. While we have a long way to go to further shrink this gap and to start creating one, both our corporate team and our franchisees are energized and excited to get after it. Finally, I want to thank them for their dedication and support as we work toward our common goal to reclaim the flame and provide exceptional experiences for each and every guest.

我特別高興地看到我們的意大利原味雞肉三明治和鬼胡椒塊促銷得益於我們改進的媒體測試和我們有目的地減少本季度消息數量的決定。這些是我們團隊早期發現的機會的直接結果，以增強我們的媒體火力。我也很高興看到我們的努力有助於在上個季度將與同行的差距縮小幾百個基點。雖然我們還有很長的路要走，以進一步縮小這一差距並開始創造一個，但我們的企業團隊和我們的加盟商都充滿活力和興奮地去追求它。最後，我要感謝他們的奉獻和支持，因為我們正朝著我們的共同目標努力，以重拾火焰並為每一位客人提供非凡的體驗。

And with that, I'll hand it back to Jose.

有了這個，我會把它交還給 Jose。

Thank you, Tom. It's clear, the team's hard work is paying off, and I'm personally equally as energized as you and our franchisees about Burger King's opportunity in the U.S.

謝謝你，湯姆。很明顯，團隊的辛勤工作得到了回報，對於漢堡王在美國的機會，我個人與您和我們的特許經營商一樣充滿活力。

Let's turn now to our Burger King international business, which comprise nearly 60% of the brand's global system-wide sales in the quarter. During the quarter, we once again achieved a sequential acceleration in system-wide sales growth versus 2019, growing over 12%, up from last quarter's 10%. This result included sequential 2-year comparable sales improvements in some of our largest international markets with Spain and Brazil notably returning to pre-pandemic levels during the quarter. Canada, up high single digits versus 2019, and Australia, Korea and the U.K. generating double-digit growth. We also ended the year with our 3 largest international markets, France, Spain and Germany, each generating over $1 billion in system-wide sales. Outside of the benefits from easing restrictions, one of the largest contributors to business performance in our international business remains digital growth. As Josh shared last quarter, we've seen a correlation between our most advanced digital markets and our largest and fastest-growing markets.

現在讓我們轉向我們的漢堡王國際業務，該業務佔該品牌本季度全球系統銷售額的近 60%。在本季度，與 2019 年相比，我們再次實現了全系統銷售增長的連續加速，增長超過 12%，高於上一季度的 10%。這一結果包括我們在西班牙和巴西的一些最大國際市場的連續兩年可比銷售額在本季度顯著恢復到大流行前的水平。加拿大與 2019 年相比增長了高個位數，而澳大利亞、韓國和英國則實現了兩位數的增長。年底，我們還擁有 3 個最大的國際市場，法國、西班牙和德國，每個市場的全系統銷售額均超過 10 億美元。除了放寬限制帶來的好處之外，我們國際業務中業務績效的最大貢獻者之一仍然是數字增長。正如 Josh 上個季度所分享的，我們已經看到我們最先進的數字市場與我們最大和增長最快的市場之間存在相關性。

In addition, our plant-based products continue to be an important sales driver in Europe, where we are a leader in plant-based offerings. We continue to introduce new products, including the veggie version of our iconic Long Chicken, which made its debut in Spain and Germany during the quarter. We've been pleased with the results, including a doubling of plant-based product incidents in Europe in the quarter and are looking for new market opportunities in Europe and around the world to expand the platform.

此外，我們的植物性產品繼續成為歐洲重要的銷售驅動力，我們在歐洲是植物性產品的領導者。我們繼續推出新產品，包括我們標誌性的長雞的素食版，該產品於本季度在西班牙和德國首次亮相。我們對結果感到滿意，包括本季度歐洲植物性產品事件翻了一番，並正在歐洲和世界各地尋找新的市場機會來擴展平台。

We, of course, expect the international business to see continued improvements as restrictions ease. And as we look forward into 2022, we also expect to accelerate our unit growth in Burger King's international markets off our 2021 levels. We're optimistic about the long-term appetite and opportunity to expand the Burger King brand in new and existing markets around the world.

當然，我們預計隨著限制的放鬆，國際業務將繼續改善。在展望 2022 年的同時，我們還預計漢堡王國際市場的單位增長速度將超過 2021 年的水平。我們對在全球新市場和現有市場擴展漢堡王品牌的長期需求和機會持樂觀態度。

Turning to Popeyes. As you know, development remains a key priority and an unlock for the brand for long-term growth. 2021 was a milestone year for Popeyes development, crossing the 3,000 restaurant mark in the U.S. and Canada and experiencing record unit growth with the highest number of openings since we acquired the brand, and we have no plans to slow down. In 2021, we signed more development agreements around the world than ever before, including plans to bring Popeyes iconic Louisiana-style chicken to India, the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Romania and France as well as further expansion in Mexico and of course, the U.S. and Canada. We continued this momentum into 2022.

轉向大力水手。如您所知，發展仍然是品牌長期增長的關鍵優先事項和解鎖。 2021 年是大力水手發展具有里程碑意義的一年，它在美國和加拿大的餐廳數量突破了 3,000 家大關，並創下了自我們收購該品牌以來開業數量創紀錄的單位增長，我們沒有放慢腳步的計劃。 2021 年，我們在全球簽署了比以往更多的開發協議，包括計劃將 Popeyes 標誌性的路易斯安那雞帶到印度、英國、沙特阿拉伯、羅馬尼亞和法國，以及在墨西哥，當然還有美國的進一步擴張和加拿大。我們將這種勢頭延續到 2022 年。

In January, Popeyes announced an agreement to launch in South Korea, one of the largest chicken QSR markets in the world. I'm very proud of the team's dedication to introducing Popeyes to more guests, and I'm confident we'll once again see strong unit growth in 2022 in both the U.S. and around the world. We saw the benefit of our powerful development engine on full display in our home market during the fourth quarter as strong net new restaurant growth of 5.6% offset softer comparable sales and drove a 4% year-over-year increase in system-wide sales. While Popeyes unit volumes remain incredibly strong, we did see a 1.8% year-over-year decline in home market comparable sales as a result of staffing challenges and competitive pressures. Ongoing labor challenges led to reduced operating hours and service modes, impacting comparable sales by roughly 1%.

1 月，Popeyes 宣布達成協議，將在全球最大的雞肉 QSR 市場之一韓國推出。我為團隊致力於將大力水手介紹給更多客人而感到非常自豪，我相信我們將在 2022 年再次看到美國和世界各地的強勁單位增長。我們在第四季度看到了我們強大的開發引擎的好處在我們的國內市場上得到了充分展示，因為強勁的 5.6% 的新餐廳淨增長抵消了疲軟的可比銷售額，並推動了全系統銷售額的同比增長 4%。儘管大力水手的單位銷量仍然非常強勁，但由於人員配備挑戰和競爭壓力，我們確實看到國內市場可比銷售額同比下降 1.8%。持續的勞動力挑戰導致運營時間和服務模式減少，對可比銷售額造成約 1% 的影響。

In addition, chicken sandwich volumes remain pressured by competitors, which, as you may recall, started making their sandwich debuts in early 2021.

此外，雞肉三明治的銷量仍然受到競爭對手的壓力，您可能還記得，競爭對手於 2021 年初開始推出三明治。

Despite these pressures, comparable sales did improve by nearly 300 basis points relative to Q3, partially driven by traction from many innovation. For example, we saw encouraging results from recent initiatives with nuggets and the (inaudible) sauce collaboration contributing positively to comparable sales. These initiatives also played an important role in attracting new demographics, specifically Gen Z and millennials, and expanding our PM snacking daypart. We're just scratching the surface on opportunities for Popeyes, and I firmly believe that the brand is poised to become one of the fastest growing in the industry.

儘管存在這些壓力，但與第三季度相比，可比銷售額確實提高了近 300 個基點，部分原因是許多創新的牽引力。例如，我們從最近的掘金計劃和（聽不清）醬汁合作中看到了令人鼓舞的結果，對可比銷售額做出了積極貢獻。這些舉措在吸引新的人口統計數據（特別是 Z 世代和千禧一代）以及擴大我們的下午零食時段方面也發揮了重要作用。我們只是對 Popeyes 的機會進行了初步探索，我堅信該品牌有望成為業內發展最快的品牌之一。

And finally, I'd like to briefly touch on our newest addition, Firehouse Subs. I'm pleased to share the strong results that the Firehouse Subs team drove in 2021, including reaching all-time high average unit volumes of over $900,000, growing year-over-year comparable sales 21%, driving system-wide sales to approximately $1.1 billion and generating over 27% of system-wide sales through digital channels. These impressive results are a testament to the strength of the brand, its unique menu offerings, its purpose-led public safety commitment and its seasoned management team. It's all of these elements that make us so confident in Firehouse Subs long-term growth and expansion opportunity.

最後，我想簡要介紹一下我們最新添加的 Firehouse Subs。我很高興與大家分享 Firehouse Subs 團隊在 2021 年取得的強勁業績，包括達到超過 900,000 美元的歷史最高平均銷量、同比可比銷售額增長 21%、推動全系統銷售額達到約 1.1 美元億美元，並通過數字渠道產生了超過 27% 的全系統銷售額。這些令人印象深刻的結果證明了該品牌的實力、獨特的菜單產品、以目標為導向的公共安全承諾以及經驗豐富的管理團隊。正是所有這些因素使我們對 Firehouse Subs 的長期增長和擴張機會充滿信心。

We're excited to plug Firehouse Subs into our robust global development network, shifting the brand's unit growth into high gear in the coming years. And while Firehouse Subs already has a growing digital presence, we see further opportunities to add more guest options and benefits and transport the brand's digital experience across borders. I'm very excited for the future of Firehouse Subs at RBI and look forward to providing you with more updates in the year ahead.

我們很高興將 Firehouse Subs 接入我們強大的全球開發網絡，在未來幾年將該品牌的單位增長推向高速。雖然 Firehouse Subs 的數字化業務已經在不斷增長，但我們看到了更多的機會來增加更多的客人選擇和福利，並跨境傳輸品牌的數字體驗。我對 RBI 的 Firehouse Subs 的未來感到非常興奮，並期待在未來一年為您提供更多更新。

With that, I'd like to hand it over to Josh to take you through a quick update on our technology and digital initiatives. Josh?

有了這個，我想把它交給喬希，讓你快速了解我們的技術和數字計劃。喬什？

Thanks, Jose, and good morning, everyone. Technology remains a key pillar of our long-term strategy and one we view as a powerful business driver across all our brands and markets. We're focused on creating an even more convenient and seamless experience for guests with the ultimate goal of driving sales. That means being available across all channels, making it easier and faster to order and creating a joyful experience each and every time anyone interacts with our brands. To help us achieve this goal, we've added roughly 300 team members in the last 3 years across our consumer facing, restaurant technology and data analytics teams, putting ourselves in a position to move quickly and build critical capabilities ourselves. In addition, we have accelerated adoption of key skills across our broader organization through hiring, education and training programs.

謝謝，何塞，大家早上好。技術仍然是我們長期戰略的關鍵支柱，我們認為它是我們所有品牌和市場的強大業務驅動力。我們專注於為客人創造更加方便和無縫的體驗，最終目標是推動銷售。這意味著可以在所有渠道上使用，使訂購變得更容易、更快捷，並在每次任何人與我們的品牌互動時創造愉快的體驗。為了幫助我們實現這一目標，在過去 3 年中，我們在面向消費者、餐廳技術和數據分析團隊中增加了大約 300 名團隊成員，使我們能夠快速行動並自己建立關鍵能力。此外，我們通過招聘、教育和培訓計劃加快了在更廣泛的組織中採用關鍵技能的速度。

One way we're integrating digital into our brands is through new service modes built into our restaurant image. For example, at Tim Hortons, our design team has added new order and pickup channels into various restaurant types. These include developing a walk-up order window, a dedicated curbside pickup area and a drive-through conveyor system. We look forward to sharing more on each of these exciting design innovations that enable digital experience as we roll them out to more restaurants in 2022.

我們將數字化整合到我們的品牌中的一種方法是通過我們餐廳形像中內置的新服務模式。例如，在 Tim Hortons，我們的設計團隊已將新的訂單和取貨渠道添加到各種餐廳類型中。其中包括開發一個步行訂單窗口、一個專用的路邊取貨區和一個直通式輸送系統。隨著我們在 2022 年將這些令人興奮的設計創新推廣到更多餐廳，我們期待更多地分享這些令人興奮的設計創新，以實現數字體驗。

And a quick update on our digital sales progress. We ended 2021 with over $10 billion in global digital sales, representing just over 30% of our total system-wide sales. Tremendous progress from just over 4 years ago when we had virtually no digital sales in most of our major markets. During the fourth quarter, Tims Canada derived over 1/3 of its sales from digital channels, an all-time high for the brand. And Popeyes and Burger King home markets generated 16% and 9%, respectively, while our international markets drove over 50% of sales through digital channels. We attribute this improvement to a combination of factors, including growth in delivery, an increase in mobile order and pay and continued traction from loyalty.

并快速更新我們的數字銷售進度。到 2021 年底，我們的全球數字銷售額超過 100 億美元，僅占我們全系統總銷售額的 30% 以上。與 4 年前相比，我們取得了巨大進步，當時我們在大多數主要市場幾乎沒有數字銷售。在第四季度，Tims Canada 超過 1/3 的銷售額來自數字渠道，創下該品牌的歷史新高。 Popeyes 和漢堡王的國內市場分別創造了 16% 和 9%，而我們的國際市場通過數字渠道推動了超過 50% 的銷售額。我們將這種改善歸因於多種因素，包括交付增長、移動訂單和支付的增加以及忠誠度的持續牽引。

2021 marked the first year we had royalty across all our brands in home markets. While Burger King and Popeyes are earlier on in their journeys, during the year, Tim Hortons transitioned its loyalty program from one focused on building a strong user base to consistently driving comparable sales and as a result, saw the highest sales contribution from royalty to date. I'm confident that the investments we are making across our digital and technology capabilities will play a critical role in enhancing the guest experience and advancing our growth in the future.

2021 年標誌著我們在國內市場的所有品牌都享有特許權使用費的第一年。雖然漢堡王和大力水手的旅程較早，但在這一年中，蒂姆霍頓斯將其忠誠度計劃從專注於建立強大的用戶群轉變為持續推動可比銷售額，因此，版稅的銷售額貢獻是迄今為止最高的.我相信，我們在數字和技術能力方面所做的投資將在提升客戶體驗和推動我們未來的增長方面發揮關鍵作用。

With that, I'll hand it over to Matt to take you through our financials for the quarter.

有了這個，我將把它交給馬特，帶你了解我們本季度的財務狀況。

Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone. For the fourth quarter, our global system-wide sales grew 14% to $9.3 billion, and our adjusted EBITDA was $584 million, up about 15% organically. Beyond the growth in system-wide sales, there were some factors that contributed to slightly higher EBITDA growth versus system-wide sales growth this quarter. These include benefits related to a few things. First, a positive shift in sales mix at Tim Hortons Canada, where we have additional lines of business benefiting from our same-store sales growth of over 11% year-over-year. Second, cash distributions related to joint ventures and other ownership positions as we've seen the health of many of our markets around the world continue to improve. Third, the release of bad debt provisions while lapping cautionary provisions that were set up in 2020. And lastly, the continued growth of our retail business at Tim Hortons, including new product launches and further expansion into U.S. channels. These tailwinds were partially offset by anticipated increases in our G&A expenses as well as year-over-year ad fund timing.

謝謝，喬希，大家早上好。第四季度，我們的全球系統銷售額增長 14% 至 93 億美元，調整後的 EBITDA 為 5.84 億美元，有機增長約 15%。除了全系統銷售額的增長外，還有一些因素導致本季度 EBITDA 增長略高於全系統銷售額增長。這些包括與一些事情相關的好處。首先，Tim Hortons Canada 的銷售組合發生了積極轉變，我們的同店銷售額同比增長超過 11%，使我們有更多的業務線受益。其次，與合資企業和其他所有權頭寸相關的現金分配，因為我們已經看到我們在全球許多市場的健康狀況繼續改善。第三，在實施 2020 年設立的警示性準備金的同時釋放壞賬準備金。最後，我們在 Tim Hortons 的零售業務持續增長，包括新產品的推出和進一步擴展到美國渠道。這些順風被我們的 G&A 費用的預期增加以及與去年同期相比的廣告基金時間所部分抵消。

As discussed throughout 2021, we've ramped up G&A investments within core areas of the business such as expanding and improving our field operations, including the 50% increase in field headcount at Burger King U.S. and Canada that Tom mentioned, and meaningfully growing our technology capabilities. In the fourth quarter, we saw this flow through largely as expected, with our segment G&A increasing to about $104 million, excluding Firehouse, reflecting these investments as well as a few million of additional discrete compensation expense driven by business performance exceeding expectations into year-end. As it relates to ad fund timing, our year-over-year growth this quarter reflects the fact that advertising expenses exceeded revenues by approximately $11 million more than they did in the fourth quarter of last year, resulting in an organic EBITDA growth headwind of about 2%. Most of this movement relates to us deploying the remainder of our CAD 80 million commitment behind the Tim Hortons Canada marketing plan to drive our back-to-basics initiatives.

正如整個 2021 年所討論的那樣，我們在業務核心領域增加了 G&A 投資，例如擴大和改進我們的現場運營，包括湯姆提到的漢堡王美國和加拿大的現場員工人數增加 50%，以及有意義地發展我們的技術能力。在第四季度，我們看到這一流動基本上符合預期，我們的 G&A 部門增加到約 1.04 億美元，不包括 Firehouse，這反映了這些投資以及由於業務業績超出預期而導致的數百萬額外的離散薪酬費用。結尾。由於與廣告基金時間安排有關，我們本季度的同比增長反映了這樣一個事實，即廣告費用比去年第四季度的收入多出約 1100 萬美元，導致有機 EBITDA 增長逆風約為2%。這一運動的大部分與我們將 8000 萬加元承諾的剩餘部分部署在 Tim Hortons 加拿大營銷計劃背後，以推動我們的回歸基本計劃有關。

In addition, as of January, our restaurant owners ad fund contributions have stepped up by 50 basis points versus the beginning of last year, which we expect will provide valuable investment capacity for the future as we advance on our food innovation roadmap and build further and further on our digital momentum to modernize the experience of our guests across Canada.

此外，截至 1 月份，我們的餐廳業主廣告基金捐款比去年年初增加了 50 個基點，我們預計這將為未來提供寶貴的投資能力，因為我們推進我們的食品創新路線圖並進一步建立和進一步加強我們的數字化勢頭，以使我們在加拿大的客人的體驗現代化。

Before turning to EPS, I'd like to briefly discuss our sales -- cost of sales margin within our Tim Hortons segment. Similar to what others across the industry have noted, we saw a significant increase in commodity volatility as we progress through the quarter, leading to elevated levels of inflation that have similar pass-through effects on both our revenue and expense lines. This dynamic resulted in a somewhat lower margin percentage than anticipated in the quarter. That said, during the fourth quarter, we saw healthy year-over-year growth related to sales less cost of sales on a dollar basis, a good reflection of the trends we saw at Tims as sales and volumes improved throughout the quarter. We will continue to manage through the volatility that has extended into this year, and as we do so, we remain focused on driving volume growth in a high-quality way for our sales plan and maintaining best-in-class service levels, which are a key advantage for our system.

在轉向 EPS 之前，我想簡要討論一下我們的銷售額——我們的 Tim Hortons 部門的銷售利潤率成本。與整個行業的其他人所指出的類似，隨著本季度的進展，我們看到商品波動性顯著增加，導致通脹水平升高，對我們的收入和支出項目產生類似的傳遞效應。這種動態導致本季度的利潤率百分比略低於預期。也就是說，在第四季度，我們看到與銷售額相關的健康同比增長減去以美元計算的銷售成本，這很好地反映了我們在 Tims 看到的趨勢，因為整個季度的銷售額和銷量都有所改善。我們將繼續應對已延續到今年的波動，在此過程中，我們將繼續專注於以高質量的方式推動銷售計劃的銷量增長，並保持一流的服務水平，即我們系統的一個關鍵優勢。

Our fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.74 compared to $0.53 last year, representing an increase of approximately 39%, including an FX tailwind of about 1%. The higher growth compared to our organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 15% was mainly driven by lower net interest expense, a lower adjusted effective tax rate and a reduced share count from our repurchase activity, partially offset by higher equity-based compensation.

我們第四季度調整後的每股收益為 0.74 美元，而去年為 0.53 美元，增長了約 39%，其中包括約 1% 的外匯順風。與我們的有機調整後 EBITDA 增長 15% 相比，增長更高主要是由於淨利息費用降低、調整後有效稅率降低以及我們回購活動的股份數量減少，部分被更高的股權補償所抵消。

Turning to our cash flow and capital structure. We generated $435 million in free cash flow during Q4 and over $1.6 billion for the year. This strong cash flow enabled us to continue investing in our business and capitalize on an accretive strategic opportunity, all while following through on our commitment to return capital to shareholders, through both our industry-leading dividend and open market share repurchases.

轉向我們的現金流和資本結構。我們在第四季度產生了 4.35 億美元的自由現金流，全年產生了超過 16 億美元。這種強勁的現金流使我們能夠繼續投資於我們的業務並利用增值的戰略機會，同時通過我們行業領先的股息和公開市場份額回購履行我們向股東返還資本的承諾。

In December, we increased our term loan A facility by over $500 million and extended the maturity of our term loan A and revolver to 2026. The proceeds along with cash on hand supported our $1 billion acquisition of Firehouse Subs. The transaction had a minimal impact on our balance sheet, only increasing net leverage by about 0.3x from Q3, and we ended the year with a strong liquidity position of $2 billion, including $1 billion of cash on hand. Our strong cash flow and flexible balance sheet has allowed us to execute across all elements of our capital allocation priorities, which starts first and foremost with investing in the business. On this front, we made a number of important investments throughout the year, including the G&A investments I discussed and our CAD 80 million support for the Tim Hortons Canada ad fund. In addition, we invested $125 million into our business through CapEx and tenant inducements, reflecting our commitment to modernizing our brands and innovating our digital capabilities.

12 月，我們將定期貸款 A 貸款增加了 5 億多美元，並將定期貸款 A 和循環貸款的期限延長至 2026 年。所得款項以及手頭現金支持我們以 10 億美元收購 Firehouse Subs。該交易對我們的資產負債表影響微乎其微，僅比第三季度增加了約 0.3 倍的淨槓桿，我們在年底時擁有 20 億美元的強勁流動性頭寸，其中包括 10 億美元的手頭現金。我們強大的現金流和靈活的資產負債表使我們能夠執行我們資本配置優先事項的所有要素，這首先要從投資業務開始。在這方面，我們全年進行了許多重要投資，包括我討論的 G&A 投資以及我們對 Tim Hortons Canada 廣告基金的 8000 萬加元支持。此外，我們通過資本支出和租戶激勵向我們的業務投資了 1.25 億美元，反映了我們對品牌現代化和數字能力創新的承諾。

Going forward, we will continue to prioritize investing in our brands, and as Tom mentioned, are in the process of working through a thoughtful plan for the BK U.S. business, which we expect to share more on with you later this year. We've also been actively buying back shares, and during the fourth quarter, repurchased and retired approximately 6.4 million shares of our common stock for nearly $370 million. In addition, we paid shareholders of $0.53 per share quarterly dividend, which will increase in Q1, marking the 38th consecutive quarter of year-over-year dividend increase and a target of $2.16 per share for 2022.

展望未來，我們將繼續優先投資於我們的品牌，正如 Tom 所說，我們正在為 BK 美國業務制定一項深思熟慮的計劃，我們希望在今年晚些時候與您分享更多信息。我們也一直在積極回購股票，在第四季度，我們以近 3.7 億美元的價格回購併退還了大約 640 萬股普通股。此外，我們向股東支付了每股 0.53 美元的季度股息，這將在第一季度增加，這標誌著股息連續第 38 個季度同比增長，2022 年的目標是每股 2.16 美元。

2021 marked a positive combination of improving business results with double-digit growth in both system-wide sales and adjusted EBITDA and $1.5 billion of shareholder returns through nearly $1 billion of dividends and over $500 million of open market share repurchases. As we look forward to 2022, we see clear opportunities to continue down this path by building on our momentum at Tims, ramping up the initiatives Tom touched on in BK U.S. and delivering on our big global development opportunities.

2021 年標誌著業務業績的改善與全系統銷售額和調整後 EBITDA 的兩位數增長以及通過近 10 億美元的股息和超過 5 億美元的公開市場份額回購帶來的 15 億美元股東回報的積極結合。在展望 2022 年的同時，我們看到了繼續沿著這條道路前進的明確機會，方法是鞏固我們在 Tims 的勢頭，加強 Tom 在 BK U.S. 提出的倡議，並提供我們巨大的全球發展機會。

In addition, with our ample liquidity, strong cash flows, nearly half of our $1 billion open market authorization available, we have plenty of flexibility to remain dynamic with our capital allocation between reinvesting in our business and enhancing our growth with a similar amount of shareholder returns in 2022, absent other compelling strategic investment opportunities.

此外，憑藉我們充裕的流動性、強勁的現金流和近一半的 10 億美元公開市場授權，我們有足夠的靈活性在對我們的業務進行再投資和通過類似數量的股東促進我們的增長之間保持資本分配的活力2022 年的回報，沒有其他引人注目的戰略投資機會。

With that, I'd like to thank everyone again for your support and for joining us this morning. And we'll now open the line for questions. Operator?

有了這個，我想再次感謝大家的支持和今天早上加入我們。我們現在將打開問題線。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) We'll be taking our first question today from Brian Mullan of Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）我們今天將回答德意志銀行的布賴恩穆蘭提出的第一個問題。

Tom, thanks for the prepared remarks. You talked about a lot of things, but I believe you mentioned potentially being willing to further invest in the brand to be in physical real estate, which will presumably more of CapEx. But I'd imagine perhaps, that could also mean ongoing G&A or OpEx to support system. So if you could just elaborate on that comment and what you had in mind. Is one thing even more than the other? Are both equally important? Just any thoughts would be great.

湯姆，感謝您準備的評論。您談到了很多事情，但我相信您提到了可能願意進一步投資該品牌以投資於實體房地產，這可能會增加資本支出。但我想也許，這也可能意味著支持系統的持續 G&A 或運營支出。因此，如果您可以詳細說明該評論以及您的想法。一件事比另一件事更重要嗎？兩者同等重要嗎？任何想法都會很棒。

Brian, thanks for the question. It's Jose. I'll just open it up here and then pass it over to Tom, who's sitting right next to me. As we've said in the past and we commented in our prepared remarks, we've got an incredible business generating a lot of free cash flow and it gives us the ability to invest back into the business to return capital to shareholders, to do strategic M&A, or all 3, as we've done in this fourth quarter of 2021. As it relates to the Burger King business, we've talked -- touched on this quite a bit. And Tom just got into a position and he's working with the team on the game plan going forward. I'll let him go into a bit on the G&A front as well as the work we're doing on real estate and the capital side.

布賴恩，謝謝你的問題。是何塞。我就在這裡打開它，然後把它交給坐在我旁邊的湯姆。正如我們過去所說，我們在準備好的評論中評論過，我們擁有令人難以置信的業務，產生大量的自由現金流，它使我們有能力重新投資業務以向股東返還資本，做正如我們在 2021 年第四季度所做的那樣，戰略併購或全部三項併購。由於它與漢堡王業務有關，我們已經談過 - 談到了很多。湯姆剛剛上任，他正在與球隊一起制定未來的比賽計劃。我會讓他稍微介紹一下 G&A 方面以及我們在房地產和資本方面所做的工作。

Tom, do you want to touch on that?

湯姆，你想談一談嗎？

Yes. And thanks for the question, Brian. It's important to remember that we're already investing a good bit of G&A behind the BK U.S. business as we expanded the field team last year, increasing over 50% the size of the field team from January to January of this year. And those team members are critical partners with our franchisees. They're helping drive the operational improvements that we're seeing and that we need to continue to see, and they're also helping the franchisees implement some of the new initiatives that we have going forward. Also, we've invested in our analytics and insights team, led by a fantastic colleague of mine, Julia Oswald, and we're putting money behind technology and digital.

是的。謝謝你的問題，布賴恩。重要的是要記住，隨著去年我們擴大現場團隊，我們已經在 BK 美國業務背後投資了大量 G&A，從今年 1 月到 1 月，現場團隊的規模增加了 50% 以上。這些團隊成員是我們特許經營商的重要合作夥伴。他們正在幫助推動我們正在看到並且我們需要繼續看到的運營改進，並且他們還幫助特許經營商實施我們正在推進的一些新舉措。此外，我們還投資了我們的分析和洞察團隊，由我的一位出色的同事 Julia Oswald 領導，我們將資金投入到技術和數字領域。

But image is perhaps the area where we can accelerate the most with capital. We exited 2021 with about 30% of our home market system remodeled to the BK of tomorrow. We've been going at a run rate of about 500 remodels per year, but we're looking at ways to make step changes while maintaining quality. And this year, we'll be going site by site and working with our franchisees to execute on what that looks like so that they can drive good return on investment and also create a more endless or seamless end-to-end experience for guests and improve operations for the restaurants. So we certainly are anxious and eager to share more with you, and that will probably come later this year in the coming quarters.

但形像也許是我們可以用資本加速的領域。我們在 2021 年退出時，大約 30% 的國內市場系統被改造成明天的 BK。我們一直在以每年約 500 次改造的速度運行，但我們正在尋找在保持質量的同時進行逐步改變的方法。今年，我們將逐個站點並與我們的特許經營商合作執行該項目，以便他們能夠帶來良好的投資回報，並為客人創造更加無盡或無縫的端到端體驗，改善餐廳的運營。因此，我們當然渴望並渴望與您分享更多信息，而這可能會在今年晚些時候的未來幾個季度中實現。

We'll take our next question from Chris Carril of RBC Capital Markets.

我們將向加拿大皇家銀行資本市場的克里斯卡里爾提出下一個問題。

I wanted to circle back to development. You noted recently and again today that you see development accelerating, but I was hoping you can expand on that a bit more. I mean, Tim' clearly showed meaningful acceleration in the 4Q, and you've signed a number of new agreements for Popeyes. I know you've layered in Firehouse. So curious on how all the pieces fit together for the overall development outlook for this year? And to what extent you see more balanced growth going forward longer term?

我想回到發展。您最近一次又一次地註意到，您看到開發正在加速，但我希望您可以進一步擴展。我的意思是，蒂姆在第四季度明顯表現出明顯的加速，你已經為大力水手簽署了許多新協議。我知道你已經在 Firehouse 中分層了。對今年的整體發展前景如何將所有部分組合在一起感到好奇？從長遠來看，您在多大程度上看到了更加平衡的增長？

Chris, thanks for the question. Yes, we were excited with the progress we made in 2021. We saw the power of diversified growth this year with Popeyes in the U.S. as well as internationally beginning to really be a big contributor as well as Tim Hortons gaining traction in international markets, especially in China, but also in other international markets like the Middle East and the U.K. and Mexico. And we saw the first time in a long time, positive growth out of Tims in the U.S. So we're excited about Popeyes and Tims contributing.

克里斯，謝謝你的問題。是的，我們對 2021 年取得的進展感到興奮。今年我們看到了多元化增長的力量，Popeyes 在美國和國際市場開始真正成為主要貢獻者，而 Tim Hortons 在國際市場上獲得牽引力，尤其是在中國，以及中東、英國和墨西哥等其他國際市場。我們很長一段時間以來第一次看到 Tims 在美國的正增長。所以我們對 Popeyes 和 Tims 的貢獻感到興奮。

Obviously, BK is the engine of growth and has been for some time for our company internationally, in particular. And we're confident in the ability of that business to get back to levels of growth of what we saw back in '17, '18 and '19. And we're encouraged by the broad-based growth that we saw internationally in many markets. We saw some markets where we have large franchisees getting back to growth in 2021 and seeing some good momentum there, but not quite to pre-pandemic levels.

顯然，BK 是增長的引擎，而且在國際上對我們公司來說已經有一段時間了，特別是。我們相信該業務有能力恢復到我們在 17 年、18 年和 19 年看到的增長水平。我們對我們在國際上看到的許多市場的廣泛增長感到鼓舞。我們看到一些有大型特許經營商的市場在 2021 年恢復增長，並看到了一些良好的勢頭，但還沒有達到大流行前的水平。

And examples of that include China, Brazil and Russia growing, but not quite at the pace that we saw in 2018, 2019. In some cases, there are macro environmental issues like we saw with Brazil, although we did see signs of improvement in the fourth quarter. In the case of China, as an example, we've been working through some open issues and disputes that we've had with our master franchisee there. We're working through them, working closely with the master franchisee. I'm not going to be able to get into too much of that into this call here, but I've known these guys a long time and believe that we have a good path forward to help accelerate growth in China, which is one of our biggest priorities.

這方面的例子包括中國、巴西和俄羅斯的增長，但速度並不像我們在 2018 年和 2019 年看到的那樣。在某些情況下，我們在巴西看到了宏觀環境問題，儘管我們確實看到了改善的跡象第四季度。以中國為例，我們一直在努力解決我們與那裡的主要特許經營商之間存在的一些未解決的問題和爭議。我們正在與他們合作，與主要特許經營商密切合作。我不會在這次電話會議中過多地談論這些，但我認識這些人很長時間了，相信我們有一條很好的前進道路來幫助加速中國的增長，這是其中之一我們最大的優先事項。

And overall, we're pleased with the huge bounce back we saw in 2021 from basically flat in 2020 to meaningful growth in 2021. And we have a lot of confidence in our long-term outlook. We continue to see a lot of the white space in many markets in Asia. We're still -- our competition has 3:1 versus us, and we think we have an opportunity to grow in the chicken space, in the coffee space, in the burger space and now in the sandwich space. In EMEA, Europe, Middle East, Africa, it's 2:1, and North America, it's also 2:1. So lots of room for growth. We have 4 great brands that have strong unit economics and lots of interest from franchisees. And in particular, as it relates to BK, we're confident that we can accelerate in 2022 and beyond and get back to really strong growth across the entire company.

總體而言，我們對 2021 年從 2020 年基本持平到 2021 年顯著增長的巨大反彈感到高興。我們對我們的長期前景充滿信心。我們繼續在亞洲的許多市場看到大量空白。我們仍然——我們的競爭對手是 3:1，我們認為我們有機會在雞肉領域、咖啡領域、漢堡領域以及現在的三明治領域發展。在 EMEA、歐洲、中東、非洲是 2:1，北美也是 2:1。所以成長空間很大。我們有 4 個偉大的品牌，它們具有強大的單位經濟效益和特許經營商的極大興趣。特別是，由於它與 BK 有關，我們相信我們可以在 2022 年及以後加速，並在整個公司恢復真正強勁的增長。

We'll take our next question from David Palmer of Evercore ISI.

我們將向 Evercore ISI 的 David Palmer 提出下一個問題。

For my question, I wanted to focus on the impact of inflation in supply chain in Canada. You mentioned how Tims supply chain was a drag to the EBITDA this quarter. And I would imagine costs would be running high in supply chain in Canada this quarter. But looking to the future, I would imagine that the relationship of pricing to cost in the supply chain business would be improving, and some of these COVID-related friction costs that we see across all sorts of supply chains out there would also be going away. So could you talk about how much COVID and perhaps, the temporary dislocations of price to cost might be a drag to Tim's EBITDA right now? And how much of that might be easier comparisons later? And then how much higher are Tims Canada prices at the menu level for the franchisees versus a year ago to pay for this?

對於我的問題，我想關注通貨膨脹對加拿大供應鏈的影響。您提到了 Tims 供應鏈如何拖累本季度的 EBITDA。我想本季度加拿大供應鏈的成本會很高。但展望未來，我認為供應鏈業務中定價與成本的關係將會改善，我們在各種供應鏈中看到的這些與 COVID 相關的摩擦成本也將消失.那麼，您能否談談目前有多少 COVID 以及價格與成本之間的暫時錯位可能會拖累蒂姆的 EBITDA？以後有多少比較容易比較？那麼，與一年前相比，Tims Canada 的加盟商菜單價格要高出多少？

Yes. Dave, thanks for the question. It's Matt here. I was just going to share some comments on your question on supply chain margin, and I think Jose was going to jump in with some thoughts as well. But specifically as it relates to the quarter in the supply chain, we had talked last quarter about some pressure on the sales, cost of sales margin, and we were expecting it to come down a bit given the volatility that was out there. And I think that's generally what we saw in the quarter. We did come in a bit lower than we had expected when we spoke in the third quarter.

是的。戴夫，謝謝你的問題。這裡是馬特。我只是想就你關於供應鏈利潤率的問題分享一些評論，我認為 Jose 也會加入一些想法。但特別是因為它與供應鏈中的季度有關，我們在上個季度談到了銷售壓力、銷售利潤率成本，鑑於目前的波動性，我們預計它會有所下降。我認為這通常是我們在本季度看到的。我們在第三季度發言時確實比我們預期的要低一些。

I called out in the prepared remarks, there was an impact there related to inflation, obviously. And if you think about it, the way our business works in terms of commodities where we're seeing a bunch of volatility and inflation, where we have pass-throughs, those pass-throughs are going through both the revenue and expense lines in the P&L. And so they have a little bit of a disproportionate impact as they flow through, which is kind of what we saw in terms of the impact to our percentage margin in the quarter.

我在準備好的評論中喊道，顯然有與通貨膨脹有關的影響。如果你想一想，我們的業務在商品方面的運作方式，我們看到大量波動和通貨膨脹，我們有傳遞，這些傳遞正在通過收入和支出線損益。因此，它們在流動時會產生一些不成比例的影響，這就是我們在本季度對我們的百分比利潤率的影響方面所看到的。

But that being said, I think we're very positive on the trajectory of the business, and I think that's the most important thing. We're very excited to see the progress in the business at Tims in the quarter, both in terms of sales and volumes falling along with that. And as a result of that, it didn't really have a material impact on our dollar profit, right? So we saw healthy year-over-year growth on a dollar basis in the supply chain. I think where we are now, we're obviously still facing a bunch of volatility out there. We aren't giving specific margin guidance, but we are managing costs and pricing in a really disciplined way and focused on really driving guest experience and delivering great value to our guests and maintaining best-in-class service levels from our supply chain, which we think is a pretty key advantage for the system in Canada.

但話雖如此，我認為我們對業務的發展軌跡非常積極，我認為這是最重要的。我們很高興看到本季度蒂姆斯的業務取得進展，無論是銷售額還是銷量都隨之下降。因此，它並沒有真正對我們的美元利潤產生實質性影響，對吧？因此，我們看到供應鏈中按美元計算的健康同比增長。我認為我們現在所處的位置，顯然我們仍然面臨著大量的波動。我們沒有給出具體的利潤率指導，但我們以一種非常嚴格的方式管理成本和定價，並專注於真正提升客戶體驗，為我們的客戶提供巨大的價值，並從我們的供應鏈中保持一流的服務水平，這我們認為這是加拿大系統的一個非常關鍵的優勢。

I'll let Jose jump in with some other thoughts as well.

我也會讓 Jose 加入其他一些想法。

Thanks, Matt. And yes, David, your second -- the second part of the question was on pricing to the consumer. And as we've mentioned before, we work closely with our franchisees and also third parties to help guide and determine the right pace and level of pricing. We're quite structured and data-driven in that regard, and we run the process on a regular basis just to keep an eye on what's happening. We also look closely at what's happening in the marketplace and trends with competitors as well.

謝謝，馬特。是的，大衛，你的第二個問題——問題的第二部分是關於對消費者的定價。正如我們之前提到的，我們與特許經營商以及第三方密切合作，以幫助指導和確定正確的定價速度和水平。在這方面，我們非常結構化和數據驅動，我們定期運行該流程只是為了關注正在發生的事情。我們還密切關注市場上正在發生的事情以及與競爭對手的趨勢。

In Canada as well as in the U.S., we've tended to price in line with CPI, and CPI in Canada is -- has been probably in '21, about half or even slightly below half of what we've seen in the U.S. And so pricing for Tims in Canada has been right around CPI, just -- actually just under it. And so we'll continue to monitor this. It's really important for us to ensure that we manage -- control the demand side of it and not get too far ahead of the consumer from a pricing standpoint. And our teams work closely with the owners in Canada and with our supply chain teams to ensure that we have the right pricing going forward and continue to create that strong demand for our beverages and food throughout all dayparts. Thanks for the question.

在加拿大和美國，我們傾向於根據 CPI 定價，而加拿大的 CPI 可能在 21 年是 - 大約是我們在美國看到的一半甚至略低於一半因此，加拿大 Tims 的定價一直在 CPI 附近，實際上剛好低於 CPI。因此，我們將繼續對此進行監控。對我們來說，確保我們管理 - 控制需求方面並且從定價的角度來看不會領先於消費者太遠，這對我們來說非常重要。我們的團隊與加拿大的業主和我們的供應鏈團隊密切合作，以確保我們在未來有正確的定價，並在全天繼續創造對我們的飲料和食品的強勁需求。謝謝你的問題。

We'll take our next question from John Glass of Morgan Stanley.

我們將向摩根士丹利的約翰格拉斯提出下一個問題。

Tom, you mentioned franchisee profitability at Burger King being under some pressure just given inflation in the sales results. Can you maybe frame what the average profitability looked like in '21 versus '19 or some way to sort of measure how you think franchisee profitability is today. Do you think that system has the wherewithal to continue to reinvest in the business the way you want them to just given that profitability? And do you think the solution has just help them operationally improve profitability, and therefore, they can reinvest? Or do you think there's a more significant role in corporate investment to help them achieve those goals of reimaging the system?

湯姆，你提到漢堡王的特許經營商的盈利能力正面臨著一些壓力，只是考慮到銷售結果的通貨膨脹。你能否描述一下 21 年與 19 年的平均盈利能力，或者以某種方式衡量你認為加盟商今天的盈利能力如何。您是否認為該系統有足夠的資金繼續按照您希望他們剛剛獲得的盈利能力對業務進行再投資？您是否認為該解決方案只是幫助他們在運營上提高了盈利能力，因此他們可以再投資？還是您認為企業投資在幫助他們實現重塑系統的目標方面發揮了更重要的作用？

Yes. Thank you, John. Franchisee profitability is going to be a big key to our long-term success. And as we came out of 2020, we had very strong profitability despite a difficult time, and that really speaks to the resilience of the business model. But that said, we worked through a lot of headwinds last year and saw an overall decline in profitability in 2021. We did see some positive signs in Q4 where we were flat to Q3 nominally and as a percentage of sales, despite the inflation headwinds. And just positively, we started to see some progress at the end of the year from our profitability initiatives specifically.

是的。謝謝你，約翰。加盟商的盈利能力將是我們長期成功的關鍵。當我們走出 2020 年時，儘管處於困難時期，我們仍擁有非常強勁的盈利能力，這確實說明了商業模式的彈性。但話雖如此，我們去年遇到了很多不利因素，並看到 2021 年盈利能力整體下降。儘管存在通脹逆風，但我們確實在第四季度看到了一些積極跡象，名義上和銷售額的百分比與第三季度持平。積極的一面是，我們在年底開始看到我們的盈利計劃取得了一些進展。

So as we go forward, we're doing a lot on this front, and we're positive, and our franchisees are also very optimistic that this will have a positive impact in 2022 and beyond and help create the ability to invest more. So on the cost side, we're helping to diversify sourcing to alleviate cost pressures and supply chain risk.

因此，隨著我們前進，我們在這方面做了很多工作，我們很樂觀，我們的加盟商也非常樂觀，認為這將在 2022 年及以後產生積極影響，並有助於創造更多投資的能力。因此，在成本方面，我們正在幫助採購多樣化，以減輕成本壓力和供應鏈風險。

On the labor front, I talked a lot about simplifying life in the restaurants and addition of tech -- of restaurant technology opportunities that can help drive efficiency as well. So our near-term plan in next year is to try to drive about $500 million of annualized price and price-related efficiencies to the system. Part of that comes through utilizing those new approaches in guest insights. We started to roll those out in Q4, by the way, and expect to complete those in 2022, once again, providing us with a road map and a backdrop for future investment. And as we mentioned earlier, we do think we have a role to play. Matt, Jose, myself are working closely together. It's something we talk about almost every day, and then we'll have more later in the year on what that will look like. And also we'll be working closely with our franchisees on that plan.

在勞動力方面，我談了很多關於簡化餐廳生活和增加技術的內容——餐廳技術機會也有助於提高效率。因此，我們明年的近期計劃是嘗試為系統帶來約 5 億美元的年化價格和與價格相關的效率。其中一部分來自於在客戶洞察中利用這些新方法。順便說一句，我們在第四季度開始推出這些產品，並希望在 2022 年再次完成這些產品，為我們提供未來投資的路線圖和背景。正如我們之前提到的，我們確實認為我們可以發揮作用。馬特、何塞和我本人正在密切合作。這是我們幾乎每天都在談論的事情，然後我們將在今年晚些時候有更多關於它的樣子。我們還將與我們的特許經營商就該計劃密切合作。

We'll now be moving over to our next question from Dennis Geiger from UBS.

我們現在將轉到瑞銀的丹尼斯蓋格提出的下一個問題。

Jose, I appreciate all the color on Tim Hortons and the improvements that the brand saw through the quarter. Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how you view the brand has positioned this year to make further gains based on everything you highlighted and the work the team has done across menu and marketing and digital and more, particularly as the restrictions in Canada begin to ease and mobility improves. Maybe specifically, if you could kind of touch on sort of the strength maybe that you're seeing on those brand, customer brand closeness scores that you've highlighted previously or whether the brand is taking market share currently in Canada?

何塞，我很欣賞 Tim Hortons 的所有顏色以及該品牌在本季度看到的改進。想知道您是否可以多談談您如何看待該品牌今年的定位，以便根據您強調的所有內容以及團隊在菜單、營銷和數字等方面所做的工作，特別是在加拿大的限制條件下取得進一步的收益開始緩解，流動性提高。也許具體來說，如果你能談談你在這些品牌上看到的某種力量，你之前強調的客戶品牌緊密度得分，或者該品牌目前是否在加拿大佔據市場份額？

Great. Thanks, Dennis. Appreciate the question. Yes, as I mentioned, we were excited and encouraged by the progress in Q4. It was a well-balanced plan that was executed well by the owners and by our team. We saw growth in our core performance and kind of the underlying core business was moving in a really good direction. Our digital business, as I touched on and Josh mentioned as well, is really strong. And we saw some really good execution of the promotions in the quarter, including the promotion around hockey cards as well as the promotion with Timbits, something we've done consistently over the years, and we think we can continue to do going forward, relevant promotional activity to create engagement with our consumers, both digitally as well as in restaurants.

偉大的。謝謝，丹尼斯。欣賞這個問題。是的，正如我所提到的，我們對第四季度的進展感到興奮和鼓舞。這是一個平衡良好的計劃，業主和我們的團隊執行得很好。我們看到我們的核心業績有所增長，並且基礎核心業務正朝著一個非常好的方向發展。我們的數字業務，正如我提到的，喬什也提到過，非常強大。我們在本季度看到了一些非常好的促銷執行，包括圍繞曲棍球卡的促銷以及 Timbits 的促銷，這是我們多年來一直在做的事情，我們認為我們可以繼續前進，相關促銷活動，以建立與我們的消費者的互動，無論是在數字上還是在餐廳中。

We're encouraged by the progress, and obviously, towards the end of the quarter and the beginning of '22, we saw a bit of a surge in -- with the Omicron variant, and we saw some restrictions being implemented in Canada as we've seen from time to time. Those are easing now. There are some announcements earlier this week, which we believe will kind of continue down the road for us. We believe our business plan is focused entirely on addressing our food -- our excellent food and beverages. We're also quite focused on the digital side of the business. And so trends continue to be encouraging. The brand metrics, as I touched on, are positive and also encouraging, and we continue to see good momentum as we head into the second half of the quarter and look forward to sharing progress.

我們對取得的進展感到鼓舞，顯然，在本季度末和 22 年初，我們看到了 Omicron 變體的一些激增，我們看到加拿大實施了一些限制，因為我們時不時看到。這些現在正在緩解。本週早些時候有一些公告，我們相信這些公告會繼續為我們服務。我們相信我們的商業計劃完全專注於解決我們的食物——我們優質的食物和飲料。我們也非常關注業務的數字方面。因此，趨勢繼續令人鼓舞。正如我所提到的，品牌指標是積極的，也令人鼓舞，隨著我們進入本季度的下半年，我們繼續看到良好的勢頭，並期待分享進展。

And Matt, maybe you can touch on some of the comments here.

還有馬特，也許你可以在這裡談談一些評論。

Yes. Thanks, Dennis. Just related to market share, just a couple of ones to kind of throw out there for you. We did see in the important area of food innovation, which we've been focused on, and we've seen a lot of good results so far against the plan. We did see breakfast food market share grow over 300 basis points year-over-year improvement based on high single-digit growth in breakfast foods versus '19. And we also saw a really, really nice strong growth in lunch foods as well, which were up over 20% versus 2019, and also improving in terms of market share.

是的。謝謝，丹尼斯。僅與市場份額有關，只是為您提供了一些。我們確實看到了我們一直關注的食品創新這一重要領域，並且到目前為止，我們已經看到了很多針對該計劃的良好結果。基於早餐食品與 19 年相比的高個位數增長，我們確實看到早餐食品市場份額同比增長超過 300 個基點。而且我們還看到午餐食品的增長非常非常強勁，與 2019 年相比增長了 20% 以上，並且市場份額也在提高。

We'll take our next question from Jeffrey Bernstein of Barclays.

我們將向巴克萊銀行的杰弗裡伯恩斯坦提出下一個問題。

Great. Tom, welcome to the call. It's great to have brand leadership contributing. Just following up on the Burger King franchisee profits being under pressure. Just wondering whether you think that, that limits certain investments or initiatives that you want to implement in '22. I know you mentioned working with Jose and Matt and others, is there a chance for maybe some sort of contribution to the Burger King system similar to what you made at Tim Hortons this past year, which seemed to be a big positive for you? And just on that franchise profit front, I'm just wondering whether you can share your thoughts around the menu pricing for that specific BK brand. Maybe you're -- where you think the system closed in '21 to protect that profit and maybe some suggestions for 2022 to balance traffic and value and margin? Any thoughts there would be great.

偉大的。湯姆，歡迎來電。讓品牌領導力做出貢獻真是太好了。只是跟進漢堡王特許經營商的利潤面臨壓力。只是想知道您是否認為這會限制您希望在 22 年實施的某些投資或計劃。我知道你提到與 Jose 和 Matt 以及其他人一起工作，是否有機會為漢堡王系統做出某種貢獻，類似於你去年在 Tim Hortons 所做的那樣，這對你來說似乎是一個很大的積極因素？就在特許經營利潤方面，我只是想知道您是否可以就特定 BK 品牌的菜單定價分享您的想法。也許您是-您認為該系統在 21 年關閉以保護該利潤，也許對 2022 年平衡流量、價值和利潤的一些建議？任何想法都會很棒。

Thank you, Jeffrey. On the contributions, like I said, we're working thoughtfully on what that plan could look like. And yes, there's a thought that, that can -- that we can help there and work with our franchisees on what an investment -- a multiyear investment plan would look like. However, in the short run, we're very focused on the operational improvements that we can make to help profitability and also some interventions that we could do on the marketing front to improve profitability there as well.

謝謝你，杰弗裡。關於捐款，就像我說的那樣，我們正在仔細研究該計劃的樣子。是的，有一個想法是，我們可以在那裡提供幫助，並與我們的特許經營商合作進行投資——多年投資計劃的樣子。但是，在短期內，我們非常關注我們可以進行的運營改進以提高盈利能力，以及我們可以在營銷方面進行的一些干預以提高那裡的盈利能力。

On pricing specifically, in late '21, we did lift some price caps on some selected items, and we've removed WHOPPER from our core discount, although we'll look for opportunity for some incremental discounting there in the future, but it won't be every single day. We have shown that we have some good price elasticity in a variety of areas. And I think anything -- as we do those things over the course of the next couple of years, what's going to be very important to us and our operators is going to be keeping that guest experience great. And we've also seen that those operators who outperform from a traffic perspective after taking price also perform well in terms of -- they can basically do pricing and maintain traffic.

特別是在定價方面，在 21 世紀末，我們確實提高了一些選定商品的價格上限，並且我們已經從核心折扣中刪除了 WHOPPER，儘管我們將來會尋找一些增量折扣的機會，但它贏了不是每一天。我們已經表明，我們在各個領域都具有良好的價格彈性。我認為任何事情——當我們在接下來的幾年裡做這些事情時，對我們和我們的運營商來說非常重要的事情將是保持良好的客戶體驗。而且我們也看到，那些在定價後從流量角度表現出色的運營商在價格方面也表現出色 - 他們基本上可以定價並保持流量。

So all of that, those efforts really work together. Those operational efforts alongside any real targeted pricing interventions to make sure that we can grow the business as well. And we saw some pretty good evidence of that in Q4, and once again, as I said, with our high-performing operators.

所以所有這一切，這些努力真的協同工作。這些運營努力以及任何真正有針對性的定價干預措施，以確保我們也可以發展業務。我們在第四季度看到了一些很好的證據，正如我所說，我們的高績效運營商再一次看到了這一點。

Our next question comes from Andrew Charles of Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Cowen 的 Andrew Charles。

Great. Guys, really impressive traction in the first 3 years in Tim Hortons China. Could we just get an update, though? I think with the master franchisee plan go public, they did share some store level details. And just want to learn a little bit more around how it impacts your income statement. Based on their disclosure, it looks like AUV is around $450,000 to $500,000 or so. And also I'd love to know just the royalty. I think it steps up over time, but it starts at around 1% to 2%. Just want some help just connect the dots between their store economics and how it impacts your income statement. Obviously, that becomes a larger percentage of growth.

偉大的。伙計們，Tim Hortons 在中國的前 3 年的牽引力確實令人印象深刻。不過，我們可以得到更新嗎？我認為隨著主加盟商計劃的上市，他們確實分享了一些商店層面的細節。並且只想更多地了解它如何影響您的損益表。根據他們的披露，AUV 似乎在 450,000 美元到 500,000 美元左右。我也很想知道皇室成員。我認為它會隨著時間的推移而增加，但它從大約 1% 到 2% 開始。只是想要一些幫助，只是將他們的商店經濟與它如何影響您的損益表之間的點聯繫起來。顯然，這將成為更大的增長百分比。

Yes, Andrew, thanks for the question. We are really excited about the progress we're making in Tims in China. Obviously, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we crossed the 400 threshold there or kind of milestone in January, only opening the first one less than 3 years ago. We have a very ambitious long-term target for growth in China and view that as a great path to build the Tims international business throughout the region in Asia and also in other markets around the globe. So we're really excited, and they're seeing some good growth as well from a comparable sales standpoint in 2021. Tremendous digital business as well. Around 90% of the business is through digital channels, and we're seeing significant improvements as well from an operational standpoint at the store level, guest engagement and feedback there is really good.

是的，安德魯，謝謝你的提問。我們對 Tims 在中國取得的進展感到非常興奮。顯然，正如我在準備好的評論中提到的那樣，我們在 1 月份突破了 400 的門檻或某種里程碑，僅在不到 3 年前打開了第一個門檻。我們對在中國的增長有一個非常雄心勃勃的長期目標，並認為這是在整個亞洲地區以及全球其他市場建立 Tims 國際業務的絕佳途徑。所以我們真的很興奮，從 2021 年的可比銷售角度來看，他們也看到了一些良好的增長。還有巨大的數字業務。大約 90% 的業務是通過數字渠道實現的，從商店層面的運營角度來看，我們也看到了顯著的改進，客戶參與度和反饋都非常好。

Similar to what we see with Popeyes and we also saw with Burger King early days, as you build the brand internationally, there are different formats that we use. You'll see less -- especially in Asia, you'll see less freestanding drive-through locations, and you'll see the formats that are more in line and smaller footprint. We also see differing economics, as you pointed out, on the royalty, but also in terms of how -- our business internationally is principally a royalty-based business. We do, in some cases, have had ramp-ups in royalty, but the goal is to get back to kind of standardized royalty rates across the globe for all brands.

與我們在 Popeyes 中看到的類似，我們在早期也看到在 Burger King 中看到的，當您在國際上建立品牌時，我們使用不同的格式。你會看到更少——尤其是在亞洲，你會看到更少的獨立的免下車位置，你會看到更符合要求的格式和更小的佔地面積。正如您所指出的，我們還看到了不同的經濟情況，包括特許權使用費，以及如何——我們的國際業務主要是基於特許權使用費的業務。在某些情況下，我們確實提高了版稅，但我們的目標是在全球範圍內為所有品牌恢復標準化的版稅率。

And in many cases, with these international businesses, as you're starting from scratch, you're building awareness. These are startups in many of these markets. And so you'll see AUVs grow over time as we connect and engage consumers better with the brand. They understand the brand better. Frequency is being driven more and more. We have strong loyalty platforms in these markets, which allows for even higher frequency. So we're really excited and looking forward to sharing more on how we progress with Tims, but also Popeyes and Firehouse alongside our BK international growth engine. Thanks so much for the question.

在許多情況下，通過這些國際業務，當您從頭開始時，您正在建立意識。這些都是這些市場中的許多初創公司。因此，隨著我們與品牌更好地聯繫和吸引消費者，您會看到 AUV 會隨著時間的推移而增長。他們更了解品牌。頻率越來越受到驅動。我們在這些市場擁有強大的忠誠度平台，可以實現更高的頻率。因此，我們非常興奮並期待更多地分享我們如何與 Tims 以及 Popeyes 和 Firehouse 以及我們的 BK 國際增長引擎一起取得進展。非常感謝這個問題。

We'll take our next question from Lauren Silberman of Credit Suisse.

我們將向瑞士信貸的 Lauren Silberman 提出下一個問題。

I wanted to ask about Popeyes U.S. You talked about competitive pressures at the brand, and given these competitive pressures are unlikely to abate, how are you thinking about the strategy to reaccelerate comps and market share gains? And then to what extent is the sales performance weighing on franchisee economics and the appetite for development in the U.S.?

我想問一下 Popeyes U.S. 您談到品牌的競爭壓力，鑑於這些競爭壓力不太可能減弱，您如何考慮重新加速競爭和市場份額增長的戰略？那麼銷售業績在多大程度上影響了特許經營商的經濟和美國的發展意願？

Great. Thanks for the question, Lauren. I think it's important to remember how significant the step change for Popeyes in the U.S. was in 2018 heading into '19 and then throughout 2020. The business has changed dramatically in terms of AUVs or volumes on a per store basis as well as 4-wall EBITDA for the franchisees. We've seen tremendous appetite and engagement from all the franchisees around the country, existing and new ones as well, coming into the system because of the exciting unit economics. We are facing as we do with all brands in the U.S. and in more mature markets, we -- there's a lot of competition. That's part of the business. But we think we have a differentiated product with the chicken sandwich as well as our nuggets that were launched and a lot of the innovation pipeline that we have on handheld chicken, we believe allows us to continue to grow long term the business investments in digital as well, we believe, are key drivers of growth for the brand in the U.S. in quarters and years to come. And we think there's a tremendous opportunity here.

偉大的。謝謝你的問題，勞倫。我認為重要的是要記住，在 2018 年進入 19 年以及整個 2020 年，美國 Popeyes 的階梯式變化是多麼重大。該業務在 AUV 或每家商店的數量以及 4 層牆方面發生了巨大變化特許經營商的 EBITDA。由於令人興奮的單位經濟性，我們已經看到全國所有特許經營商，現有的和新的特許經營商的巨大興趣和參與，進入系統。我們正面臨著與美國和更成熟市場的所有品牌一樣的情況，我們 - 有很多競爭。這是業務的一部分。但是我們認為我們有一個差異化的產品，包括雞肉三明治、我們推出的雞塊以及我們在手持雞肉上的許多創新管道，我們相信讓我們能夠繼續長期增長數字業務投資，因為我們相信，這是該品牌在未來幾個季度和幾年內在美國增長的關鍵驅動力。我們認為這裡有一個巨大的機會。

So we'll continue to innovate and develop our menu to continue to address trends in the industry. But the key for Popeyes in the U.S. will be to continue to deliver the great tasting products that we have and do so in a really efficient way in our restaurants. And that's the focus that the team has investing in drive-throughs, investing in outdoor digital menu boards, investing in operations and continuing to be there for our guests day to day. much for the question.

因此，我們將繼續創新和開發我們的菜單，以繼續應對行業趨勢。但是，Popeyes 在美國的關鍵將是繼續提供我們擁有的美味產品，並以非常有效的方式在我們的餐廳中提供。這就是團隊投資於免下車、投資戶外數字菜單板、投資運營以及繼續為我們的客人提供日常服務的重點。這個問題很重要。

We'll take our last question today from Mark Petrie of CIBC.

今天我們將向 CIBC 的 Mark Petrie 提出最後一個問題。

Tom, I'll echo the other comments this morning. But just regarding the approach to marketing, I heard your comments about the opportunities in the menu as well as in digital, but I wanted to ask about the Burger King brand perception. And I understand you're in a review of your creative accounts, but where do you think the Burger King brand has lagged? And where do you see the most opportunity this year?

湯姆，今天早上我會回應其他評論。但就營銷方法而言，我聽到了你對菜單和數字機會的評論，但我想問一下漢堡王的品牌認知度。我知道你正在審查你的創意賬戶，但你認為漢堡王品牌在哪裡落後？您認為今年最大的機會在哪裡？

Thank you, Mark. I think that where we have the most opportunity is really redefining or defining who we are, having a relevant and distinct voice. And that is one of the reasons that we took -- we went out to agency review. So we're excited to kind of work on that brand positioning and defining our brand essence going forward. I think we'll be focusing on our core, on the WHOPPER, flame-grilling, having it your way, those are really the things that made us great and the things that will make us great going forward. So I think just focusing on those things and doing it in a simplified way with added firepower to the distinct messages that we'll be out there with are going to be key for us to growing market share over the course of time going forward.

謝謝你，馬克。我認為我們最有機會的地方是真正重新定義或定義我們是誰，擁有相關且獨特的聲音。這就是我們採取的原因之一——我們進行了機構審查。因此，我們很高興能夠在品牌定位上開展工作，並定義我們未來的品牌精髓。我認為我們將專注於我們的核心，在 WHOPPER 上，火焰燒烤，隨心所欲，這些真的是讓我們變得偉大的事情，也是讓我們前進的事情。因此，我認為只專注於這些事情並以一種簡化的方式進行，並為我們將在那裡發布的不同信息增加火力，這將是我們在未來一段時間內增加市場份額的關鍵。

Great. Thanks to everyone for their questions and for joining us this morning. I'm incredibly proud of the progress we've made this quarter and throughout the year against a number of our key priorities, including driving sequential improvements at Tim Hortons in Canada, at Burger King in the U.S., enhancing our global digital capabilities and building a robust development pipeline to accelerate unit growth in 2022 and beyond. I'd like to thank our team and franchisees for their contributions and their continued dedication and effort as we work together towards our big dream of building the most loved restaurant brands in the world. Thank you again for joining us, and have a great day.

偉大的。感謝大家提出問題並今天早上加入我們。我為我們在本季度和全年針對我們的一些關鍵優先事項所取得的進展感到無比自豪，包括推動加拿大 Tim Hortons 和美國漢堡王的連續改進，增強我們的全球數字能力和建設強大的開發渠道，以加速 2022 年及以後的單位增長。我要感謝我們的團隊和加盟商的貢獻以及他們在我們共同努力實現建立世界上最受歡迎的餐廳品牌的遠大夢想時的持續奉獻和努力。再次感謝您加入我們，祝您有美好的一天。

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

今天的電話會議到此結束。謝謝大家的加入。您現在可以斷開連接。