Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp.'

s earnings call for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2025. Joining me on the call today is Pizza Pizza Limited's President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Goddard.

Just a quick note that our discussion today will contain forward-looking statements that may involve risks relating to future events. Actual events may differ materially from those projections discussed today.

All forward-looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language in our earnings press release and the risk factors included in our AIF. Please refer to our earnings press release and the MD&A in the Investor Relations section of our website for a reconciliation and other disclosures related to non-IFRS measures mentioned on the call.

As a reminder, analysts are welcome to ask questions after the prepared remarks. Portfolio managers, media and shareholders can contact us after the call.

I'll now turn the call over to Paul for a brief business update.

Thank you, Christine, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for listening in.

We always appreciate it. This afternoon, we released our 2025 4th quarter and year-end results, which you can find posted on our website.

While the macroeconomic conditions continued to deteriorate over the course of the year, our fourth quarter performance highlights the resilience of our operating company and the strengths of our brands, people and core fundamentals. During the year, we opened 37 new restaurants, bringing our 3-year total to 130 new locations opened across Canada.

We started off 2025 strong. And for the full year, Pizza Pizza restaurants delivered same-store sales growth of 0.7% and Pizza 73 achieved sales growth of 1.9%.

In the fourth quarter, our brands achieved a combined same-store sales increase of 0.2%. Pizza Pizza restaurants experienced a slight decline of 0.1% and while Pizza 73 reported same-store sales growth of 1.8% for the quarter.

For the third consecutive quarter, we were happy to see growth in Pizza Pizza's organic delivery channel, which helped increase the overall average check. However, at both brands, we did see a decrease in transactions as we faced heightened competition and felt the impact of reduced consumer spending.

So we saw a more cautious consumer environment develop throughout 2025, but we remained focused on executing our strategy. And as a reminder, that's really leveraging the strength of our brands, delivering compelling everyday value propositions, anchored in our core products and supported by menu innovation and maintaining a strong seamless customer experience across all channels.

So starting with brand strength, Q4 is always our most important quarter, driven by key occasions like Halloween and New Year's Eve along with the turn of our major sports partnerships. This year, Pizza Pizza launched a new partnership with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays playoff run, while Pizza 73 partnered with Ryan Lomberg of the Calgary Flames to strengthen our hockey positioning.

Overall, it was a highly engaging quarter for both our marketing team and our brands. We continue to build on successful programs like Score a Slice and Score a Pie at Pizza 73, promotions across NHL and NBA partners nationwide.

These initiatives drive customers to our apps and enable ongoing engagement that encourages repeat visits. And for fans watching the games at home, we offered free game day delivery, where on game days, customers receive their orders of no delivery charge.

And that's certainly been a very popular promo for people too, which we're really happy about. Our partnership with the Blue Jays super star Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

or Vlad, as he is known, literally and figuratively hit it out of the park. The campaign featured our Double XL 18-inch 3-topping pizza at a value price point of $19.99 and giving Canadians across the country a large, shareable and affordable pizza to enjoy during the games.

It was actually really exciting for us when he and his agent reached out to us directly. So that was a great time of last year.

We're really excited and really kudos to our marketing team for really executing well on that with him. And this promotion really exemplified how we effectively leverage brand partnerships while reinforcing our value propositions.

Turning to our second pillar, value. We remain focused on delivering strong value across our core products.

This was particularly important as we lap the sales tax holiday in December 2024 and as we saw customers becoming more diligent in how they choose to spend their money. We reinforced our position as a value leader through a range of price-conscious offerings.

At Pizza Pizza, everyday offerings like the $19.99 mix and match and $15.99 pizza and pop deals remain customer favorites, complemented by limited time offers like the 20 wings for $20 deal, demonstrating our consistent commitment to providing high-quality meals but under $20. At Pizza 73, we continue to promote the Double XL offer and brought back the popular holiday helper promotion during the December period.

Our core pizza category remains resilient, supported by offerings across all price points from slices and pickup specials for value-focused customers to more bundled options designed for families, gatherings and special occasions. While value remains critical, staying top of mind through innovation is also important.

Our innovation pipeline allows us to attract new customers, trade up our existing pizza mix with more premium offerings and deepened brand engagement. This quarter, as an example, Pizza 73 launched the Volcano Pizza, generating strong consumer buzz and millions of impressions on social media.

And due to its success there at Pizza 73, the Volcano Pizzas were rolled out to Pizza Pizza in Q1 of 2026. All of these efforts are underpinned by our third and most critical pillar, customer experience.

We serve customers through multiple channels, including in-store, by phone, and on our organic digital channels and also on third-party food delivery platforms. In a highly competitive landscape, delivering a seamless end-to-end experience is essential.

So to meet and exceed customer expectations, we continue to invest in our digital ecosystem with plans to relaunch our website, mobile apps and loyalty platform in 2026. At the same time, phone ordering remains an important channel, accounting for roughly 1/4 of our orders.

Our customer contact center is fully staffed to ensure minimal wait times. On Halloween, our busiest day in company history our systems performed exceptionally well due to our robust, highly scalable and reliable technology infrastructure and exceptional people working together.

So congrats to the team on your effort there on Halloween, it was record-setting. And beyond ordering, we are focused on ensuring our restaurants are accessible, modern and welcoming.

This quarter, we have 90% -- 95%, pardon me, of Pizza Pizza locations and 50% of Pizza 73 locations refreshed which will further enhance customer satisfaction and engagement. Turning to our restaurant network.

We ended the year with 815 locations in Canada, nice to cross that 800 mark. And that includes 712 Pizza Pizzas and 103 Pizza 73 restaurants along with 4 international locations in Guadalajara, Mexico.

During the year, we opened 12 traditional, 20 nontraditional Pizza Pizza locations as well as 5 traditional Pizza 73 restaurants. We closed 3 traditional and 11 nontraditional Pizza Pizza locations along with 5 Pizza 73 restaurants.

And notably, 4 of the 5 Pizza 73 closures involve territory transfers to nearby locations. So it's really more of an aggregation exercise for a bigger territory, thereby minimizing any impact on overall sales.

Looking ahead, we continue to see opportunities for growth within our restaurant network. However, we are taking a more disciplined approach, carefully selecting locations and formats to ensure long-term profitability, particularly in the context of rising costs.

As I close out my comments, I expect that we will continue to face more headwinds across our system in the near future. Consumer confidence is still low.

Businesses are facing rising costs, and there continues to be much uncertainty. However, we will continue to be there to provide our customers with the best food, made especially for them.

Finally, I would like to thank you for the continued interest in Pizza Pizza, and I would like to thank our entire team of employees, franchisees and our operating partners for the support and resilience in this difficult macro operating environment. So thank you again for listening in, and I'll now hand it back to Christine to provide closing remarks and a financial update.

Thanks, Paul. So just as a reminder, Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp.

is a top line restaurant royalty corp. that earns a monthly royalty through a license agreement with Pizza Pizza Limited.

In exchange for the use of the Pizza Pizza and Pizza 73 trademarks in its restaurant operations. Pizza Pizza Limited pays the partnership a monthly royalty calculated as a percentage of royalty pool sales.

Growth in the corporates derived from increasing the same-store sales of the restaurants in the pool and by adding new restaurants to the pool. As previously announced on January 1, 2025, the royalties pool increased by 20 restaurants.

So for fiscal 2025, there were 794 restaurants in the pool comprised of 694 Pizza Pizzas and 100 Pizza 73s. So briefly covering some financial results for the quarter.

As Paul mentioned, same-store sales, the key driver yield for shareholders increased 0.2% for the quarter. Pizza Pizza restaurants were slightly down for the quarter, and same-store sales decreased by 0.1%, while Pizza 73 restaurants increased 1.8%.

The combination of the 20 new restaurants added to the royalty pool on January 1 and the same-store sales resulted in an increase in royalty pool system sales and the corresponding royalty income. The partnership's royalty income earned as a percentage of royalty pool sales increased 2.3% to $10.6 million for the quarter.

As a reminder, Pizza Pizza and Pizza 73 restaurants are subject to seasonal variations in their business. System sales for the first quarter of the year are generally the slowest while system sales in the last quarter are generally at their peak.

Beyond royalty income, the partnership also earned some interest income on its cash and short-term investments. For the quarter, the partnership earned $31,000.

This is a decrease from the prior year as the overall balance decreased and the interest rate applied on that balance decreased. Turning to partnership expenses.

Administrative expenses, including listing costs as well as director, legal, professional and auditor fees decreased in comparison to the prior year. This quarter, they totaled $211,000 compared to $221,000 in the prior year.

In addition to administrative expenses, the partnership is making interest-only payments on its $47 million credit facility. Interest paid in the quarter was $443,000.

As a reminder, in March of 2025, the company renewed its credit facility for 3 years with maturity now set for April 2028. The balance of the facility remains unchanged.

However, the credit spread increased slightly. Additionally, in April 2025, the partnership entered into new 3-year forward swaps.

The 3-year interest rate swaps commenced when the existing ones expired. The new locked-in rate is 2.51%, which is an increase from the maturing swaps of 1.81%.

So the all-in rate on the facility for the next 3 years will be 3.51% compared to maturing rate of 2.685%. So now after the partnership has received royalty and interest income and has paid its administrative and interest expenses, the resulting cash is available for distribution to its 2 partners based on our ownership percentage.

Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp. shares in 73.8% of the partnership distributions.

It pays taxes on its share of partnership earnings and the residual cash is available for dividends to company shareholders. Speaking about shareholder dividends, the company declared shareholder dividends of $5.7 million in the current quarter or $0.2325 per share, which was consistent with the prior year.

The payout ratio in the quarter was 105% and resulted in the company's working capital reserve decreasing $300,000 and ending the year at $3.7 million. The $3.7 million working capital reserve is available to stabilize the dividends and fund other expenditures in the event of short- to medium-term variability in sales, which we have seen over the past few years.

The company has historically targeted a payout ratio at or near 100% on an annualized basis, and any future dividend decisions will be made with this target in mind. That concludes our financial overview.

I'd like to turn the call back to the operator to poll for questions.

I definitely think you guys are in an enviable position compared to your peers. Just on the -- like Q4 tends to be a little bit updated by the time everyone reports now, given that the quarter is kind of like it was 3 months ago, closed 3 months ago.

Just curious, Paul, and you might have touched on it in your prepared remarks, but how do you -- maybe talk about the current environment, whether it's the consumer behavior you're seeing now, the macro backdrop. It's just obviously a lot more in the world than there was 3 months ago, and it seems to be changing daily, just to get your view on the overall market.

Yes, it's a good insight, Derek, it's true. And you're right about the timing too, Q4 was a while ago.

I think just generally, and I don't think this is a surprise to anybody, but just the macro environment, I think, just looks scarier than ever, really. I mean, right now, there's just so many things going on the geopolitical level.

I mean there was so much concern on the, let's say, the U.S. tariff side a year ago, let's say, and that's still kind of the big question mark, but now it's sort of with all the geopolitical oil shock type thing happening in the Middle East and beyond.

From an already sort of fragile consumer mentality, I think, things have gotten a lot scarier for the average consumer. So we just sort of sense that there's just greater caution.

People are going to be extra careful, more careful than they already were being, I think, this year. So generally speaking, we do see that -- and we've come to this one before that people have pivoted from things like delivery to pick up in our case.

They're still ordering, but we do notice people just generally ordering less, trying to save money and same on delivery platforms. I think some of them have seen reductions in volumes as well.

So I mean I think it's just a scary market right now, very competitive. A lot of competitors are doing deep discounting.

Everyone's desperate to get that value customer. And we are in an enviable place because we are known for value, which is great.

And I think we did a great job with things like the XXL and even at Pizza 73, under $10 snack boxes and things like that. We have good offerings for people, but we do sense that overall transactions are challenged.

I mean, just not only for us but others just in the macro picture is just not looking very good right now.

Absolutely. And that's totally fair.

I think it's clearly industry-wide. And I guess one question, too.

So when you think about value, is it helping you guys win share in this environment? Or is it sort of -- is it primarily a tool to help everybody sort of hold the ground in a competitive market?

Yes. It's very true.

I mean it's really -- it's such a battleground for sure. And so I think we did have some data saying that in Q4, we did gain some share which is encouraging, but it's really a battle.

It's really a slog out there. I mean we had some gains there, but not major, I would say.

So we'll take it. We're happy with any gain in share right now, and we just need to push harder to get more, but it's -- we noticed as well, we had some data saying that pizza traffic transactions generally in Canada, I forget the source, but credible source saying that they're still growing and still positive, but it did drop off in the fourth quarter, the whole pizza sector.

So we were -- we sort of felt that as well. And I think even North America wide, you're sort of seeing that trend, some pizza QSRs having some difficulties.

So I think we actually, overall, we're very happy that we're able to eke out a positive year, but the macro environment is troubling. I mean, we see definitely headwinds, as I said, and we know how to pivot into that pretty well.

But the fact that customers are hurting, and they're going to probably be ordering less food in general, not just from us but others. So we're conscious of that, and we'll have to be creative about how we deal with that, but it might be a while, I think, look, the way things are looking this year, there's just so much uncertainty in not only Canadian market, but geopolitically and globally with what's going on.

I mean you can see things potentially with the oil shock continuing if you don't see a quick resolution, let's say in the Middle East and just the inflationary knock-on effects of expensive oil right down to the pumps and beyond, and that's a lot of important discretionary -- or nondiscretionary spend for a lot of people. So it really does have a massive trickle down, not only in Toronto, but all over Canada, all over the world.

So we'll have to sort of see how that plays out.

Absolutely. And I guess the -- are the competitive pressures more intense in certain markets?

Or particularly urban or delivery heavy regions? Like how do you -- I guess, how do you manage that?

Yes, I would say we tailor our marketing regionally anyway. We do notice differences.

I would say -- we -- certainly in the urban environments where we're really well known for our established markets, I think, we still generally are pretty happy overall, but I mean it's patchy. I mean we'll get even in very successful urban markets that we'll do very successful in a geographic region, most stores, but you'll actually have a few stores that are anomalies there.

And same with somewhere like BC, where we're certainly a newer brand there to most people. And a lot of those locations are more disparate.

We're not -- we don't have huge urban concentration there yet, but it's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag somewhere out there.

And I don't think I would say it's because it's rural or less urban, let's say, it's just kind of the nature of it. It's -- we haven't really been able to ascertain regionally, there's certain weakness.

It's more store by store. So we're trying to sort of make sure that we take lessons from the best performing stores, and we have kind of a very much internal optimization program internally to really motivate stores to hit a higher level in their performance.

And then we try to share those learnings and do a lot of sort of community clustering of stores and get the operators to share their best practices and things like that. So it's kind of -- I don't notice anything specifically in certain regions.

But I would say that we are happy overall with the organic delivery growth because that we've been really trying to push our organic apps and web. And I mentioned we are going to be making that even better.

But we are really happy with how that's going and pickup wise, we do a great job as well, whether it's over the phone or through the app, for instance. So I think we do have those kind of multiple channels, which allow us some flexibility with good value offerings, but we are going to have to be extra creative going forward for sure because customers are hurting.

Absolutely. And so I don't want to be the downer on the call, but I promise one last hard question on this.

And I think you did talk about it in your prepared remarks. It feels like you're just -- in terms of your store development plans going to be a little bit more targeted given the inflationary pressures and the other pressures out there.

Just maybe -- maybe just talk about how you guys feel about your pool of available franchisees.

Yes. I think we're -- I mean, I think we feel pretty good about the pipeline for franchisees.

I think probably what's more difficult is finding attractive real estate economics in the places where we want to be and also the construction cost. Because of the uncertainty, I think I commented on a prior call about cost of things like ovens, which we generally do source from the U.S.

because they tend to be the best made and actually most affordable, but there's always tariff uncertainty. Are they going to -- they can rule it illegal, but I'm sure there's going to be some sort of attempt to still keep them in place.

So we've seen some of the unit construction costs still be an issue. So it's not so much pipeline of the franchisee issue, we still see a lot of interest as it is.

I guess, getting the real estate we want and the construction costs we want to make it a sort of very viable option. So -- and we often do see like, if anything, growth in the pipeline for franchisees, when times are tough like this.

So I anticipate our -- I haven't seen our latest pipeline stats, but they're probably actually ballooning, but the other challenge is we don't always get franchisees where we want them, right? They'll say, "Well, I want to be in Toronto."

And I'd say, well, we actually are pretty good in Toronto. We don't -- we have a little bit of growth here, but it's more of these rural locations across Canada or even some urban locations even in Vancouver.

And in Quebec, we've got a pipeline of locations, sites we really like, but we're still -- I'd say we've been a little bit slower there lately selling some stores in the places that are not in urban Montreal. So that's really where we're -- getting the demand where the supply is, is sort of the trick.

So we have been -- we're trying to be very responsible there and say, look, let's keep a really close eye on construction costs. We do have some ideas on how to just try and reduce our construction costs, maybe slightly smaller stores than we're already doing and certain materials and things like that.

So that we still end up on budget. Because we are starting to see the beginning of -- we haven't seen it en masse, but I anticipate that we will see more headwinds with suppliers for different items, whether it's food, nonfood or construction with the headwinds that we see.

Yes. Again, I think you guys are operating well given the environment.

One positive is your -- is the performance at Pizza 73. Curious if you see -- is there any potential takeaways from that outperformance that you think you could roll out to the to the rest of the network, whether it's marketing, promo or anything else that's working for you out there that you might try at the Pizza Pizza banners?

Yes. We always try and look at what are the things we can share across whether we take it West or bring it East.

And 1 example, was that volcano thing, which we piloted out at Pizza 73 and it really did well there. And so we basically took a slightly different tone with it, but basically it's a very similar product with creamy garlic in the middle, which is popular here more so than Pizza 73.

So that's 1 example. And I think just the create your own, the snack boxes out there, things like poutine, chicken under $10 price point have done well.

And so that's something that we think, okay, perhaps we could promote those more heavily here. But here, obviously, we've got the slice market as well, and we've -- we've got a 2 for 6 slice model that's worked quite well, but we're looking at more of a $5 combo now that is more of a drink in a slice that we think will really help drive walk-in back here.

But we always are looking to see which are the successful promos and positioning either brand. And we have -- we've got some new marketing resources relatively new that really -- I think it really hit stride there.

Even though it's very much a battleground in Alberta too, but some of the initiatives we have, I think, are really getting some attention more with the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers with Gene Principe, the sportscaster now that's very famous and kind of did a cheeky TV commercial for us. So people notice that stuff and does seem to kind of put the Pizza 73 brand in a little more of a refresh light from what it was, I think, maybe being seen as before.

So we always are looking at that from a marketing perspective and also IT and operations perspective, what -- how can we get the best of both brands.

Yes. Okay.

Perfect. And I guess without giving too much away, I know in your prepared remarks, you did talk about plans to upgrade the website and the app and again, without giving too much away.

Just curious on what you are looking to accomplish with the revamp?

Yes, I think it's just to get -- we're actually very happy with our loyalty program overall at Pizza Pizza. It has been very, very good.

And we do see a lot of people that are very loyal as a result of it. But we think that there's just a way to enhance it in such a way that we just get -- frequency is a big one and just make us the preferred choice more often and just make it more multifaceted, a little easier to use and really just make it more intuitive on our web and apps.

And we'll be putting dollars behind it once it's ready to really drive the benefits of the loyalty. So frequency.

And then obviously, we're hoping to get more size and things too so that hopefully check does increase, albeit with a very value-conscious customer. But some of these things are built also for many years, right, not just this current environment.

We're sure things will kind of bounce back at some point, but we still nevertheless need to build for the future. So I think we'll have value offerings that are threaded in with a loyalty program and that should help us, I think, hopefully get check and frequency really that and also just more traffic in general.

So those are the levers because this will drive our same-store sales.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call today. If you have any further questions after this call, please reach out to Paul and myself.

Our information is on the release. And thank you for your continued support of Pizza Pizza, and we look forward to speaking to you again in May.