Restaurant Brands at dbAccess Conference: Strategic Growth Focus

On Thursday, 05 June 2025, Restaurant Brands International (NYSE:QSR) presented at the 2025 dbAccess Global Consumer Conference. Chairman Patrick Doyle outlined the company’s strategic focus on franchisee profitability, international expansion, and operational improvements. While highlighting the positive momentum across brands like Tim Hortons and Popeyes, he also acknowledged challenges, particularly in Burger King China.

Key Takeaways

• Restaurant Brands aims for 5% unit growth by 2028, with a focus on North America and international markets.
• Tim Hortons in Canada is performing strongly, with franchisees generating over $300,000 in cash flow per unit.
• Burger King U.S. is undergoing a significant remodel, targeting 85% completion by 2028.
• The company is committed to 8% or better operating income growth.
• Challenges remain in Burger King China, with a search for a new partner underway.

Financial Results

• Tim Hortons franchisees in Canada generate over $300,000 in cash flow per unit, with a payback period of three years.
• Popeyes’ EBITDA has quadrupled since its acquisition in 2018, with progress towards $300,000 cash flow per unit.
• Burger King U.S. cash flow has improved from a low of $130,000 per unit.
• RBI targets operating income growth of 8% or more, with G&A expenses expected to exceed $600 million this year.

Operational Updates

• Over 50% of Burger King U.S. restaurants have been remodeled, with a goal of reaching 85% by 2028.
• Digital channels are contributing to increased spending per customer.
• Tim Hortons sees significant sales in the afternoon and evening, beyond its strong morning coffee sales.
• Popeyes launched new chicken wraps, receiving positive social media feedback.
• Firehouse Subs recently opened in Brazil, expanding its international presence.

Future Outlook

• RBI plans to achieve 5% unit growth by 2028, with 400 units expected to grow in North America.
• Internationally, 1,100 units are expected to grow, primarily driven by Popeyes.
• Burger King China is a key focus, with a need to restore unit growth to over 300 units annually.
• The company is not planning any new acquisitions in the near term, focusing instead on optimizing existing brands.

Q&A Highlights

• Burger King China’s performance is a major factor in the shortfall of unit growth expectations.
• The company is actively seeking a new partner for Burger King China to ensure long-term success.
• Improving Popeyes’ performance in the U.S. hinges on better restaurant execution.
• RBI believes the market may not fully recognize the potential of its 8% operating income growth target.

For more detailed insights, please refer to the full conference call transcript below.

Full transcript - 2025 dbAccess Global Consumer Conference:

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Thanks so much. I am Lauren Silberman. I’m the equity research analyst here at Deutsche Bank covering restaurants and food distributors. Thrilled to be here today with Patrick Doyle, chairman of Restaurant Brands International.

Patrick, thanks so much for being here. So we’ll start, a bit high level. You joined RBI about two and a half years ago as executive chairman. A lot’s happened over the last few years, given a pretty volatile backdrop, a lot of changes at RBI. Can you talk about what attracted you to join RBI in the first place, that thesis?

What’s been most surprising to you? Some of the biggest accomplishments perhaps?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So it’s two and a half years ago. I mean, I really came at it as an investor.

Right? And looked at what the opportunity was in the business, the changes that I thought might be able to be made, the value that I thought could be created. And and it was interesting because I I mean, I really did look at it at it as an investor, and what I saw was, first, there were questions around Tim Hortons, which is our biggest business, and I thought those questions were just flat out wrong. The business is amazing. The team has done an incredible job.

We’ve had the same leadership there for six or seven years. They laid out a plan to really just improve everything up there. The food’s been improving, the the speed of service, the restaurants are in great shape, and it’s just performed incredibly well. And so my my degree of confidence in that gets higher and higher, and they’re doing a spectacular job. Our second biggest business is international.

It’s been outperforming our peers. The team is doing a terrific job there. You know, you’re always gonna have issues, and I’ll talk about BK China in a second. But, you know, there are always gonna be things that you’re chasing, but overall, our performance on the international business has been great. And I think the biggest new thing there is that, you know, you’re gonna see going forward probably as much growth from the other brands, particularly Popeyes as you do from Burger King, and that’s just continuing to accelerate.

So feel great about that business. Third biggest business is BK in in North America. That’s obviously been the fixer upper. That’s the one where, you know, the the team had already started on it. And frankly, the fact that they clearly recognized that the brand needed serious work, they had already announced reclaim the flame as I was looking at it, and my view was, yeah, they’re right.

This is what needs to be done. There are no great performing restaurant stocks that are not, you know, part of an amazingly well run restaurant brand. And Burger King was not where it needed to be. The assets were were getting old, and, you know, we had franchisees that were not making enough money, some of whom were not in their operations the way they needed to be. They were more owners than operators.

So that one is, you know, it’s a longer term fix, but very excited about the progress we’re making, getting great returns on remodels. So all of that is is going in the right direction. We’ve had relative outperformance, I think, five out of the six last quarters on on Burger King. So, you know, moving forward there, Popeyes is fantastic. Amazing brand, growing fast around the world.

I was checking the other day. I think we’re making four times the EBITDA that we made when we bought it in 2018. It was making about 90,000,000. And is you know, if you add the North American business to what we’re doing in international, I think we’re kind of four x, so great brand. And then Firehouse, early relatively small, accelerating unit growth.

So, you know, happy there as well. So, you know, overall for me it was are they, you know, I think really just about a recognition issue on Tim’s. I think international may not have been appreciated enough, but doing incredibly well. And then, you know, Burger King, a lot of concerns about that. And I looked at it and said, look, this is pretty straightforward what needs to be done.

We need to get the assets fixed. We need to run them better. And if we do that, I, you know, I think we’re gonna get on the right track, and we’re seeing that.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. One of the biggest changes that you brought to RBI from my seat to focus on franchisee profitability, the transparency around that to the financial community. So having established strong cash on cash returns in your previous role at Domino’s, what are some of the insights that you think RBI can leverage to improve those cash on cash returns? Any internal target that you guys have?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, look at the end of the day, our job as a franchisor is to create an opportunity for entrepreneurs, for operators to make a great return on their investment of capital and their investment of time. And, and some of our brands are in great shape on that. Tim’s is a terrific return.

Firehouse is actually very good. Popeyes has been improving. But, you know, you’ve gotta be able to, generate, you know, more and more demand for your restaurants. That’s what’s going to generate growth. That’s what’s going to allow you to upgrade franchisees where they need to be upgraded, get better owners in.

What’s going to allow the franchisees to reinvest in their restaurants, to, you know, attract the right people to run them, all of that. So we basically set goals, we’re north of 300,000, in in cash flow for Tim’s in Canada. Our goal is to get to 300,000 with both Popeyes and Burger King. Popeyes is well on the way. Burger King is progressing, but still has a few years to go, I think, before it’s gonna get there.

That gets you for those two brands to kind of five or six year, probably six year paybacks, which, you know, that’s okay. I mean, that starts to work. It’s an attractive business. You need to still grow from there, But, you know, that’s kind of the the midterm target on on both of those. Tim’s amazing.

I mean, at 300 plus, the operators buy the equipment for the for the restaurants. We basically do the the build out and, you know, you’re looking at a three year payback on a Tim’s in Canada. You’re at about a four year payback, for Firehouse. I think that’s gonna work down over time. So, you know, we’re in good shape there.

And then for master franchisees, kind of a different deal. Gotta have a longer term view on the business. They’ve got to invest in supply chain and, you know, bigger teams and that sort of thing.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Let’s talk a little bit about the consumer. You have vast experience in the restaurant industry. You’ve seen different cycles. What are you thinking about the state of the consumer from here?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: As long as employment levels stay healthy, then we’re in good shape, and so far they are. We’ve seen a little bit of weakness with employment in Canada. You’re really not seeing any in The US yet, and that’s really the key because at the end of the day, you know, we all look at the the relative gap on food at home versus food away from home, kind of pricing there, and the relative value of that for people, and that’s gonna drive a lot of the health of the restaurant industry over time. But, you know, overall, people are willing to pay for the convenience of prepared food, of restaurant food if they’re employed. If they’re unemployed, they’re just not gonna do that anymore.

And, you know, we saw that certainly during the pandemic. You know, some of our businesses, particularly Tim’s, you know, when you’re still you know, half of our business is before noon. We’re selling a lot of coffee to people on their way to work, they weren’t going to work, it’s obviously going to hurt the business. But the employment level is really the the key determinant of the health of the category overall, and so far that’s looking okay.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Let’s shift a little bit to development. You recently updated your long term outlook and now expect to build to 5% by ’28. I guess, first, if you could just talk about the shortfall relative to your prior expectations. I think Burger King China is really the primary piece, but any impact from other key markets causing some near term pressure.

Yeah. Kind of where are you in the Burger King sort of, I’ll say, portfolio optimization and cleaning up that?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. So China really is the variant. Right? I mean, that’s the that’s the big thing for us. And, you know, we’ve taken that on ourselves.

We’re gonna get that going the right direction. But if you look at as we kind of lay out the path to that 5%, we need basically three things. So over the next three or four years, we think we can get to 400 unit net growth in North America from the brands. That’s gonna come from growth in Tim’s, which we have not had in a long time. We actually think we can penetrate more deeply.

There are areas of Canada where we are underpenetrated as remarkable as as that seems for a business that’s already got, you know, almost 4,000 restaurants up there, but, there is actually an opportunity. Canada has grown, 20% since 2010. You’ve got about 7,000,000 more Canadians in the last, fifteen years, and we’ve fundamentally not grown our our footprint. So we think there’s a real opportunity there. You’re gonna see Burger King stabilize, You know, we’re kind of to that net, you know, plus or minus zero range now, which is better than it was the last couple of years.

You know, may still be a little bit under, but we’re getting close to that. At some point, we’ll get back to growth, but right now, just getting it solid would be good and an improvement from where we’ve been. Firehouse is accelerating, so that’s great. And I think you’re gonna see Popeyes kinda stay around, you know, a 30 to a 50 range, something like that. At some point, it can sell accelerate.

We’ve put a lot of focus on making sure it’s the right, franchisees opening restaurants, slowed it a little bit, but the returns are great there. The momentum of the brand is great. So 400 out of North America, 11 Hundred out of the rest of international, which is more and more, as I mentioned earlier, gonna come from from Popeyes. You know, if you look back five years, twenty nineteen, I think 90% of our unit growth was coming from Burger King. You’re Burger King is doing great.

It’s really that you’ve got these other brands now growing, so I think we’re gonna be to that range pretty pretty easily. And then really the big variance is China. And we had, you know, a number of years, you know, five years ago in a row where we were kind of 300 plus in China. We need to get back to that. And we’ve never had all of the brands, all three of the brands that are currently in China clicking at the same time.

We’ve got to get that fixed. It’s a small part of our overall business today, but obviously as the second largest QSR market in the world, we’ve got to have a strong presence there. And, you know, one of the things that we look at is on any scale business, we’ve got to have a path to greatness, and there was not a path to greatness there. And so we took it on. It’s performing nicely.

We’ve got a team in place. We’re moving the right direction on the business. We’ve hired Morgan Stanley. They’re, you know, they’re gonna help us find a new partner for the BK business there. Popeyes is new but performing very well.

So we’ve just gotta get China back to kind of where it was. And if we can get all of the brands clicking, it can probably do better than that. So if you’ve got 400 North America, three hundred from China, Eleven Hundred from the rest of international, you’re at 1,800 restaurants, I think that’s almost 6% right now. And so not all of that even has to work to get us to that 5% plus.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Let’s dig a little bit deeper onto the BK China side. You recently took control of it as you talked about. What was the rationale for that transaction?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. At some point, we got a partner there had a partner there that is our partner in Turkey for Burger King and Popeyes. They’ve done a great job in Turkey, continue to. We’re the number one burger brand and the number one chicken brand in Turkey. They actually did a very nice job of building our Burger King business in China for a long time.

COVID hit. They they chose not to go to China for about three years. I get it. It was very complicated, but the owner not being there and not being present meant that the business drifted. And ultimately, you know, their incentive when we all agreed, you know, it was it was time to make a change there, their incentive is to get the highest price possible for the business.

Our incentive is to find the best long term partner for the business, and we finally decided that the best way for us to do this was to come to an agreement between us. You know, we would take the business. We’d get a team in place. We’d get the business performing, you know, better than it had been performing. We’re seeing early green shoots on that.

It’s heading the right direction. And then we would take our time to to find the right partner. And, you know, we’ve kinda committed that, you know, we wanna get that done within a year. That’s certainly our gold process started. We’ve got a team fundamentally in place at this point.

So we just decided it’s too important. We can’t wind up in a position where we’re not thrilled about who the partner is gonna be for the long term, and so we took control of it ourselves.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Kind of looking at this from the BKUS perspective, you also talk about, you know, operators on the ground being close to the restaurants. How have you transformed that BK portfolio to get it into the hands of, I’ll say, smaller, more engaged operators and your thesis and thoughts behind that?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. Mean, we want great operators, period. And, you know, the bias may be for smaller, but if they’re larger operators and they’re doing a great job, we’re okay with that. We just want the restaurants to be really well run. But, you know, what we see and what I’ve seen, you know, previously in my career is there is a very direct correlation, to how far the restaurant is away from the person who owns it.

And, you know, having local ownership is incredibly important. You know, see China with Turkish partners as, you know, as example a, little too far away. So even Burger King in The US, it’s still the same answer. And so we’ve been working through that, looking through all of the franchisees, looking, you know, kind of grading them on performance, a, b, d, and f, and making sure that they’re engaged, that they’re operating the right way, that they’re committed to getting the remodels done. If they’re not, we have a tough talk with them and say, look, we’re gonna give you a chance to improve your performance.

If it’s not improving, then we have to have a different conversation. And kind of the ultimate example of that was Carol’s. You know, Carol’s actually very good operators, above average operators in our system do a really nice job. We looked at it and as a public company with a thousand restaurants, we looked at what they were gonna have to do to remodel that portfolio on the time frame that we had set as the goal. They were gonna have to spend at least a % of their free cash flow to get that done in five years, which they’re never gonna do as a public company.

So we ultimately decided, look, we if we’re really gonna do this, we’re gonna have local owner operators, we’re gonna have beautiful remodeled restaurants, we’ve gotta take control of the situation ourselves. So we did that. We’re getting the remodel work done. But the other thing that we realized as we got into it originally said, look, we’ll do this years three through seven. And we’ve looked at it and said, look, we’ve got a great operator who’s ready to take over restaurants, whether it’s an existing operator, whether it’s somebody from within Carol’s who’s gonna move from being a, you know, regional director or a district manager who we think would be a great owner, and they’re gonna have the capacity to get the remodel done and they’re committed to it, let’s do it now.

So we’re gonna get that process started. We are very committed to being a franchisor, not an owner and operator of restaurants. We’re always gonna have some. We think it’s important to be in the game. We have far too many right now.

And so, you know, we’re gonna get Burger King China, you know, into the hands of a new partner. We’re gonna get Carol’s refranchised. We’re gonna make the story a little bit easier. We realize it’s been a little complicated as we took both of those on. And, you know, I think that’s gonna make the story a little more simple from an investor standpoint.

But in both of those cases, those were key to our being on kind of a path to greatness with those businesses. Burger King domestic, really important. Number one market, obviously, for Burger King. Number two QSR market, China. We had to take control of the situation.

Gonna do that, get them back out again, and in both cases, we’re making good progress.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Let’s stick on the Burger King side. You guys have obviously made significant investments in BKUS over the last few years, a lot of focus on that asset base. Can you walk through the strategic rationale for the reclaim the flame And where like, what inning we are in terms of the turnaround today? Where do you expect that portfolio

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: making really good progress. So we’re, you know, north of 50% remodeled now. In the portfolio, we’re right on track for where we wanted to be, which is to get to 85% remodeled by the end of twenty twenty eight. You know, we bottomed at, I think, trailing twelve months. We were at about a hundred and 30,000 in cash flow for an average Burger King in The US.

That doesn’t work. That’s just not a sustainable model, and those franchisees with those economics weren’t gonna be able to remodel those restaurants. So at the end of the day, we had to step up to improve the returns for them as they did it. We needed to have the franchisees know we were side by side with them to get this turned around. You know, the system had shrunk a bit, so our advertising spend was down.

So we went in and said, look, we’ll go first if we’ll all agree on, you know, on some commitments for more advertising over time tied to the performance of the portfolio. We’ll commit some advertising dollars. We’ll subsidize the remodels of the restaurants. And I’d repeat, all of that was in place before I got here. It was part of what got me excited.

I looked at it and said, yeah, this is the right thing to do. This is the commitment. This is how you get this business back on track. We’re seeing it. The returns now on the remodels are really good.

We’re very pleased with how those are performing at kind of mid teens plus the sizzle format is doing even better than kind of the previous new image. So we’re really happy with the with the progress we’re making.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: You’ve made significant improvements on the franchisee profitability side, and you guys are doing a good job with aligning with the franchisees. How has sentiment changed amongst the franchisees?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: It’s dramatic. It’s really remarkable. I mean, the and, you know, particularly the franchisees who have been doing a good job, and it’s the majority of them now, are looking at what we’re doing and they’re saying, look, keep doing it. Some of them very vocal vocally publicly, some of them more quietly to us behind the scenes, but either way, they’re saying this was the right thing to do. I’m running my restaurants right.

The restaurant down the road is not being properly run. It damages my brand and my business, and thank you for finally dealing with that. One way or the other, either by, you know, working with them to improve or by finding a new owner for that restaurant. And so the the franchisee sentiment is is really, really positive and aligned at this point. We made very quick progress early, you know, with the category being a little tough for the last twelve months.

We kind of got flatter on the, you know, on the improvement and the profitability. To me, that was frustrating. To the franchisees, remarkably, they kind of look in like, no. We know you’re doing the right things. We’re progressing.

We maybe moved quicker year one than we expected, and, you know, we’re we’re there and aligned. And so we’re focused on how we continue to do that. We’re continuing to leverage our scale to buy better. But, you know, ultimately, you know, it’s gonna have to come from top line growth. They’re seeing it with the remodels.

They’re seeing it with our relative performance. If we get a little tailwind in the category, that’d help. So

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: the relative performance has been strong. They’ve outperformed over the last several most of the last several quarters. Are the

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Five out of six. Five of

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: six. We

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: all are.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: What are the what do you see as the primary drivers of that relative outperformance? Is it operations? Is it how you’re approaching menu innovation, marketing?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: You know, if if you’re losing, it’s really simple to figure out what you need to do. And it’s interesting, if you’re doing really well, it’s harder to figure out what you need to do. And Burger King was losing, you know, three, four, five years ago. What needed to be done is we needed better run restaurants and we needed better looking restaurants. We’ve got the best food.

So, you know, that’s ultimately how we win. But growth for us is coming from running the restaurants better and, you know, and the effect of of the asset base, you know, the restaurants looking better and better for our guests. And that’s what’s really driving it. You know, there are things that are happening in digital and AI that I’m excited about. You know, we’ve got a new CMO in now who we’re very excited about and, you know, and so the marketing, you know, ought to kick in and there are good things happening on that, but getting the fundamentals right is driving the relative outperformance right now and should drive relative outperformance for a number of years if, you know, we continue to improve it.

Great.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Let’s shift over to Tim’s, which has had some really nice performance over the last several years, sometimes a little bit underappreciated. So what’s going

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Always underappreciated.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Talk about, like, what what are we missing? What’s what is going on at Tim’s? What do you see from that business?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: It is you know, the brand is extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. The love for that brand in Canada is absolutely amazing. And, you know, we we sell over 70% of coffee in the morning in Canada. I mean, that kind of market share is amazing.

You know, we’ve still got a little bit of tailwind from people returning to office in Canada. That happened, I think, a little bit more slowly than it did in The US. But, you know, it’s come from, you know, a few fundamental things. So first of all, the team has worked through everything on the menu, and all of the food is better. We’re improving the quality of the coffee.

We’re doing great with extending out into cold bev and, you know, other things around the beverage platform and then PM. And, you know, 80% of Canada has done business with us in the last thirty days, you know, and the core of the business has always been the breakfast daypart. But if you’re getting them at breakfast, talking to them about what they can get from you later in the day is pretty efficient. And, you know, we think we’ve got an enormous opportunity and half of our sales now are afternoon at, you know, at Tim’s. So we’re making great progress on growing PM food, on growing the PM day part overall.

And it’s interesting that the analogy that I always use is, you know, McDonald’s thirty or forty years ago now, probably forty years ago, going into breakfast. And, you know, I was not in the restaurant industry at the time, but I remember when they did it and people kind of looking at it saying, how is a burger and french fry company gonna drive a you know, build a breakfast business? Well, turns out they did it pretty effectively. They’ve got a great breakfast business. That’s harder to go from later in the day to morning than it is morning to get them to come back later in the day.

And our brands in Canada, it’s better than McDonald’s in The US, it’s better than any brand anywhere in the world. And so, you know, the love for that brand, the trust in the brand from consumers, getting, them to believe that this is a great all day option for them, you know, we’re proving we can do it and that should generate growth for a long time.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. You’ve talked about expectations to reaccelerate growth in Canada for Tim’s and get back on to net positive unit growth, which you haven’t done for a while. What changed in terms of why More Canadians. Now. That’s

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: More Canadians. So there so there are two things. So, I mean, you know, Canada’s had a lot of population growth. I mean you know, it’s funny. I you know, early in my career, until until I really started focusing on it hard with this business, I hadn’t realized how much it had grown.

But the, you know, the the rule of thumb has always been Canada is one tenth the size of of The US. Kinda 300,000,000 in The US, kinda 30,000,000 in Canada. It’s now 41,000,000 in Canada. You know, it’s about one eighth the size of The US now. And so it’s had a lot of growth, and there are really two geographies where we are relatively less penetrated.

So, Ontario’s pretty penetrated, but there are actually some real pockets of opportunity as the population has grown. And the Maritimes are relatively penetrated. We are less penetrated in Western Canada and Quebec. The opportunities there are different. In Western Canada, it’s been an amazing business for a long time.

We just don’t have enough restaurants. The returns are fantastic. The sales and profits are above average. We just need to fill in, you know, opportunities there. Quebec has trailed, but it has been outperforming the last eighteen, twenty four months.

Team has done a terrific job there. So there, I think it was a little bit more of a, you know, we’ve got to improve the business, get it on the right trajectory. Team has done that. And over time, I think there’s gonna be growth opportunity there. Probably still a little more work to be done in the near term on that, but it’s definitely trending in the right direction.

So a little bit of fill in in Ontario, a lot of opportunity in the West, and then Quebec comes on as it continues to to perform well. Great.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Let’s shift a little bit to international, which has been a bright spot for the business, outpacing, you know, some of your key peers.

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: All of them. Yeah.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Fair. Why do you think that’s been the case, such a area of strength for you, and any key learnings that you’re bringing back from The US?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Great partners, and it’s really as simple as that. The team has done a really good job of finding the right people, insisting on the right partners. You know, we’re sitting here in France. We had zero Burger Kings in France in 2013. We opened the first one.

We now have a $2,000,000,000 business in France. I mean, it’s extraordinary. I’ve never seen a business grow as fast as this business has grown, and this is probably the single best McDonald’s market, outside of The US. I think it’s a $6,000,000,000 business for them. So we’ve done it, despite the fact that, you know, our competitor, our primary competitor here is very, very good.

They do a great job in in France, and we found a fantastic partner here. Olivier Bertrand and his team have done really well. I’d you know, I’d I’d I know some people are gonna tour with us and those that aren’t, you know, walk to your nearest Burger King here. I mean, it’s remarkable. And frankly, it inspires us in The US.

We look at what we’ve done here and it’s like, yeah, just just do this. You know, the our our restaurants are 80% plus, new image in international, so they’re where they need to be and we just do that on a regular cycle. Digital is 60% plus. In France, it’s much higher than that. I mean, it is a very digital business here.

The food quality is terrific. Restaurants look great. I mean, it’s just an incredibly well run restaurant business. And so that’s, you know, it’s as simple as that. I mean, around the world, we found partners that are committed to doing the right thing.

Our team is driving that and insistent on finding those great partners. We’ve got a modern asset base. We’ve got great operations. It more digital kind of double the digital penetration of The US. It’s just everything is kinda clicking, and we still have better food.

And so that’s ultimately how we win. We just need to make sure that we’re running it as well as our peers are, and in international, on average, we’re doing that.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: You’re accelerating growth in international across your other brands, not just Burger King. Yep. To what extent can you leverage the RBI network?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Very much so. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you from my my old days with that pizza company, you know, and I ran international myself for about five years there, we’d be going into a new market and, you know, I’m calling anybody to say, hey. We’re trying to find a partner in Malaysia. Do you know anybody?

And I mean, through, you know, partners, going through Coca Cola, going through accountants, attorneys, you know, other franchisees, can you introduce us to anybody? Because of the scale of our Burger King business, we already know all of the logical buyers in most markets. You know, we’ve talked to them at some point about Burger King. We know who they are, so we go into a new market, you know, with Popeyes or Tim’s or Firehouse now, just opened in Brazil this week, going very well. And, you know, and so we know we know people.

So it makes a big, big difference. And we’ve got a great team and a scale team, you know, based out of Switzerland, but offices in, you know, in Singapore, Miami, Mexico. I mean, so we’ve got a team around the world that already knows the logical partners, makes it a lot easier for us.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: You’re certainly in categories that appeal globally.

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Turns out that hamburgers and chicken and coffee and sandwiches, we’ve got the four best. I mean, it works. Yep.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Let’s shift over to Popeyes in a very attractive chicken sector. Chicken category seems to be getting a bit more competitive with new entrants. Yep. Other peers just getting into chicken. So how would you frame the near term versus medium term opportunities to improve Popeyes performance?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yep. So, you know, the unit economics are good and getting better. It’s the best brands, best food in the business. Love Popeyes. The food quality is fantastic.

We need to run them better. We need to be faster, more accurate. You know, I think the biggest opportunity at Popeyes domestically is execution in the restaurants. We’re doing that. It’s been improving, but, you know, we’ve got it’s very different than Burger King where, you know, the unit economics weren’t good.

We, you know, we were we were in a bad place there. But I think growth from Popeyes is also, in The US, is also gonna come from running the restaurants better better service, you know, more accurate service. But team’s doing a great job. Launched chicken wraps this week, maybe off to a good start. Only a couple of days in, but, if you look at social media, certainly getting a lot of buzz.

And, you know, so I mean, we just we’ve gotta execute on that. And, you know, frankly, we’ve got, a couple of of competitors domestically, who are executing at a very high level. I mean, Chick fil A has set the standard for running at scale, you know, really, really great service restaurants, you know, good looking restaurants, you know, and and we’ve got to be as good as that. And, you know, I think our food is better, but their service level and execution is better. And, you know, so that’s really where the opportunity is for us.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. So RBI is a platform brand. You acquired Popeyes in 2017, Firehouse Subs in 2021, or coming up four years later. You’ve made what you’ve done called tep temporary acquisitions with Carrols and BK China. What’s your appetite to bring on another brand portfolio, perhaps in a different cuisine?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Any near term basis, kinda zero. You know, we’ve got plenty to work on with the four brands that we have. We’ve gotta prove that this platform is creating more value in these brands by them being together under the RBI umbrella. And I think we’re doing that, but we’ve got years of value creation that we’re gonna be able to generate by just running the ones that we already own better than we are today, continuing to grow them, having the market frankly give us recognition for what we’re getting done, and we don’t need to do it with five.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: I’ll follow-up with that. What do you think is most underappreciated about the market or about the story and what’s misunderstood. Yeah. I mean, look, I

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: think in terms of the the performance of the stock over the next couple of years, there are really two things today that, you know, I would say that that we’ve got to do. First, you know, we’re out there, we’ve reiterated the 8% operating income growth, you know, 8% or better. We’ve got to do that for a while. I think before people are gonna say, yep, they can do this consistently. So I think that’s just on us, to perform over time so that everybody can get comfortable that, yep, they’ve got this and they’re gonna do it.

So that is purely about our executing on that. And then I think there’s still questions around Burger King in The US, and I’m pleased with the performance, the relative performance, but, you know, the category has not been what any of us want it to be. If we were relatively outperforming in a burger category that was growing three or 4%, I think everybody would be very excited about what’s happening at Burger King. When you’re outperforming, you know, a category that’s, you know, basically not had growth for the last year or so, it’s harder to get excited about that. So, you know, I think that’s still a question mark for people, and I get it.

We’ve gotta, you know, we’ve gotta show more progress there, and and, you know, we need to see the category help a little bit. I think that would move it along, but I I think the biggest thing is if we just do the 8% plus on a consistent basis, then I think people are gonna get excited about the story.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: And what gives you so much confidence in the 8% operating income growth that may not be fully appreciated?

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. It, you know, it doesn’t take heroics to do that. You know, we’ve talked about three percent comps around the world, that’s extraordinarily achievable. If you look at the shift, you know, as you move from analog to digital, you get natural ticket growth, not price. You know, it’s just people who are paying more on digital channels, as you know, from every restaurant.

So to get a 3% comp, two or 3% ticket growth, flattish to slightly positive, you know, order count growth and you’re there. And then you need NRG, and and, you know, kind of laid that out how we’re gonna get where we need to go. Though interestingly, you know, what’s been missing is China. That’s not gonna be a huge cash flow contributor. Right?

Those are lower AUV units, you know, just because of, you know, currency and when to translate it back. So really doing what we’re doing, accelerating the platforms that we have on the energy side is all we need to do, and then being efficient with our cost structure. And, you know, we grew our G and A a lot from 2019 or 2020 until a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago. And, you know, Josh and Sammy and the team have done a great job of kind of looking at the growth and saying, where is that growth in G and A getting us, you know, the the returns that we need versus where can we be more efficient? We’re getting that to a good place.

We’ve talked now about being just over 600, you know, million this year, and, you know, you do that, you can you you grow that on a conservative, you know, basis from here on. I think that’s kind of our new foundational level. You grow the top line faster than that. I mean, it’s not hard to get to the 8%.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. With time pretty much up, anything else you’d like to leave investors with today? I know we talked about a lot.

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Yeah. We’re I mean, just very excited, very positive on what we’re getting done. You know, we’re committed to, you know, delivering against what we’ve said to the market around kind of the comps and the operating income growth, and I think if we do that, it’s gonna be a great story the next few years.

Lauren Silberman, Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Thank you so much, Patrick.

Patrick Doyle, Chairman, Restaurant Brands International: Thanks, Lauren. Appreciate it.

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