Arko Corp.

NASDAQ:ARKO

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to Arko Corp.'s First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ross Parman. Thank you. You may begin.

[George Parman, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Arko's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. On today's call, Arie Kotler, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Don Bassell, Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings press release, quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2023 as filed with the SEC and our earnings presentation are available on Arko's website at arkocorp.com.

Before we begin today, please note that all first quarter 2023 financial information is unaudited. And during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by the use of words such as will, may, expect, plan, intend, could, estimate, project and similar references to future periods. These statements speak only as of today and are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements.

Please refer to our press release, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, and our other filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Please note that, on today's call, management will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including same-store measures, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA.

While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to our earnings press release for reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I'd also like to note that we're conducting our call today from our respective remote locations. As such, there may be brief delays, cross talk or other minor technical issues during this call. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to Arie.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Thank you, Ross. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining the call. Yesterday, you may have seen 2 major announcements the company made that we believe show how well we are positioned to continue executing our growth strategy well into the future. Our subsidiary, GPM Petroleum has [ upsided ] its credit line by $300 million to $800 million from syndicate of banks, and we also extended the maturity until May of 2028. We also increased and extended the company's program agreement with Oak Street, which can provide up to $1.5 billion to purchase and lease real estate to GPM or its affiliates through September 30, 2024.

In aggregate, Arko currently has more than $2 billion in available capital for continued M&A activity, including cash, lines of credit and the extended Oak Street program agreement. We are focused on continuing our acquisition strategy to enhance value for our stockholders. Turning to our results, this was another strong quarter for higher merchandise contribution and acquisitions. First quarter same-store merchandise sales, excluding cigarettes, grew 7.6%. Same-store sales increased by 3.8%. The increase in same-store sales was driven by continued strong performance in high-margin destination categories. We include in-depth detail on these categories in our first quarter presentation on arkocorp.com. Some highlights of these destination categories included packaged beverages sales, which increased 9.6%. Candy was up 18.3% and beer increased 6.2%.

Another key headline is the growth in merchandising contribution dollars of $8.1 million or 7.7% on a same-store basis. Total merchandise margin grew 120 basis points to 30.7% this quarter compared to 29.5% in Q1 2022. We believe that these results show that our numerous marketing and merchandising initiatives are working, resonating with customers and driving sales growth. Higher merchandise contribution margin and our recent acquisition helped to offset lower fuel contribution and increased in-store operating expenses, resulting in adjusted EBITDA of $47.5 million for the quarter compared to $50.1 million in the prior year quarter, a decline of 5.2%.

Total fuel contribution increased to $123.8 million compared to $112.9 million in the prior year quarter, an increase of $10.9 million. On a same-store basis, including legacy wholesale sites, total fuel contribution dollars were $95.2 million, which declined $15.4 million compared to $110.6 million in Q1 2022. The fuel contribution was lower with the majority of this decline, related to elevated fuel margin in March 2022 at same-store retail sites compared to March 2023. EPG was $0.477 per gallon versus $37.3 per gallon in March 2023. This was driven by increase in fuel prices, due in part to the invasion of Ukraine. We still believe that structurally, higher margin will remain given increased operating pressures.

Going back to our strong in-store performance, I will now update you on our 3 key merchandising and marketing pillars. Our first pillar is to grow sales in core destination categories through data-driven decision and strong supplier partnerships. Cigarettes are certainly a destination category, however, core destination categories, our refocused investment on resources such as people, space and capital. These are packaged beverages, beer, candy, salty snacks, sweet snacks and alternative snacks. These categories drove 63% of our Q1 same-store sales, excluding cigarettes, and 43% of our total same-store sales. Our customers expect and deserve for us to have the right assortment, space and value in these categories. Same-store sales in the 6 core categories grew by approximately 10% in Q1 2023 over Q1 2022. The margin rates in these categories grew 110 basis points in Q1 2023 over Q1 2022.

We continue to refine and drive the expansion of these categories across our company-operated stores to ensure that we are offering our customers the right assortment and value proposition. The core criteria of our M&A strategy is to acquire a chain where we can add value. Arko's scale, purchasing power and merchandising and marketing expertise has enabled the company to improve the performance of stores that we purchased by improving the product assortment, product placement, promotional events and loyalty. One example of our ability to add value is at our 36 Andy Mart stores in North Carolina, which we acquired in November 2021. As a follow-up to detail, we shared on our last call, we continue to make progress in the stores.

First quarter results at NDMA stores were as follows, and our old Q1 2023 compared to Q1 2022, our first full quarter of operations; merchandise sales increased 6.7%, and merchandise sales, excluding cigarettes, increased 12.2%. Merchandise margin increased 400 basis points to 33.2% compared to 29.2% in the prior year quarter. Sales of the 6-core destination categories I mentioned earlier, grew by 14.9%. We are also encouraged by early results at the price stores that we recently acquired and reset. We believe we will have similar results at the TEG stores, but we are currently in the process of resetting. Moving to the second pillar, our Fast Rewards loyalty program, we implemented a major new upgrade to our loyalty app that was launched March 29 to develop and string relationship with our customers and drive more trips with our existing customers, while attracting new loyal customers. We currently enjoy approximately 1.38 million enrolled members.

Since the launch of the upgraded app, the number of member enrolling each week has increased an average of approximately 30% compared to pre-launch enrollment. We are also excited to announce our 100 days of summer loyalty enrollment offer that start on May 17. A new customer will enroll with valid e-mail address and phone number, will be rewarded with $10 in fresh box delivered through their new app wallet with these customers may spend in our stores on participating categories. We are very excited about this promotional offer as we know that enrolled marketable members make more trips and spend more in our stores than non-enrolled members. In fact, in Q1 2023, our involved members made an average of almost 6 more trips per month versus non-enrolled members. In Q1 2023, enrolled members spent on average approximately $68.50 more per month than non-enrolled members.

Additionally, the Q1 2023 enrolled members increased their average monthly spend by 8.2% compared to Q1 2022. While early, we are encouraged by engagement in the new app, including the redemption of our in-app only hot deals as well as use of our new in-app order and delivery functionality. The third pillar is expanding our packaged and fresh food offerings, including pizza, chicken, repair foods and other options. Same-store franchise sales across all brands increased 24.5% in the first quarter, as compared to the prior year. While we have made great progress with our grab-and-go prepare, frozen foods and franchise partnership with Sbarro and Dunkin', we are still in the early stage of defining this strategy along with assortment and price value proposition for the consumer and our go-to-market strategy. Our goal is to become destination for package, preferred and fresh food, and we look forward to providing further updates.

Our objective is to make continuous improvement in each pillar and position our core convenience store business to continue delivering great results and exceeding our customers' expectations. We're now in the midst of our sow-operation team annual Pride Ride. We think of this as going through our stores for spring cleaning. We do this every year, including visits and inspection at all of our stores. These events allow us to rally together and prepare for the 100 days of summer, our biggest selling season and to ensure that we are customer ready for the big selling season. Switching gears to EV, we continue to make progress on electric vehicle charging. At the end of Q1, our network included more than 50 charging ports with plans to add more charging capacity across the country.

Turning to M&A, following the closing of Quarles and Pride acquisition in 2022, we closed the TEG acquisition on March 1, 2023. TEG added 135 convenience stores and expanded our Southern retail territory into Alabama and Mississippi as well as 192 dealer locations. We are pleased with the results of this acquisition so far. The WTG acquisition is anticipated to close in the second quarter. This acquisition will significantly announced the company's footprint in attractive Western Texas. Now, let me briefly address our proposal to acquire Travel Center of America. Our intention were consistent with our track record and strategy that has been very successful and has made Arko an acquirer of choice, transparency and open negotiation. We believe our proposal, as we've been given an opportunity to perform customary diligence, would have provided the immediate cash value to TA stockholders at significant premium to the next best offer with no financing contingencies.

And for the record, neither our proposal to TA nor any other previous acquisitions have ever had financing contingencies. Our repeated attempts to engage with TA's management and Board were met with firm resistance resulting in a more public conversation through press releases and filings rather than productive discussions. We believe a wider group of investors now fully appreciate our rapidly Arko can move to create the right condition for a deal. We appreciate Oak Street and others moving very rapidly along with us. We reserve cash and maintain flexible financing so we can take advantage when the right opportunity arrive. Given our liquidity, we will continue to evaluate deals, concentrating on return on capital consistent with our traditional discipline approach. We are also investing in our business.

We are more committed than ever to driving long-term sustainable inside sales growth, expanding margin and gross profit dollars. Before I hand the call over to Don and given that we're not currently providing guidance, I want to detail seasonality and reiterate our historical seasonal performance. We believe that historical quarterly cadence is an important factor to consider when evaluating our performance. The first quarter historically is our least active sales period, while the third quarter is our strongest. Using an average of 2021 and 2022, the first quarter contributed about 17% of overall adjusted EBITDA and the second quarter about 28%. The third quarter has historically contributed about 32% and the fourth quarter about 23%. I will now turn the call over to Don.

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Thank you, Arie. The company has continued to record excellent results. Our initiatives are clearly gaining traction. The stable ratable cash flow from the wholesale and fleet fueling segments have enhanced our deal-making flexibility and augment further investment in our core convenience store business. Our balance sheet continues to be strong, and we currently have a very good liquidity position. As of March 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $256 million. Our outstanding debt, excluding capital leases, was approximately $809 million, resulting in net debt of $553 million. Additionally, we continue to realize excellent cash flow.

For the quarter, net cash provided by operating activities was $15.9 million versus $30.1 million for the first quarter of 2022. This includes an investment in working capital associated with the TEG acquisition. Getting into results for our convenience stores. Merchandise revenues for the first quarter of 2023 increased to $400.4 million versus $367 million in the prior year quarter. Merchandise margin increased quarter-over-quarter by 120 basis points to 30.7%. Total capital expenditures were approximately $23.4 million for the quarter. This compared to capital expenditures of $20.7 million in Q1 2022. Retail fuel profitability, excluding intercompany charges, for the first quarter of 2023 declined 1.9% this quarter to $88.1 million. This was a $1.7 million decline versus Q1 2022. There was an $11.4 million decrease in same-store fuel profits, excluding intercompany charges, primarily offset by $10.8 million in fuel contribution from the TEG and Pride acquisitions.

The company maintained relatively strong retail fuel margin of $0.0354 per gallon for Q1 2023 compared to $0.0375 per gallon in Q1 2022. First Quarter convenience store operating expenses increased $18.9 million or 12.1% versus the prior year quarter due to $15.9 million of expenses related to the TEG and Pride acquisitions and an increase in expenses at same stores, including approximately $6 million or 9.7% of higher personnel costs compared to Q1 2022. The increase in store operating expenses was partially offset by underperforming retail stores that we closed or converted to dealers. Moving to wholesale for the quarter, wholesale fuel contribution, excluding intercompany charges, decreased approximately $1.8 million. The relatively new fleet fueling business generated fuel revenues of approximately $127.5 million for the first quarter.

Fuel contribution, excluding intercompany charges from the fleet fueling sites, was approximately $13.8 million for the quarter. Fuel margin cents per gallon, excluding intercompany charges for the proprietary cardlock locations was $0.0445 per gallon. Net interest and other financial expenses for the first quarter decreased by $2.4 million versus the prior year quarter to $13.6 million. Net loss for the quarter was $2.5 million versus net income of $2.3 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA was $47.5 million compared to $50.1 million in the first quarter of 2022.

In the first quarter, the company repurchased approximately 89,000 shares of our common stock for a total of approximately $700,000. There are approximately $10.3 million remaining under our previously announced $50 million stock repurchase program. Because of our continued results and desire to enhance returns for stockholders, Arko's Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.03 per share of common stock to be paid on June 1, 2023, to stockholders of record as of May 19, 2023. And now, I'll turn the call back over to Arie.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Thanks, Don. I will close by saying that we believe 2023 will be another year of strong performance and growth. I want to thank the company's more than 13,000 employees for their hard work and dedication. Now, we will take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Anthony Bonadio with Wells Fargo.

[Anthony Bonadio, analyst]

So just quickly on the Oak Street facility, to start. Beyond the upsizing versus last year, is there anything else you can tell us about how the terms of the agreement differ from last year? And then anything you can tell us about the new cap rate?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

This is our secret sauce. I mean, the only thing I can say about that is that every deal is going to be different right now. We amended the program agreement in order to be attractive and active over here. And as we move along, I'm assuming we're going to be able to provide more information as soon as we start to transact. But we are not sharing at this point, any other terms that can actually be competitive.

[Anthony Bonadio, analyst]

Understood. And then on the fuel side of the business, can you just talk about your latest thinking on the balance between achieving incremental per gallon gross profit versus potentially driving additional gallon volume. And then in that context, just any color on your price gaps appear in fuel versus how that's trended historically?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Sure. It's a very good topic and very good question. So, maybe I will break it down a little bit by what happened in Q1 because the Q1 basically decline is really in March 2023, as I basically explained earlier. So we entered 2023 with a decrease of 8.3% in January. And as we continue to move along towards basically the cycling of the invasion of Ukraine, I mean, we saw much less decrease. In February, for example, the decrease was only 4.7%. And as we enter March, the March decrease was only 4.5%. So we are going to be competitive as always. We are always competitive. But what I think what we see over here is that the minute the price of fuel started [Technical Difficulty] in March, the unleaded price on average was in 396. This year the unleaded price was 329.

So I think in this environment, when the price of fuel is much lower than prior year, I think we're going to have a little bit more flexibility over here. I think people are going to drive more. And as I said, we will continue to look for gross profit dollars, but at the same time being competitive. And as you can see, we always say that. There is really little correlation, if any, between inside sales and basically an outside sales. I believe margin is going to continue to be high, given that operating expenses are higher. But again, we are making sure that we are ultra-competitive outside and very, very competitive inside and have the great offering for the people to come in.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets.

[Kelly Bania, analyst]

Arie or Don, I was just wondering if you could help us and maybe we missed it, just the contribution from Pride and Quarles in the quarter and on an EBITDA basis, just trying to kind of back into what maybe was organic in terms of EBITDA for the quarter? Any help you could do there would be great.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Don, would you like to take it?

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Sure. Kelly, we did not specifically break out TEG or Pride or Quarles for that because, again, it's only 1/4 of the year-over-year. And I know it's hard to do from organic models. I think that the message that we wanted to pass on is, look, we had great merchandise results. We had a very tough fuel margin in March that we are up against. And basically, because of our acquisitions with Pride, Quarles and TEG, we were able to offset that loss in fuel. So I think if you take anything away from this, I think without specifically doing it, we basically were able to keep our EBITDA very close to last year against all the headwinds we faced. As we go forward, we will consider disclosing those numbers. But again, the message to take away is we have this model that can weather the fuel up and downs and that these acquisitions help us balance that year-over-year.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

And just to add further, just to finish the line on this one. We have a $15.4 million on gross profit dollar compared to prior year on a same-store, and as Don mentioned, we are only $2.6 million on EBITDA to prior year. So as you can see, the $15.4 million was basically offset with inside sales and the help of those acquisitions. And that's how we basically finished the quarter very close to the quarter last year.

[Kelly Bania, analyst]

Got it. And Don, you mentioned the seasonality, the pattern, historically, over the last 2 years. Are you at all suggesting those are a good kind of rough frame of reference for this year as well? Or what would be any other key seasonality items to keep in mind, given the volatility in fuel margins and the comparisons as well as the M&A that's still flowing through?

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Sure, sure. So again, we're not going to project what they are. We try to give that out so that you could -- again, we're a relatively new public company and with a lot of acquisitions and things going on. If you look at '21 and '22, there were acquisitions, but there weren't any major things like an Empire or anything like that. It's more just to look at it at a historical past and provide historical information out to the public. I think what's interesting, when you look at seasonality, it's not just sales volume, it's also how the different things happen.

For example, in the summer, your merchandise margins are higher because you're buying higher-margin stuff. Typically, you'll see lower fuel margins in the first quarter and things like that, the exception being last year. So again, we just wanted to just point that out and bring that to everyone's attention from a historical perspective, not as guidance. And again, I know with our acquisitions that sometimes we're going to be confusing. But I think we've at least, in my belief, that we've sort of returned back to a more normal pattern than we've seen, but it's yet to be seen what happens. As you know, each year provides its own. But certainly, the last 2 or 3 years have been kind of unique. But we think '21 and '22, again, have probably even more what we are used to see.

[Kelly Bania, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And then I'll just ask one more on the inside same-store sales. Can you just give a little bit more color on the breakdown of traffic, inflation, items for basket just really kind of unpack that same-store sales figure for us a little more.

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Yes, sure. Arie, do you want to say, do you want me to? Okay. So again, we're continuing to see the same patterns we've talked about before. We're continuing to see obviously people coming in and with less trips at a bigger basket. And that's also part of what we're trying to drive the loyalty to. Yes, there is inflation driven in there. And obviously, every time prices go up, we try and pass it on as most people do because you can tell looking just at our personnel expenses are very high. But what we're really focused on is what is it doing in our margin? Where are we doing on the GP dollars?

Because obviously, we could sell a lot of cigarettes and really both boost our sales and you can look at the increases that come from cigarettes. So it's really hard to break apart the inflation piece of it. What we're focused on, as already talked about, is the key categories inside the store. And we still think there's a lot of opportunity inside the store without doing some other things that we can unlock a lot of this. And that's why we stay very, very focused on all categories. But again, on the sales [indiscernible] and making sure we can extract as much as we can, not only from new acquisitions, but also from our base.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

And I want to add, clearly, a couple of points. I think it's important for everybody to know. On the first question that you asked, I just want to point the $0.47 versus the $0.37. I think it's important for everybody to know that we don't anticipate $0.10 different quarter-over-quarter or month after month. This is not something we anticipate. It's really the invasion of Ukraine. We saw all of a sudden a big increase in March. And as I said, things settled, it's $0.37 basically March. So I think this is a one-time event that we saw in March. I don't anticipate those things happening on a regular basis. I think this is something very important. And that reason out of the $15.4 million really $13 million really extent in March. That's a decrease. That was offset by the acquisitions and of course, the inside sales.

So I think that's comment number one. Number two, regarding to your question, if you're really looking -- and we described it actually in the Arko if you go to the Arko Corp and you look on our presentation for the month, we basically described the increase in the core categories. There are 6 core categories. And those 6 core categories basically represent almost 60% of merchandise sales, excluding cigarettes. Candy was up 18.3%, pack bev 9.6%, salty snacks, Swiss snacks, all of those categories are RA margin categories, and that's why we were able actually to increase gross profit dollars from these categories. The last thing, I wanted to add is that all of the initiatives, we kept talking, for example, last year, we talked about adding 550 bean-to-cup coffee machine to our stores.

So just for everybody's reference, if you're looking on our coffee business, our coffee business, Q1 '23 versus Q1 '22, it's up 133%. But if you're really looking on those 550 stores that we added bean-to-cup coffee machines, the coffee business over there by cups basically that were sold for $0.99, we're up 208,000 cups. It's 100 and almost 55% up basically compared to prior years. So I think all of the initiatives and all of the things that we're actually putting to play not only working, I mean, you see the results and deliver basically this gross -- increase in gross profit dollars. And this is what we believe all of those initiatives that we actually made in 2022, I think now we're going to start to see basically the fruits for them, including the acquisition.

I mentioned NDMA that we added around approximately 700 items to the store just for everybody's benefit on Pride, which we just finished to reset the stores a couple of months ago, we added over 1,000 items to pride. And TEG, which we are in the process of resetting we're also on average, adding another 1,000 items. This is an increase of almost 20%-25% increase in items in the store that belongs to core categories. So I think you guys understand where is our focus and what basically what we are able to achieve in a very short order.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

I guess already and Don -- first, I just wanted to talk and maybe unpack OpEx growth a little bit more. So the quarter actually, even against tough comparisons had pretty good gross profit growth, but OpEx up on a GAAP basis, at least 17% year-over-year. Can you kind of talk about some of the drivers in that? And are the new acquisitions just bringing on a faster growth of OpEx? And is there any opportunities to kind of control that or slow that growth going forward?

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Yes. So, great question. So let me try and pick that part, okay? So first of all, let's look at retail OpEx. I think we talked about that most of that OpEx, we went up about a huge amount, but most of that was taken -- if you just take out the portion for TEG and Pride, I think it was $18 million just on retail. We take out TEG and Pride about $18 million. And then you look at just labor was $6 million on same stores. And so, if you look at the rest, that would be a decrease, and that's due to stores that we converted to dealer and things like that. But also, when you look at our labor increase. That's also a good sign, too, because one of the things we had versus last year, we had a lot more open positions.

So it's not so much as inflation even though inflation is coming in, it's also filling positions that were not filled. So I think that's a sign -- a positive sign, too, going forward. When you look at G&A, when you take off the expenses for the acquisitions and also the non-cash equity award, G&A is not increasing that much at all. We still believe, again, with these acquisitions, what we want to do is bring them on and we talked about from a synergy perspective that we wanted to make sure that they operate as they were, and we still expect to get further synergies from these acquisitions. So a lot of this really is being driven by the acquisitions, some of this being driven by labor, but that labor, I think the message to take away from this is not as much the labor rate is going up, but more that we're filling positions that were not filled. And that is true both in the store and also in G&A as well.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Don, the comment about G&A should we look at the $3.576 and acquisition costs that were called out in the EBITDA bridge as impacting all -- those all hit inside the G&A line?

[Donald Bassell, executive]

No, those acquisition costs hit inside the different item under other expenses. So when you talk about things -- like when I talked about the stock comp expense, I believe that was about $1.4 million. That isn't within the G&A line. We've also got the acquisition expenses of the new businesses we brought on to as well. But again, what I'm talking about is, for example, many of our competitors did a huge issue in hiring people in the field because a lot of people in the field -- because managers weren't available were having to do double duty.

So I think what you're also seeing is making sure that we have the right amount of people and making sure those open positions are filled, which again, I want to go back and emphasize at the point with those positions being filled, it helps us to execute better at store level, too. So -- and we've also added some resources to from a technology standpoint, which are going to help us be more efficient in the long run, too. So this is not like a linear growth where just keeps going. We see more synergies definitely coming down the road, and we anticipate those. But there are also some non-cash growth in there, and there's also cash just from acquisitions.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Okay. I appreciate that detail. And then I guess, secondly for me and my last question, Arie, the TA acquisition was obviously a big potential acquisition that you guys looked at. So maybe I was just hoping you could talk a little bit about your philosophy and the company's philosophy on size of targets that you would look at, especially now considering the new financing you've updated us? And then, maybe put it in context of also you have an outstanding share repurchase program out there and the stock is, at least in our view, at a pretty compelling valuation. Just so how do you kind of balance those 2 aspects?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

I think those 2 aspects are -- every one of them stand on its own. We have enough liquidity right now to continue with share repurchase on one end. On the other hand, we are going to value acquisition, probably no different than what we do before. I mean, the travel center acquisition was a big acquisition. It was a great opportunity for us to double the size of this company, double EBITDA and probably more than double EBITDA with synergies, we probably were able to achieve a lot of synergies over here given our size and given their size. And this is something that we focus. We look on multiply and the multiples were just great, and we felt that this is a great opportunity. And that's the reason, by the way, we approach them and try to pursue it because we felt that this is going to make this company much bigger and much stronger.

So that was the approach. I don't think anything really change in our approach, Bobby. We're going to continue to pursue small acquisition, midsize acquisition, large acquisition, given that we have the M&A team out there, I don't think we are basically not paying attention to all of the acquisitions that are in the marketplace. We're going to continue to be disciplined. We're going to continue to basically look on return on our capital to our shareholders. So I don't really think anything change over here. As you mentioned, the stock price. My opinion is probably similar to yours. I think the stock is cheap right now, and we will actually evaluate that and see what else need to be done on our end.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Okay. I appreciate the detail is best luck here in the second quarter.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Thank you very much, Bobby. We appreciate your question.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Mark Astrachan with Stifel.

[Mark Astrachan, analyst]

I appreciate you don't give guidance. I'm curious how the quarter came in relative to your expectations, if there was anything that stood out through the totality of the results relative to what you thought 3 months ago.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Well, it's a tricky question, Mark. Because we are not providing guidance, so it's a little bit difficult for me to answer. I can tell you that the quarter didn't come very close to our expectation. Let me put it this way, very close to our expectation. Not a big surprise. And again, I think that we didn't anticipate $0.47. I can tell you that we were not anticipating $0.47, again, in the month of March. So that was not a surprise to us. We still believe that margin, CPG will continue to elevate and will continue to be high, just because all of the other noise operating expenses being high. And I think that we were able to offset the $15 million decrease over here that we didn't anticipate in terms of margin, I think we were able to actually offset them with the acquisition that we had and with the strong inside sales that we were actually able to actually to perform over here.

[Mark Astrachan, analyst]

Got it. And on the inside store sales, so the core categories that you highlighted in the presentation, I'm curious if you could unpack how much pricing drove the same-store sales growth relative to volumes of those categories, and how that potentially plays into margins, but then also as you start lapping the significant inflation-based pricing that a lot of these companies put into place starting a year ago or so at this point. Did that contribute to traffic increasing or purchases or conversion of purchases within the store.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Well, I can't give you the breakdown, but what I can say, and I think that's going back and I'm using the coffee just because this is a great example, okay? When I keep talking about the -- when I keep talking about the loyal members, for example, and this is the reason why we're pushing so hard with loyal members. We are going to implement this program on May 17. We are going to provide $10 for every customer, that we'll actually come to our stores, enroll, provide these e-mail and telephone number. There is a reason for that.

And I kept talking about the $0.99 increase. I mean when you sell 326,000 cups more, which is 133.7%, you obviously understand that some of it or a lot of it is actually because of traffic. Because of loyal customers coming to our stores more often, I mean, you can see it. I mean, loyal customers coming to our stores, 6x more often than the non-loyal customers. There is an increase in basket, their average purchase in Q1, which is the lowest Q, it's $68.5 and I think that's actually -- I think explain the message about increase in other products and sales. When you're talking about increase on card holders, buying coffee, it's 130% more than the card holders that bought coffee last year -- prior year.

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Yes. And Mark, let me follow up on -- what I already said is correct. We cannot break it out. But I can tell you that these kind of increases, and when we talk internally, we think about, it's driven by unit increase mostly. Yes, there's some inflation. But these are -- I don't want to -- these are actions taken -- tactics taken to increase shelf space to put the right products in. So we actually see more units going. Inflation is there, but that's not the biggest part of it. The biggest part really is more units moving off the shelf.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

And just to finish this question, Mark, just to finish the question. And we specifically wanted to talk about Andy Mart -- this is just an example because remember, we are competing. If you're really looking on our competition on this environment, in this industry, almost 100,000 stores or mom-and-pop a small chain. So we took Andy Mart an example because remember, we just -- we finished 23 acquisition closing the #24 sooner. But if you're looking on Andy Mart, since we took over, we were able to increase gross margin, I mean, over here, a merchandise margin by 400 basis points since last year. Just if you're looking on sales, for example, okay?

If you're looking just on sales in Andy Mart, our sales in all of those categories, grew 14.9%. This is not increase of price. I mean, this is really a real increase in inside sales. And I think all of these initiatives and all of those tactics that we're using will be here, including all of our marketing initiatives and merchandising initiatives, they're actually growing sales dramatically over here, especially in those small acquisition. As I said, we have Pride with 31 large locations that were just reset. We have TG with 135 locations that we are finishing to reset right now. We believe we'll see -- we'll continue to see big impact with those acquisition that we just accomplished.

[Mark Astrachan, analyst]

And just lastly, I'm curious, given the volatility in the macro, how that has impacted, if at all, just M&A generally, are there more or less the same number of targets out there, bigger, smaller? Any sort of change relative to maybe 3, 6, 9, 12 months ago?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

I don't see any change. I actually see an increase in M&A activities and M&A opportunities. We all see what happens to interest rates. We all see what is happening over here. And I just think that given interest rate is higher, I believe, multiply should actually decrease a little bit or settle a little bit. And that's what we anticipate at least moving forward, but I don't see any decrease whatsoever. I see that actually an increase on the other side because a lot of small chain with all of those things that we mentioned, as I said, I want to make sure no one take it for granted that we were able to achieve those inside sales growth and increase in margin of 120 basis points. Most of the small chains are not able, as a matter of fact, they're actually going backwards with that because they don't have the economy of scale and they don't have the capacity and they don't have the relationship with the suppliers. So when you don't have those capability, you basically maybe even losing margin given that you don't have economy of scale over here. So the minute you start struggling. I mean, the first thing you do is try to figure out how you exit the business.

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Yes. Mark, one other thing and I think -- and one thing we really didn't talk about is with the renewal and upsize of our GPMP agreement now to 2028 and our bonds that are due in 2029, we have now long-term financing commitments that are not in the short term. So there's no near-term payments we have to get over or whatever. So we -- and we've designed it this way also, same thing what we do at Oak Street. So I think that puts us in a really good position that our cash flow should remain very strong over the years to come with no big balloon payments that we have to make. And that's one of the reasons why we went early on GPMP to get that not only upsized but also to get it extended to 2028.

[Operator]

Our next question is from William Reuter with Bank of America.

[William Reuter, analyst]

I have 2, so the first is your merchandise comps were up. I think that this was mostly on inflation, although there was a comment, just a bit ago, about units being up as well. So I just wanted a little bit of clarification there. And then 2, historically, I think I view this as a pretty recession-resistant category where you may benefit from some trade down as much as you benefit from some consumers trading out of purchases entirely. I guess, what are your thoughts on that?

[Donald Bassell, executive]

So let me -- I just want to clarify my comment that I made earlier, okay. Yes, there is inflation, and we see that. And while we can't break it out, we do know internally that we look at the key categories that we do see more units moving on the higher-margin items, okay? So it's not all inflation. Because, again, one of our strategies is to make sure our stores are set with items that consumers want. So I want to make sure the message gets across this is not all inflation, this is planned. This is making sure that the higher margin items that we're trying to get senior items that we want consumers to buy it is also more units moving, as opposed to cigarettes, which we know the cigarette smoker units are declining and the prices are going up. And I'm sorry, I'll let you go from there.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Yes. No, no, that's -- you say exactly what I wanted to say that I don't -- I want to be clear, this is not inflation, this is all initiatives and all of the things that we're doing, but that's actually going to answer your second question, which is you're absolutely correct. We are a very resilient business. We are in a very, very resilient industry. This is probably the only industry or one of the only industry that during 2008, 2009, basically didn't decrease. We were not impacted during 2018, and then during inflation, you see what is happening right now -- during inflation. People are coming to our stores to buy the typical stuff that they're actually buying. We are a very essential business. I mean, people that smoke going to continue to smoke. If it's good or bad and they're going to continue to smoke regardless.

The same thing goes to the beer category, which is a very big category. And you see what is happening right now with salty snacks and what is happening with Candy. People are not going to stop to eat a small candy bar, and it doesn't matter what is happening with precession over here. And I think that's going to happen is that people are actually shifting from going to QSR and restaurants into their local convenience stores in order to basically buy a sandwich -- and I think those are the areas of opportunities for us that we're going to continue to grow. We have pizza located -- we're selling pizza today in 200 locations. We have coffee in most of our locations bean-to-cup in over 550 locations. From a price standpoint, it's $0.99 for loyal members. You can find coffee today for $0.99 for loyal members. And again, when they come in and buy their coffee, they are grabbing some other things that they actually wanted to buy. So I actually think our business, in inflation, should do much better than many other businesses out there.

[William Reuter, analyst]

Sorry, just one more for me. You mentioned that you are seeing more M&A opportunities. You referenced interest rates. Does this mean that valuations of those opportunities are becoming more attractive and coming down? Or are valuations remaining where they've been over the last year?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

It's difficult to answer because maybe for some people, valuation in their mind continue to stay high. When it comes to us, we will continue to basically evaluate those acquisitions on what is our return on capital. That's the way we're looking on them. So maybe from a valuation standpoint, valuation didn't -- are not changing a lot. But remember, given our size today and our economy of scale today and our purchasing power today, we probably are able to pay a little bit more than what we paid last year and what we paid maybe the year before. And again, this is driven just because of our size and just because of our capabilities. That's absolutely.

So I think the bigger we are, I think it gives us opportunity to be a little bit more attractive versus some other small chains that don't have the economy of scale over here. But I think that valuation did not change a lot. But again, this is just the beginning. Remember, interest rates start to increase only last year. We are at 5.25% right now with the last increase just risen. So I don't think there is a lot of acquisitions that happened over the last 3 or 4 months. And the ones that happened, I think we're relatively for a little bit lower valuation that we saw probably last year. But it's not dramatic. I want to be very clear. This is not something dramatic that multiple went from 10 to 5, for example. It's maybe half a multiple or so. That's what basically I see over here.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Hale Holden with Barclays.

[Hale Holden, analyst]

$0.99 is an unbelievable deal for a cup of coffee. So I just -- I had 2 questions. The first one on travel centers. That's a slightly different model than your core sort of the big 25-acre truck stop lots. And I was wondering, as you think about M&A, is there a flex -- do you continue to have flexibility to think about transactions like travel centers that might be a little bit outside of what the core Arko is now? Or should we think about you more on the core [indiscernible] side?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Travel center was really a unique opportunity. But to be honest with you, there is only one travel center out there. Again, you have the big pilots and loves and some other big travel centers, but not a lot -- not a lot. I mean, they are very, very unique company out there. And we felt that this is a great opportunity. In terms of fuel, we are selling fuel. We are in the fuel business. We are selling fuel. If you're looking on our revenue, 60% of our revenue comes from fuel. So that's not something different for us. And I think the similarity in travel center is that 65% of their profit came from the inside sales -- inside sales and services, very similar to us, by the way. If you're really looking on our business today, around 61% came from the inside sales, basically, I'm talking gross profit dollars where they're growing most of the gross profit.

They had restaurants over there, we actually felt that from basically expanding our food service offering, that might be an opportunity for us. But just remember, we did 24 acquisitions. We closed on 23, and we can operate 500 square foot store and we can operate 6,000 square foot store. So I don't think that the business from an inside sales model, I don't think the business was really different. Again, the size matters and the size of this company was something that was very attractive for us. The multiple was very, very attractive for us, and that's why we pursued it. And I don't think it's going to be different in the future. We are concentrating on our retail business. There is no question that the majority of our profits come from our retail business, and we're going to continue to pursue any opportunity that is out there.

[Hale Holden, analyst]

Okay. And the second question I had was on labor inflation, and I do understand that -- that's from largely filling empty or open positions rather than actually wage inflation. But that would suggest it's a little bit more structural as we go forward in terms of your cost base. And so, I was wondering if you were thinking about that the right way? Is this a little bit of a step up in labor as you go through this year until you can find a way to leverage it down.

[Donald Bassell, executive]

Yes. So let me answer first. Well, I said it's a combination of both. We still have wage inflation going on there from competitors in all different types of retail operations. My comment was more that it's not just straight wage inflation. It's filling open positions. Just to clarify.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

And just to -- maybe to add a little bit to it. Remember, we are operating not in a vacuum. I mean, if you come -- you can come to work for us, and you can go work for the guy across the street. So everybody basically are competing on the same person, especially when you go to rural locations, I mean, they can come to work for us, they can go across the street and work at the QSR location across the street. Everybody has the same increase in utilities, in insurance. Everybody has the same expense increase, I don't think different than us at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how big we are at the end of the day, the cost to operate a short, the cost to operate a store period. I think the good thing about increase in basically in labor inside the stores is what you exactly see with the increase in inside sales.

The minute you have more people working and more people basically filling positions. I can assure you that -- that's going to increase the profitability because that's going to increase the service, that's going to increase the inside sales. When you have one person working in a store, you also need to be on the register and you also need to help customers, and you also need to fill the coolers during the day. When you have 2 people in the store, they can actually split the work and one of them make sure that you have the right product on the shelf. So and again, this is something that almost every retailer is facing in America right now, especially in our industry. I think the good thing is, as I said, that as we continue to see more position filled, I think we're going to see increase in sales just because of that.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets.

[Kelly Bania, analyst]

I just wanted to fit one more here on gallons. The commentary on the cadence of gallons through the quarter was very helpful. But I was just wondering if you could kind of step back, and as we think about gallons longer term, what would be the conditions or the backdrop that would allow gallons to grow or stabilize in the declines? And are you also you give a lot of examples of the great work that you're doing inside the store from a margin and merchandising perspective. But as you make these acquisitions, what are happening to gallons and where do you see gallons going forward for those acquisitions as well as the core kind of space?

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Sure. First of all, thank you for coming back, Kelly, for another question. And since we're not providing guidance, I'm going to try to provide maybe a little bit more details on what we saw last year, and I think maybe that's going to help you. So if you guys remember last year, it and almost a year ago. Last year, in -- basically in April, the unleaded price was $3.86. We lost approximately 7.7% gallons price increase in June to $4.70. We lost 12.7% in gallons last year. Price continued to be high at the high 4.24% in July -- between June and July, around 424, we were at 12.6% down on gallons. The minute the price dropped to 364 in August, we were down 8%. And as the price continue to decline, we continue to see a much lower decline in -- basically in fuel prices. My theory is the following; we are not operating on major highways. We are operating in a lot of fuel locations. The minute the price goes above $4, people stop driving. People will walk to their convenience stores or think twice before they actually drive to a convenience stores or to any place they leave the house with basically those high basically prices.

So as long as the price of fuel continues to be in the trees and not go all the way up to 470 like we saw in June, I believe that we're going to see a very small decline compared to last year. And again, it's all about also being -- not only competitive, we're also going to continue to concentrate on increase of gross profit dollars. So I think the message clearly over here is that it all depends on fuel prices. And by the way, that's going to impact the entire economy over here. It's not just Arko or convenience stores, the entire economy was down dramatically when price of fuel actually exceed $5 on average across the nation. But again, I believe the thing, what I see today, I believe that if oil prices and fuel prices continue to stay where they are today, I actually think that we will not see a big drop compared to prior year.

And I did answer your question regarding to acquisition. When we actually put them on our platform, we're using the same method that we actually use across the entire chain. So it's something -- first of all, we are putting those stores on KSS. This is the algorithm software that we put on. And usually, those guys do not have any kind of technology, and we are measuring them. We're not making changes on the spot. We are measuring, we are seeing who is the competition. And then little by little, we start to basically use our methodology over here, which is increasing gross profit dollars as long as we continue to be competitive in the marketplace.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Arie Kotler for closing comments.

[Arie Kotler, executive]

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, everybody, for participating this morning. We're looking forward to seeing you guys in our stores, especially now when we are entering 100 days of summer, this is the driving season, drive safe and be safe over there. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.