MTY Food Group Inc

TSX:MTY

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MTY Food Group Inc. Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, April 9, 2021. I would now like to turn the call over to Eric Lefebvre, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for MTY's 2021 First Quarter Results Conference Call. The press release and the MD&A with complete financial statements and related notes were issued earlier this morning and are available on our website as well as on SEDAR. During the call, we will be referring to certain indicators that are non-IFRS measures. You can refer to our MD&A for more details. I also remind you that all figures presented on today's call are in Canadian dollars otherwise unless otherwise stated. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to thank our customers for their continued support and their open mind to new ways to buy and consume our food while restrictions and constraints are imposed by local authorities. We've continued to support our restaurants which are more often than not owned by small entrepreneurs in your community. I would also like to thank our franchise partners and their staff who faced daily challenges and worked extremely hard to serve customers under far from mild conditions. We also faced the roller coaster of restrictions and relief, which characterize some of the territories in which we operate have demonstrated in recent past in Québec and Ontario. As the pandemic remains ever present in our daily lives and weighs heavily on people's morale, I can't help but be impressed by the amazing work, resilience and dedication of the people who work in the MTY family. I sincerely want to thank them all for their commitment to our common success. During the first quarter, we faced unprecedented restrictions imposed by our business -- on our business in Québec, Ontario and California, the 3 territories in which MTY's network normally generates the most sales. From complete closure of malls, dining rooms and patios to stay-at-home orders and curfews, the conditions to operate a restaurant when it wasn't even possible or extremely difficult. While all this happens, we are seeing a gradual lessening of restrictions in some other geographies, mainly in the U.S., showing us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that customers are eager to return to our restaurants. As we weigh in the circumstances in which we operated for Q1, we are very pleased with our performance for the quarter. As discussed in recent calls, We are constantly investing time and resources in digital sales channels and new digital marketing vehicles to take advantage of the rapid shift in consumer behavior and expectations. The work we've done in our ability to rapidly adapt are well reflected in the growing proportion of our network sales coming from digital channels. To put things into perspective, digital sales in general increased from 5.14% to 30.6% in the first quarter, while in the U.S., we essentially doubled to 28.9%. These numbers are also reflecting sequential increases over the numbers reported for the fourth quarter of 2020. As in previous quarters, we have used our strong cash flows to repay long-term debt, allowing us to reduce our debt level by another $29 million. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have reduced our total debt level by close to $130 million, bringing MTY's leverage to a comfortable level and at a level that is lower than most of our comparable peers in North America. Now more specifically on results. Heavier restrictions imposed in our business during the quarter translated into over 57,000 lost business based for MTY's network, almost twice in September reported for the fourth quarter. Lost days were mostly in Canada, where restrictions are the heaviest.On the bright side, we're proud to report positive organic sales growth for the U.S. for the second consecutive quarter. This quarter, again, Cold Stone Creamery and Papa Murphy's were the main drivers of the organic growth in the U.S. system sales, their combined contribution reached an impressive $53 million. This, in turn, fueled a 23% growth of the EBITDA for the U.S. and International segment. Unfortunately, that growth was more than offset by a 55% decline in Canadian EBITDA, which Renée will address in more details in a few minutes. We finished the first quarter with 6,949 locations. We opened 41 locations and permanently closed 93 for a net store loss of 52. Although that number remains a net erosion of our network, I'm proud of the resilience of our franchisees in the current circumstances. The number of locations close was 38% lower than in Q1 of 2020. On the flip side, the number of store openings was lower than expected during the first quarter, mainly driven by the uncertainty created by the pandemic. As indicated last quarter, the pipeline of new franchisees remain healthy, and we expect the normal rate of store openings to resume in upcoming quarters as visibility over the after pandemic becomes better. During the quarter, 1,705 locations were closed for 1 or more days due to COVID-19. As previously indicated, this represented more than 57,000 business days loss and many of our restaurants operated in the limited capacity. At the beginning of the first quarter, 338 restaurants were temporarily closed, while 321 remain closed at the end of the quarter. As of today, 302 locations or 5% of our network are temporarily closed. System sales for the quarter reached $761.1 million, down 24% compared to our great first quarter of 2020. The decline largely reflects a second wave of restrictions in Canada with monthly sales declines of between 45% and 50% when compared to last year. In the U.S., relatively speaking, our network continued to perform very well. Given the continued fall performance of our U.S. operations, System sales for that market represented 67% of our total sales compared to 53% in 2020. Canada and international markets represented 29% and 4% of total sales, respectively. As for the evolution of our network, the pandemic is strange picture, Canadian sales in malls and office towers were down 69% and 89%, respectively, while sales in casual dining locations were down 65%. In the U.S., the trends were similar, with the exposure to those types of locations is much lower than in Canada. Consequently, system sales related to mall and office towers and nontraditional formats now represent only 8% of system sales each. All our 3 locations accounted for 84% of total system sales. I will now turn it over to Renée, who will discuss MTY's financial results.

[Renée St-Onge]

Thank you, Eric. Good morning, everyone. As Eric mentioned, we're pleased with our first quarter results considering the continuing impact of COVID-19 and the second wave that's hit our Canadian network. More than 57,000 losses of business due to the pandemic come -- with an additional 400 lost days of business due to the winter form are definitely impacted MTY's recurring revenue as well as our adjusted EBITDA.We continue to feel the impact of the current 302 temporarily closed locations and expect to see more locations shutdown as I hear you enter the 4-weeks stay-at-home lockdowns, which started just last night. These closures and other government import restrictions impacted total revenue significantly for the quarter. Total revenue saw a decrease of 21% to reach $119 million. The decrease came mainly from a decline in our recurring revenue strain. These are closely related to our system sales, which, as mentioned by Eric, saw a decrease of 24%. Through processing, distribution and retail revenue operations, however, continued to benefit from higher consumer spending in grocery stores, new SKUs and extensions into these provinces. In the first quarter, we had 147 branded products for sale in the Canadian market compared to 109, 1 year ago. All of these factors combined translated into sales growth of 10% year-over-year. First quarter adjusted EBITDA decreased to $32.6 million compared to $41 million for the same period last year. While the U.S. and International segment posted a $4.2 million increase year-over-year and organic adjusted EBITDA growth of $4.7 million. Canada's first quarter adjusted EBITDA decreased by $12.6 million and mostly to the decline in recurring revenue. This was partially offset by $6.3 million in savings and recurring comparable expenses most of which were from reductions in wages resulting from the continued cost control measures we implemented to mitigate the impact of lower revenue as well as the reduction in yields and travel costs. We also saw a significant reduction in consulting and professional services year-over-year. This $6.3 million mentioned does not include amounts received on Canadian emergency wage and in subsidies, from which MTY continues to benefit. In total, we benefited from these subsidies with a total of $1.8 million in wage subsidies and $0.5 million in rent subsidies in the quarter. I'd also like to point out, this is the first quarter in which we are able to report comparable figures with regards to IFRS 16. As you may have already received in our MD&A, We have decided, however, to continue to show the variance year-over-year as we know rents are an important factor in the current context of the pandemic. Net income attributable to shareholders was $13.4 million or $0.54 per share for the first quarter of 2021 compared to $19 million or $0.76 per share for the same period last year. Again, the decrease was mainly due to the effects of the pandemic on MTY's operations. As for our liquidity and capital resources, despite the ongoing impact of the pandemic and its negative impact on revenues and EBITDA, MTY generated solid cash flow from operating activities of $31.3 million in the first quarter of 2021 compared to $31 million for the same period last year. Following our strict capital management efforts to tightly manage liquidity, free cash flow in the first quarter of 2021 decreased by only 1% to $30.3 million or $1.23 per share on a fully diluted share basis, which was in line with the same period last year. As mentioned by Eric, Our focus remains on debt repayment, and we need $29.1 million of the cash generated during the quarter due for long-term debt, which at the end of the quarter stood at $441.4 million mainly in the form of our credit facility and holdbacks on acquisitions. Despite debt repayments, we continue to enjoy a healthy financial position with $39 million of cash on hand at the end of the quarter and over $290 million available from our credit facility. Now I'll turn it back to Eric for the conclusion.

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Thank you, Renée. While we can see some light at the end of the tunnel, the next few months will continue to bring some challenges. The intensity and level of government restrictions remain highly unpredictable in many regions. Despite the impact of the pandemic, MTY finds itself in a very strong financial position and has been able to generate solid and steady free cash flows. Over the last 12 months, which coincides with the beginning of the pandemic, MTY has generated $140 million in free cash flows or $5.68 per share and has repaid over $130 million of its long-term debt, resulting in lower interest payment obligations and a comfortable leverage level. Because of the sacrifices made in the past 12 months, we see better days ahead as the effect of dependent and gradually disputes. In the second half of 2021, we expect to be in a position to resume the payment of dividends and repurchase of MTY's shares for cancellation. We remain very attentive to potential attractive acquisition targets. And although we will remain extremely disciplined, we feel ready to acquire new concepts that will fuel our growth in the future. To conclude, I would like to once again thank our franchise partners for the encouraging resilience as well as our employees, customers and suppliers for their ongoing support. With that, I thank you for your time, and we will now open the lines for questions. Operator?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. We will begin with our first question coming from the line of John Zamparo of CIBC.

[John Zamparo, Associate]

I want to start with digital sales. Can you give a sense of how sticky these are? I know it's difficult to measure, but maybe you could comment on digital sales in stores or regions that don't have dine-in restrictions versus one who do?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. That's a good question. And obviously, we'll know as we get out of the pandemic, but we really think that these new ways for people to order food and to view our menus. I mean, I think this is going to stay in the future. Is it going to stay 100%? I don't know, but I think it's going to be close to that. And that's why we keep investing in that new media. Basically, it's a good marketing tool for us. People view our menus. We try to have attractive pictures of the food. The food shots are really, important there, the way we present our menu. It gives people time to look at the menu. So you don't have the pressure of being in line in one of our restaurants with people behind you. And that's why also we see a much higher average basket when people order online. So we really think at the moment that these sales are going to be sticky. There's probably going to be orders at the counter and more orders online. And we're starting to see it in the U.S. where restrictions are a lot loser than in Canada. And we're seeing it, for example, at Cold Stone, where people order online, just skip the line basically. So it makes a much better customer experience where in the past at Cold Stone people would complain that the speed of service was a little bit slow. The line might have been long. So now they can customize their order, order ahead of time. And when they walk in the store, they just take out their order and leave so they can enjoy the product. It brings certain challenges as well. The interaction of our staff with our customers is less because of that. So we need to find new ways to create that emotional connection with our customers. But the quality of our online ordering apps and the quality of our tools that we're using in marketing and food shots and everything and the quality of our products are key. And we really think this is going to be sticky in the future.

[John Zamparo, Associate]

Okay. That's helpful. I was wondering if we could get some more color on the U.S. business. And clearly, your 2 biggest banners are performing quite well. You did reach organic system sales growth in the U.S., but an outsized performance on EBITDA has been increasing over 20% year-over-year south in the border. So I know we've asked about this before, but can you add some more color on sustainability of the cost cuts that we've done and how you see this playing out if there is a recovery that -- of the size that many of us expect in the restaurant space. What might your SG&A in the U.S. look like?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, even if the business in the U.S. is doing better than Canada, we asked our U.S. divisions to also make efforts in terms of cost cutting. So again, we see the result of that. There's been -- it's been 13 months now of pandemic.So obviously, there's been a lot of us taking a step back and reassessing everything we do, reassessing all our processes. And looking at the way we do things. Crisis was an opportunity for us to really hit pause and question everything we're doing. When you're going full throttle, like we were before, it's hard to take the time to do that. So we reassessed everything. We reorganized a number of things. The vast majority of the cost savings we have there are going to stay in the future. There is going to be a portion, especially the portion that's related to travel and meals, but we'll probably increase a little bit in the future as we go back to normal. But the vast majority of those cost savings will stay in the future.

[John Zamparo, Associate]

Understood. Okay. And then one more for me. You mentioned food courts and office towers. I think you said 8% of total system sales in the quarter. Can you give us an approximate split of what that would be in Canada versus the U.S.? And really, I'm trying to get a sense of if you believe a certain percent of system sales is permanently alter because of work-from-home preference in the future. And what that amount might be, if you think it's immaterial or if it's something that you have to make greater plans for?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, for sure, there's going to be a lasting impact. I don't know if it's going to be permanent, but it's going to last for certain amount of time. Our presence in malls and office towers in the U.S. is almost nothing. So the vast majority of our malls and office towers are in Canada. And yes, I mean, everything that's in an urban center at the moment is under pressure. So everything that depends on office towers, whether you're in a mall, a food court that is close to office towers or in an office tower itself, it's going to be under pressure for certain amount of time. We're seeing a lot of places now saying, well, there won't be people in offices before at least September and maybe later. So there will be a lasting impact on those businesses. There's no question about it, and it forces us to reassess the economic model for all these restaurants, reassess everything how we do business, who do we cater to and the type of concepts also that we're going to have in these centers. So We need to reassess everything based on the information we have now, which unfortunately, is incomplete. We know our current situation, it's hard to predict what's going to happen. But yes, there's going to be a lasting impact, whether it's permanent or not, I think will depend to a certain extent to all of the participants that are in these urban centers or in these malls to find new ways to make these places attractive again in the future. But that being said, I think when the mall is open, you see there's a lot of traffic in malls and people still want to go to malls. There is a reason why malls exist, and there's a reason why the good malls will always be existing. The lesser malls might disappear in the future, but the good malls will always exist. There's always going to be business to be done there.So it's up to us to find a way to be attractive, find a way to give the food or serve the food to our customers that this is what they're going to want in the future. So we're adapting. We're constantly rethinking the menus we have, the type of concepts and the way we're going to serve that food. So it's -- I would say, unfortunately, it's more a stay-tuned type of answer, but yes, there's going to be lasting impact, but I don't know if they are going to be permanent.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Derek Lessard at TD Securities.

[Derek J. Lessard, Research Analyst]

Eric, actually, most of my questions have been answered, but I do have one -- I think I asked a question last quarter as well. Just wondering if there's anything new or any new developments or positive takeaways from using the ghost kitchen concepts? Or is it something that could really stick post pandemic?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Yes, there is positive with ghost kitchen. Especially when we use ghost kitchens in existing restaurants where we don't have to buy new equipment, pay another layer of rent or anything where we can use what we have. It's actually quite promising for us to open new concepts that are -- that don't exist on the street, but that exists on the aggregated apps. So it's been working out pretty good for us. We do have a few of those going and the tests are -- have been positive. So we're rolling out a certain number of them where it makes sense. And most of the time, when we do those kitchen, we just create a new concept that people can associate to that restaurant where the food is being delivered from or where the food is being prepared. And it's been working out. It does create some good incremental sales for us. And we're always very careful not to compete with our existing restaurants in the neighborhood. So if we have burger restaurants, for example, 2 blocks down, we're not going to create a ghost kitchen for burgers and another restaurant because we want to protect our franchisees, but it's where we see opportunities, we go for it, and it's been working out. Where ghost kitchens are most under pressure is where you need to build a restaurant just for the purpose of being a ghost kitchen, even though you might have 5 or 6 concepts in there. The costs are -- at the moment, the costs are too high for the returns you're getting. So we've tried it in a number of different places, different geographies, different types of restaurants. And then so far, we've never been able to produce a profit from those. So we're going to focus on our existing assets, our existing restaurant base, try to help our franchisees with additional sales that might come from those kitchens. But at the moment for us to build ghost kitchens doesn't make sense economically.

[Derek J. Lessard, Research Analyst]

Okay. And that's tough. Is there -- are you opening or -- are ghost kitchens in both Canada and the U.S?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes, and in the Middle East as well.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vishal Shreedhar of National Bank.

[Vishal Shreedhar, Analyst]

With respect to inflation in the basket, do you have a sense of what that was and maybe how much of an inflation was caused from the mix shift towards digital?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. It's a good question. The basket, yes, there is digital typically will create a pretty big bump on the average basket size. What the reason is it varies depending on the brand. Some brands will have higher basket size because people will buy more. Sometimes it's just the orders that are grouped together instead of being individual. But yes, there's quite a bit of inflation on the basket size. Different brands will have different inflation. We see brands going from 5% to 7% inflation to the more typical 17% to 20% basket size increase with the digital sales. That being said, we also had to increase our prices pretty much across the board, especially in the last 2 or 3 months where the price of commodities and the price of pretty much everything that goes into our restaurants has been increasing fast from the packaging to the protein to oil to any of the products we use in our restaurants, the inflation has been quite abrupt. So we had to increase prices. So there's a little bit of both there.

[Vishal Shreedhar, Analyst]

Okay. With respect to the differential on digital versus in-store, just the differential in pricing associated with the different methods of ordering for the same product, do you have a sense of what the average higher price is on digital versus same-store? And if that mix shift is also causing inflation?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

It depends on what type of digital we're talking about. So if we're -- if customers are ordering on our on own website, typically, the prices are the same or actually sometimes lower because we give discounts to people that order using our own platforms. So there's no price difference there. Where we do have a price difference is when we're talking about the aggregators. So if you ordering for delivery on Uber, DoorDash or Skip or all the others that are in the market, we will have a price differential. And then it's mostly up to the franchisees to decide what the price difference is going to be for their stores. We try to talk to our franchisees that a 15% price difference is reasonable, but some of them will go lower than that because we want to be more attractive to customers. Some of them will go higher because we want to cover some of the charges that are related to delivery. But I would say, on average, we're probably between 10% and 15% higher when we're talking about aggregators.

[Vishal Shreedhar, Analyst]

Okay. And related to digital, are you seeing -- what are you seeing in customer perception serving? I don't know if you track Net Promotor Score, are you seeing -- what are the common feedback again? Is it concerned about pricing or is convenience, the benefit that's overcoming that?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, it really depends on which -- it's really a store-by-store thing. And it's not something we can necessarily address at the company or even at the brand level. It's really the quality of the service at the store level that matters. So we are tracking these customer reviews store-by-store, individually trying to improve on those. But I can't tell you there's, once I fit all type of comments here, there's food is cold and took forever to get my food or it's over priced or whatever decision types of comments we get when they're negative and when they're positive, it's what a great experience, the packaging was great, the food was perfect because there's a lot going into trying to have the right food at the right temperature and the right textures and the right everything, not all food travels well, so it's a challenge for us. But so far, I mean, we're seeing a lot more positive comments than negative. And it's good, but we're constantly trying to improve and constantly trying to review these comments. But there's always going to be pluses and minuses depending on the execution at the store level.

[Vishal Shreedhar, Analyst]

Okay. And maybe I'll just add another one here. Royalty rates in the U.S. picked up a bit. I'm guessing that's due to mix. Just wondering how -- with all these changes that are happening in such a quick period of time, how we should think about royalty rates?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. You're right. It's to sell it. So as you see, Our sales mix going back to normal, I guess, in the next few months, we'll go back to the type of royalty rates we always have. But being around 5% is normal. So Canada went down a little bit. We have a few abatements for some of our stores, and the sales mix is different as well. And in the U.S., the sales mix has caused the royalty rates to increase a little bit. But you shouldn't expect major changes going forward. It should always be around that 5% mark.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of George Doumet of Scotiabank.

[George Doumet, Analyst]

Looking at the Papa Murphy's and the Cold Stone specifically, I mean they've done it really well during the pandemic. I'm just wondering to what extent you would expect those concepts to grow their comps in fiscal '21 as we kind of anniversary the pandemic?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. And that's the million-dollar question. We -- right now, we're lapping to a certain extent, the beginning of the pandemic. Last year, we saw our sales of Papa Murphy's go really strong at the beginning of April -- late March, beginning of April. And then we're still comping positive now as we're lapping these early stages of the pandemic. Obviously, we're not in the same double -- high double-digit growth that we had. We're in single digit, but we're still comping positive for now, there's no guarantee for the future.But it's still working out. For Cold Stone, we'll see it took Cold Stone a few months before the business went back to normal and that got fire in the summer. So we'll -- time will tell, but right now Cold Stone is still selling a lot of ice cream. It's a great product. We've improved a lot of different things just before the pandemic hit. And hopefully, these sales are going to be sticky in the future as well. We're optimistic, but it's another question where I wish I could have a really great answer for you, but we're going to have to wait and see and do our best to try to maintain those levels.

[George Doumet, Analyst]

Okay. And I think if you allude to 5 test locations where you were doing renovations for Papa Murphy. Can you maybe talk to the lifting costs that you saw maybe rentals renovations. And are you extending that to more locations at all?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, the rentals were not necessarily You go over the rentals was not necessarily to create a huge lift in sales. So we didn't necessarily do a lot of marketing around those renal. What we wanted to do is test the concept and test the design that we have and test different iterations of the rentals. So I mean, all our restaurants are doing well in these markets. So those restaurants that were renovated are doing well. What's attributable to the rental or not is difficult to measure. But yes, we did test those. We did find a few issues with the decline we had. We're correcting that, and we're going to be ready for a more aggressive rollout going forward. There's been constant discussions with our franchise partners as well to make sure that we get it right and that they understand where we're going and that they embrace it. So there's been a lot of discussion. But yes, I mean, if you're asking me how the stores are comping, stores are comping positive.

[George Doumet, Analyst]

Okay. I know this is probably a difficult question, and there's a lot of lumpiness in these numbers. But what would you expect -- what was like the online penetration maybe as we kind of exit this year and next year and as COVID becomes maybe less rampant. And also what's the percentage of takeout versus delivery in that number?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, takeout is growing faster than delivery, and that's I guess that's good news for our franchisees. Both segments are growing. Where we're going to land when it's all over, I don't know. We knew even 5, 6 years ago, we started talking about delivery and online order. And we knew it was going to be a thing, with COVID everything accelerated. really were going to be important. We knew we'd probably get to the percentages we have today, we just didn't know it would be that early. But that being said, most of our concepts, their takeout operations by their very nature. If you look at any of our concepts, you look at Cold Stone, you look at Papa Murphy's, you look at Thai Express, at Sushi Shop, at Taco Time, at Baja Fresh, at Yuzu. All these concepts, they're mostly take-out operations. So the fact that we're doing online ordering is just natural for us because we really think that very nature, that's in our DNA, which is takeout. Where we might see shifts is where we have casual dining restaurants. So we're going to be selling more for takeout and casual dining than before, probably where we're going to land, I'm not sure. The customer experience is certainly not the same when we biting room assist when you take it out to eat at home. But I think all of us are learning how to take out food and enjoy it at home as well. And I mean just myself, personally I'm ordering breakfast for takeout, and I love it, having breakfast with my family at home, but I think the type of breakfast that we have at Telemaco co or Ben & Florentine or TuttiFrutti, I mean this is a great experience. It's a different experience, and we need to adjust to it. But I think it's going to be higher than before, but I'm not sure exactly where we're going to land in the future.

[George Doumet, Analyst]

Okay, fair enough. And just one last one, if I may. Can please talk to the closed locations this quarter, maybe how many of them were early terminations? And I know there's seasonality, but looking at it from an annual number, would you expect closure in fiscal '21 to be comparable to fiscal '20?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, not many of the closures we had in the quarter were early terminations. There were some -- there's always some. Whether we're during a pandemic or not, there's always some early terminations, unfortunately. Most of them were more natural types of terminations where the leases or the franchise agreements were over and it was time to either move to 2 blocks down the road because the location would be more relevant or to close down because some demographics in the area were not relevant. So I mean most of them are end of lease type of closures. How '21 will pan out, I'm not sure. It really depends on how tight the restriction stay, especially in Canada. How much assistance is available to franchisees? We know that the Federal Government in Canada are offering assistance until June. What happens after is, are we back to normal life and everything opens or are we still locked down and then needing more systems. So there's a lot of moving parts now, and it's hard to predict exactly how many of our restaurants will close during the year. I would say that what we're seeing now is the franchisees we have in the system, they're fighting and they want to succeed and they want to start their business again and they want to use their restaurants and then produce income and enjoy the type of atmosphere you have in the restaurant. But there's too many things we don't control to be able to give you a number, unfortunately.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Glen of Raymond James.

[Michael W. Glen, Equity Research Analyst]

Just on the working capital, you've done a really good job at the working capital over the past 12 months, particularly with the account payable. Just wondering if there's something specific going on with the account payable, and should we think that, that might reverse to some degree in coming quarters?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

No. Early in the pandemic, when we didn't know where our cash flows were going to be, we certainly asked our suppliers to be more patient with us. But we brought that back to normal at the end of last year.So there's nothing specific going on with accounts payable. It's just a natural flow of invoice payments and everything. So nothing special going on with the accounts payable or the accounts receivable for that matter. Where we might see differences in the working capital is going to be with payment of income taxes. In the future, we haven't paid much in the last year. We do have higher payments expected, especially in Q2 for income taxes. So that will create a small blip, I would say, compared to previous quarters. But other than that, there's nothing going on with the working cap.

[Michael W. Glen, Equity Research Analyst]

And do you -- so do you think you can still generate more positive working capital out of the business?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

That's the objective.

[Michael W. Glen, Equity Research Analyst]

Okay. And just on labor, what are you seeing or hearing right now from your franchisees in terms of labor market shortages and inflation on wages?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. Well, we have different scenarios in different jurisdictions. So if you're looking at the U.S., I don't think there's a massive shortage of labor. I think it's finding people is not necessarily a big problem. There's pockets where it's more complicated. But generally, accessibility of labor is there. Obviously, there's an expectation that wages are going to be higher. We see states increasing minimum wages and everything. So causes some pressure on franchisees, obviously, and we're finding ways to alleviate that thing, whether it's becoming more efficient in the restaurant, having more of the food prepared by our suppliers so that we reduce the labor in the store. There's various ways that we're looking at our labor. Just it's small things. Sometimes you just receive your food pre-portioned instead of having to portion it in the store and makes a big difference. You stay 8, 9, 10 hours a week in a store and there weren't any business, so it makes a difference. In Canada, it's a much bigger problem, especially for Eastern Canada. You look at Québec, Ontario, to a certain extent finding staff is just almost impossible at the moment. We -- restaurants had to close again in Québec City. But when we were allowed to reopen early in March, we have franchisees that we able to reopen just because we couldn't find staff. And it's not about how much you want to pay them. It's -- literally, there is no one. And unfortunately, our federal government has closed the door to expediting the integration for restaurant workers, whether they're cooks or chefs or any other position in the restaurant. So it's going to make it a little bit more complicated at least for 2021, we are going to be creative to find ways to adapt to the shortage of staff, but it's certainly a challenge at the moment.

[Michael W. Glen, Equity Research Analyst]

And the staffing shortage that you're seeing in Canada, is that -- do you think that some of that's being driven by the federal government programs relating to the wage subsidy and how some of the workers are able to get paid?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. At the beginning of the pandemic, I would have said, yes, I think now it's a different situation we're facing. Obviously, there's that, but there's also a lot of people that were recycled and in other jobs. You look, for example, and in Québec a lot of people entered the health system, and we're trained and heavily subsidized by the government to do so, and that's a good thing because we need these people. But unfortunately, these people are not going back in restaurants. There's more drivers for all sorts of delivery services, not only restaurants, now you see Amazon, you see restaurants and you see all these other things that are delivering. So a lot of our staff has gone to that as well. A lot of our staff decided to change careers. Restaurants were the first ones to close and the last ones to reopen, and we were still closed in many places in most places, actually in Canada. So people that need work, they will find a job in some other industry that is currently open, and it's hard to get them back after when we reopen. So I think it's a perfect storm now of many different things that are, unfortunately, all going against restaurants. And now we're seeing restaurants are closed in most places in Québec and Ontario, and it's time for us to hire students. And unfortunately, students are not going to go to restaurants while they're closed not knowing if they're going to have a job this summer. So the students will go to some other industry, creating additional pressure on restaurants again. So It's going to take a while for the balance to be restored in terms of the workforce for restaurants and other industries.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Dimitry Khmelnitsky of Veritas.

[Dimitry Khmelnitsky]

I was just wondering if you could share with us the proportion of so-called Class A malls locations for your malls, for your fast food, for the food court locations. What are -- what's the proportion in higher quality malls?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

We like to thank most of our mall locations are in high-quality malls. I wouldn't say all of them and unfortunately Dimitry, I don't have the exact proportion of class A versus class B or Class C malls. But I would say the majority of our mall locations are in the good malls.

[Dimitry Khmelnitsky]

Okay, understood. And just to touch on the previously asked questions about payables. Do you use any supply chain financing arrangements or reverse factoring for the payables?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

No, we don't.

[Dimitry Khmelnitsky]

Okay. Excellent. And revenue and EBITDA contribution from the ghost kitchen, could you share that with us?

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Yes. It's minimal at the moment for ghost kitchens. Those are mostly tests. They're add-ons to existing locations. So it's still a very minimal proportion.

[Operator]

At this time, we have no further questions. I will now hand the floor back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

[Eric Lefebvre, CEO & Non]

Thank you again for joining us on this call. I look forward to speaking to you again toward our next quarterly call. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's event. This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.