Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CrossAmerica Partners Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, February 27, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Maura Topper, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning. Thank you for joining the CrossAmerica Partners Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call. With me today is Charles Nifong, CEO and President. We will start off the call today with Charles providing some opening comments and an overview of CrossAmerica's operational performance for the quarter and full year. Then I will discuss the financial results. We will then open up the call to questions. Today's call will follow presentation slides that are available as part of the webcast and are posted on the CrossAmerica website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's call, including the question and answer session, may include forward-looking statements regarding expected revenue, future plans, future operational metrics, and opportunities and expectations of the organization. There could be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs, and projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please see CrossAmerica's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, for a discussion of important factors that could affect our actual results. Forward-looking statements represent the judgment of CrossAmerica's management as of today's date. The organization disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During today's call, we may also provide certain performance measures that do not conform to US generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. We have provided schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of our earnings press release. Today's call is being webcast, and a recording of this conference call will be available on the CrossAmerica website for a period of sixty days. With that, I will now turn the call over to Charles.

Thank you, Maura. I appreciate everyone joining us this morning, and thank you for making the time to be with us today. During today's call, I will go through some of the operating highlights for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. I will also provide commentary on the market and a few other updates as I have done on our prior calls. Maura will then review in more detail our financial results. Now if you turn to slide four, I will briefly review some of our operating results. For the fourth quarter of 2024, our retail segment gross profit increased 5% to $75.1 million compared to $69 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase was driven by an increase in merchandise margin, partially offset by a slight decrease in motor fuel gross profit. Our fourth quarter retail results were against an overall industry backdrop for the quarter of weak fuel demand and soft inside store sales. In that context, our retail results, particularly our same-store volume and same-store inside store sales, both of which outperformed the market, were solid. On the fuel margin front, our retail fuel margin on a cents per gallon basis declined 9% year over year as our fuel margin was 37.6 cents per gallon in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to a very strong 41.5 cents per gallon in the fourth quarter of 2023, part of our record-setting fourth quarter results last year. In comparison to the prior year, which saw a sharp drop in crude oil prices during the quarter, crude oil prices were more range-bound during the fourth quarter of 2024. As a result, our retail fuel margins, while good, were not as strong as the prior year due to this lack of favorable price volatility. For volume on a…

Thank you, Charles. If you would please turn to slide eight, I would like to review our fourth quarter results for the partnership. We reported net income of $16.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to net income of $16.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The slight increase in net income was primarily driven by a net gain of $11.5 million associated with our ongoing real estate rationalization effort and a tax benefit of approximately $1.8 million. This was offset by lower adjusted EBITDA during the quarter, which I will touch on in a moment, as well as a $2.9 million increase in interest expense year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $35.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2024, down 26% from adjusted EBITDA of $47.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. Our distributable cash flow for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $21.1 million, a decline from $35.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. The decreases in adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow were primarily due to the comparison to our record results in the fourth quarter of 2023, which were benefited by very strong fuel margins per gallon in both our retail and wholesale segments. Our 2024 fourth quarter results were also impacted by the increase in our operating expenses in the retail segment, partially offset by an increase in gross profit in our retail segment, both primarily due to our class of trade transitions. Additionally, distributable cash flow was impacted by our higher cash interest expense during the quarter. Our distribution coverage for the current quarter was 1.06 times compared to 1.8 times for the fourth quarter of 2023. During the fourth quarter of 2024, the partnership paid a distribution of 52.5 cents per unit. Charles provided information on our volume…

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers.

It does not appear that we have any questions today. Should you have one later, please feel free to reach out to us. Again, thank you for joining us today. Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.