The Wendy's Company (NASDAQ:WEN) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call August 10, 2022 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kelsey Freed - Director, Investor Relations

Todd Penegor - President and Chief Executive Officer

Gunther Plosch - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

John Glass - Morgan Stanley

Lauren Silberman - Credit Suisse

Dennis Geiger - UBS

Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays

Jared Garber - Goldman Sachs

Andrew Charles - Cowen

Chris O’Cull - Stifel

Eric Gonzalez - KeyBanc

Peter Saleh - BTIG

Brian Mullan - Deutsche Bank

Andrew Strelzik - BMO Capital Markets

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

Jon Tower - Citi

Gregory Francfort - Guggenheim Securities

Nicole Miller - Piper Sandler

James Sanderson - Northcoast Research

Jake Bartlett - Truist Securities

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to The Wendy’s Company Earnings Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Kelsey Freed, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Kelsey Freed

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Today’s conference call and webcast includes a PowerPoint presentation, which is available on our Investor Relations website, irwendys.com.

Before we begin, please take note of the Safe Harbor statement that appears at the end of our earnings release. This disclosure reminds investors that certain information we may discuss today is forward-looking. Various factors could affect our results and cause those results to differ materially from the projections set forth in our forward-looking statements. Also, some of today’s comments will reference non-GAAP financial measures. Investors should refer to our reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure at the end of this presentation or in our earnings release.

On our conference call today, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Todd Penegor, will give a business update and our Chief Financial Officer, Gunther Plosch, will share a franchise health update, review our 2022 second quarter results and provide an update on our outlook for the year. From there, we will open up the line for questions.

With that, I will hand things over to Todd.

Todd Penegor

Thanks Kelsey and good morning everyone. I am incredibly proud of the entire Wendy system for driving a significant sequential acceleration in our results in the second quarter, which highlights the strength of our underlying business and brand as well as our commitment to the restaurant economic model.

Our global same-restaurant sales significantly exceeded our expectations, marking a third consecutive quarter of double-digit 2-year growth. We once again accelerated versus the prior quarter on a 1 and 2-year basis, which highlights the momentum that continues to build on our business across the globe. This sales growth translated into an almost 300 basis point sequential expansion in our company-operated restaurant margin even as we faced incredible inflationary pressures during the quarter.