Bloomin' Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLMN) Q1 2023 Results Conference Call April 28, 2023 8:15 AM ET

Company Participants

Tammy Dean - Senior Director of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations

David Deno - Chief Executive Officer

Chris Meyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays

Alex Slagle - Jefferies

Lauren Silberman - Credit Suisse

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

Sharon Zackfia - William Blair

Jeff Farmer - Gordon Haskett

Sara Senatore - Bank of America

Brian Harbour - Morgan Stanley

Brian Vaccaro - Raymond James

Jon Tower - Citigroup

Dennis Geiger - UBS

Andrew Strelzik - BMO

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Bloomin' Brands Fiscal First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions].

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tammy Dean, Senior Director of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Thank you, Ms. Dean, you may begin.

Tammy Dean

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are David Deno, our Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Meyer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. By now, you should have access to our fiscal first quarter 2023 earnings release. It can also be found on our Web site at bloominbrands.com in the Investors section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting results on an adjusted basis. An explanation of our use of non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures appear in our earnings release and on our Web site as previously described. Before we begin formal remarks, I'd like to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including a discussion of recent trends. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ in a material way from our forward-looking statements. Some of these risks are mentioned in our earnings release, others are discussed in our SEC filings, which are available at sec.gov. During today's call, we will provide a brief recap of our financial performance for the fiscal first quarter 2023, an overview of company highlights and current thoughts on 2023 guidance. Once we've completed these remarks, we'll open the call up for questions.

With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to David Deno.

David Deno

Well, thank you, Tammy, and welcome to everyone listening today. As noted in this morning's earnings release, adjusted Q1 2023 diluted earnings per share was $0.98, which compares to $0.80 in Q1 2022, up 23%. Q1 2023 marks the best quarterly diluted earnings per share in the company's history. Combined US comparable sales were up 5.1% with each brand having positive same store sales. The first quarter reads further validate the strategic and operational framework we outlined for the year and set us up to deliver our commitments. I will be giving an update on our plans in a minute. Before doing that, I would like to thank our teams in the restaurants and restaurant support center for their unwavering commitment to serving our guests. Through dedication to great hospitality and service and experience is what makes our company so successful. As we look to build upon the momentum of the first quarter, we continue to remain focused on executing our plan to grow the business. As a reminder, our priorities include driving same store sales growth, maintaining off-premises momentum, sustain the progress in operating margins, becoming a more digitally savvy company and increasing new restaurant openings.