Albertsons Companies Inc Aktie

Greetings. Welcome to the Albertsons Companies' Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the call over to Cody Perdue, Interim Chief Financial Officer of Albertsons Companies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make today are only as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any such statements.

Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in this morning's earnings release.

Now let me hand the call over to Susan Morris, the Chief Executive Officer of Albertsons. Susan?

Thanks, Cody, and good morning. Thank you all for joining us. Today's call is going to be a little different. Before Cody and I review the quarter and tell you about the big steps we're taking to accelerate Albertsons' progress, I've asked our new Executive Chair, Meg Whitman, to provide you with some of her thoughts and observations. Having access to Meg has allowed me to draw the perspective of a veteran CEO who has grown companies, unlock shareholder value and manage an enormous array of challenges. Her insights are helping us refine our efforts. I want you to hear Meg's early impressions about the company.

After Meg speaks, I'll provide a recap of our second quarter results and an assessment of our performance, discussing the actions we're taking to improve the business. Finally, Cody will cover our financial results in some more detail. So Meg, please take it away.

Thank you, Susan, and good morning, everyone. I want to spend a few minutes this morning sharing my perspective as I begin my role as Executive Chair. Over the past several weeks, I've spent some time with management, directors, associates and customers and have been getting to know the business. While it's still early days, here are some observations.

First, Albertsons has significant strengths. We operate strong local banners in many prime locations, serve millions of customers every week, generate substantial cash flow and have talented associates who care deeply about serving their communities. Our pharmacy business is robust and a crucial part of our customers' lives. We've built a strong e-commerce platform and see AI as critical to our success. We have a proud history, and we want to win.

That all said, our performance has fallen short. Sales and earnings growth have not met our expectations. Market share trends have lagged and despite many individual successes across the business, we're not delivering results consistent with the quality of our assets. We must turn things around. The first step is to take a hard look at the business, challenge assumptions and decide what actions create the greatest value for customers and shareholders. That includes looking at opportunities to run the core business much better by improving the operational model and decision-making. It also includes improving the cost structure, reducing price for customers and resetting priorities for improved capital allocation.

We must also take a close look at our portfolio of banners, markets, assets and businesses as well as any potential strategic actions we can take to enhance shareholder value. Susan and I agree that everything should be on the table as we figure out how Albertsons should be structured to better compete in the years ahead. As I've worked with Susan and her leadership team, one thing has become increasingly clear. We must move faster to reduce costs, reinvest much of those savings into lower prices, improve the store experience for customers, grow traffic and share in core markets, drive ID sales and revenue and improve returns for shareholders. Albertsons must become a simpler, more focused company that gets the basics right every day.

I joined Albertsons because I believe the company has greater potential than its results have reflected, but dramatic improvement is needed now. Albertsons must move faster to change the trajectory of the business. What I have seen in Susan and her team is a renewed commitment to create long-term sustainable shareholder value, all while staying focused on Albertsons customers and communities. I believe we will turn the corner.

So with that, let me turn it back over to Susan.

Thanks, Meg. Before discussing where we're headed, I'd like to briefly address the quarter's results. Identical sales declined 0.8%. Adjusted EBITDA was $784 million and adjusted EPS was $0.36 per share. On the top line, ID sales in our core grocery business sequentially improved versus the first quarter by approximately 20 basis points. At the same time, pharmacy script count growth remained strong despite increasing sales headwinds related to the Inflation Reduction Act and an ongoing shift from branded to generic prescriptions. E-commerce continued to deliver double-digit growth of 11% during the quarter.

Let me characterize the quarter by saying we saw some early signs of improvement. Some of our cost takeout and in-store execution began to yield results in the quarter. Those gains, however, need to be accelerated to offset continued pressure in our core retail operation. The reality right now is that the economy is tough for many of our customers. Fuel prices are elevated and inflation remains stubbornly high for our customers and in our P&L. Traffic and units are below where they need to be, and our overall performance does not reflect the quality of our assets or the capabilities of our team. Simply put, we're not satisfied with the results and the current trajectory of our business.

Over time, we launched a number of initiatives for good reasons and with the right intention. Upon reflection, however, too many initiatives, processes and layers of complexity have built up, slowing the organization and increasing the cost of running our business. I take responsibility for some of that complexity. We recognize the need to simplify how we work, sharpen accountability and move with greater speed and discipline to deliver better results. Going forward, our focus will be much narrower. Our resources will be concentrated on the right projects that most accelerate our results. And our expectations and accountability for results will be significantly higher.

We must deliver more consistently for our customers. Price matters, promotions matter, freshness matters, convenience, selection and customer service matter. Our job going forward is to deliver all of those things better than we do today. Over the last several years, we've invested in e-commerce capabilities, loyalty, pharmacy, retail media, owned brands and fresh differentiation. Those are important investments that have increased the value to our customers. Now we must double down on the basics. Our stores must provide the products our customers want at prices they want to see in the places and formats they love.

Going forward, we're evaluating every customer-facing investment against 3 outcomes: a stronger customer value proposition, improved traffic and units, and sustainable market share gains. Those outcomes will increasingly guide how we allocate resources and measure success. Earlier this year, we increased our cost savings program from $1.5 billion to $2 billion over the next 3 years. I believe there's more room to run there and at a faster pace. Last quarter, we also announced ACI Edge. ACI Edge began with 2 major structural changes, moving from 11 divisions to 4 regions and centralizing center store merchandising. We will accelerate ACI Edge to improve buying and find savings we can pass back to customers more aggressively.

As we evaluate opportunities to accelerate cost savings and productivity, 2 areas stand out early. The first is third-party spend or goods for resale and goods not for resale, where we believe there are meaningful opportunities to simplify, consolidate and reduce costs across the organization. The second is store execution. We will improve inventory discipline. We will reduce shrink, and we will recommit to running our stores at the highest standards, which includes providing the best training to our associates. These steps and more taken together will improve the customer experience and ultimately, our business results. Finally, we're taking a disciplined look at our portfolio. Albertsons has strong businesses, strong banners and valuable assets, but not all assets create the same value. Going forward, we'll be more focused. We'll invest where we have a clear path to win. We'll exit areas that are underperforming.

Before I hand it over to Cody, let me leave you with this thought. There is significant potential in our business, but our performance has not reflected that potential. Our responsibility now is to close that gap and to close it fast. That means simplifying our organization, improving decision-making and execution, allocating capital with further discipline and delivering more consistently for customers. Most of all, it means tackling even harder the cost structure that we can no longer afford. We must reduce our cost of doing business more aggressively to better serve our customers and shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it over to Cody.

Thanks, Susan, and good morning, everyone. Before I discuss the quarter, I'd like to reinforce a few of the themes Meg and Susan have shared. Right now, we are focused on a simple question. How do we create a stronger, more competitive and more valuable Albertsons?

From a financial perspective, we believe that starts from 2 distinct points. First, Albertsons continues to have meaningful strengths. We operate strong local brands, serve millions of customers, generate significant cash flow and have businesses and capabilities that are performing well. However, those strengths are not translating into the financial results we want to see. Part of the reason for that is the economic challenges many of our customers face with higher fuel prices at the top of the list, but there is also much more we can do to build a stronger business.

While we have delivered growth in parts of the business, we have not generated the level of sales growth, earnings growth and shareholder return we believe we can and should produce. That reality is driving the work currently underway. We believe this business can perform better than it does today. Our goal is to lock in on a few priorities that are the best ID sales and revenue drivers.

With that, let me turn to our second quarter results. Second quarter identical sales were negative 0.8%. Consistent with recent quarters, we saw continued strength across several areas of the business. E-commerce sales increased 11%, reflecting continued customer adoption of our offerings with overall digital penetration increasing to 10.5%. Pharmacy ID sales continued to grow, supported by continued prescription growth. At the same time, we continue to face multiple sales headwinds in the quarter, including in our pharmacy, 120 basis points related to the Inflation Reduction Act and an incremental 30 basis point headwind related to the ongoing brand-to-generic mix shift. A 30 basis point unit impact related to the cyclospora outbreak, which broadly impacted produce sales and 30 basis points related to the continued cycling of egg deflation. In total, these headwinds were approximately 210 basis points to our total reported ID sales.

All that said, customer engagement across our loyalty ecosystem remains strong with active membership, personalized offers and digital engagement continuing to provide important competitive advantages. Gross margin in Q2 was 26.8%, a decline of 17 basis points year-over-year, excluding fuel and LIFO. The decrease in gross margin rate was primarily driven by the mix shift impact of outsized growth in e-commerce as well as higher shrink, primarily associated with the cyclospora outbreak. We continue to make surgical investments in price funded by productivity initiatives. The gross margin rate also reflected the favorable rate impact associated with lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA.

In SG&A, our dollar spend was relatively flat on a year-over-year basis, reflecting the benefits of our productivity initiatives. On a rate basis, selling and administrative expense rate, excluding the impact of fuel, increased 38 basis points year-over-year. The increase in the SG&A rate was primarily attributable to sales deleveraging resulting from lower identical sales, including the unfavorable rate impact associated with lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA. Q2 interest expense increased $20 million to $125 million compared to $105 million last year due to higher borrowings and slightly higher average rates. Adjusted EBITDA in Q2 was $784 million, and adjusted EPS was $0.36 per diluted share.

In sum, these results demonstrate the resilience of our business and our ability to generate meaningful profitability and cash flow. They continue to underscore the opportunity we believe exists to improve both growth and returns over time.

Our business continues to generate meaningful cash flow and maintain a strong financial foundation. During the first half of 2026, operating cash flow was $1.2 billion. Capital expenditures totaled approximately $900 million, including 38 remodels and the opening of 7 new stores and continued investment in our digital and tech platforms. And ultimately, free cash flow was more than $300 million. Net leverage ended the quarter at 2.4x. These results provide the flexibility to continue investing in the business while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation.

During the second quarter, we spent approximately $175 million on share repurchases and have repurchased approximately $400 million in shares during the first half of 2026, with $1.7 billion remaining against our $2 billion share repurchase authorization that was refreshed in April of this year. We also paid our $0.17 per share dividend during the quarter, totaling $83 million and declared our next quarterly dividend of $0.17 this morning. Our overall capital allocation objective is clear: allocate capital where it can create the greatest long-term value for shareholders.

Although the business performed in line with our revised guidance expectations during the second quarter, we do not believe it is prudent today to provide an incremental update to our financial outlook. Instead, we believe the better path is to look closely at the business, establish clear priorities and come back to investors with a comprehensive plan and multiyear financial outlook. By our fourth quarter earnings call, we will provide a refreshed customer strategy, a significantly expanded productivity and cost reduction program, including opportunities in goods for resale and goods not for resale, shrink reduction and other simplification initiatives, a framework for pricing improvements that will attract more customers, portfolio optimization actions, and finally, an updated capital allocation framework.

All of that will come together with a clear set of metrics and KPIs, and as I mentioned, a fully vetted financial outlook that will allow you to track our progress with precision. We also plan to host an Investor Day in spring 2027 to further detail the plans outlined above. Ultimately, the goal is to establish a road map that improves execution, strengthens our competitive position, increases returns and creates greater long-term value for shareholders.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Susan.

Thank you, Cody. Before I move to questions, let me leave you with one final thought. Albertsons is now fully engaged in a turnaround. The company has strong assets, talented associates and significant potential. We will turn potential into a measurable sequential improvement and sustained performance. As Cody said, by our fourth quarter earnings call, we intend to outline a clear turnaround plan and measurable commitment. Until then, our focus is simple: drive execution, accelerate cost out and improve the customer value proposition.

And with that, we'll take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mark Carden with UBS.

So to start, I was wondering if you can walk through just a bit of why now is the right time to announce your comprehensive business review. Obviously, it comes right on the back of ACI Edge's announcement last quarter. And you talked about how some of your initiatives have been leading to increased complexity. Just how does your updated approach impact how you think about ACI Edge's ramp and also its scope going forward?

Sure. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for the question. As for why now, actually, your point is spot on about ACI Edge. What this is, really, is the evolution of ACI Edge, but it's actually thinking about us going faster and more aggressively. While we met expectations in the second quarter, and we certainly made progress in many areas, the pace of that improvement just hasn't been fast enough. We've not translated that into the sales, the share growth, the traffic and the earnings that we need. And quite frankly, it's been very helpful to have Meg here getting that external lens.

As I mentioned in the call, I've been very critical of the amount of initiatives that we've launched over the last 18 months, maybe for a good reason, but the fact of the matter is we've created more complexity in the business and unintentionally created competing priorities. So our focus now is really about direct impact on 3 things: how we drive customer experience and how we improve financial performance. So if we're not working on driving improvements in store standards or execution, if we're not investing in the customer value proposition or aggressively removing cost and complexity in the business, those initiatives are paused or stopped, and we'll look at those further. We look forward to coming back to you during our fourth quarter earnings call with a more comprehensive plan on what the evolution of ACI Edge looks like.

That's great. And then as a follow-up, a big part of ACI Edge today has been kind of centralized purchasing across the organization. Does this get pushed back at all as you reevaluate your portfolio of stores? And then on guidance, I understand the decision to push that out. Just is that largely driven presumably giving you some more flexibility near term? Or is there also anything incremental you're seeing in the consumer that's concerning?

Actually, it's the opposite. We are accelerating ACI Edge, in particularly the elements about Buying Better Together, the centralized buying processes. We're already seeing early signs of success there and have a line of sight for the rest of the year and even into next year, fairly substantial benefits. So it's actually helping us as we think about how we can move further faster on ACI Edge.

You mentioned briefly the customer. And the only thing I would say there is that as you're hearing across the industry, we are seeing the customer remain under pressure, particularly our lower-income customers, they're still trading down, looking for value, buying more private label, and we expect to see that to continue for the short term.

And Mark, on the guidance point, what I would say is, first of all, we did perform in line with our expectations during the second quarter. And I would also say that nothing has really changed from the exit rate in the second quarter. We're continuing to see the same general performance from the core business as we saw during the second quarter. But at the same time, this is a comprehensive review, and that may change the pace and mix of investments, the cost reductions and related timing certainly and the portfolio actions that we mentioned. So that's really the reason for the pause there.

Our next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.

Susan, I wanted to ask you maybe to start, you've had a well-defined strategic plan anchored by sizable cost cuts coming into this. You've been driving a lot of change. Obviously, the addition of Meg Whitman adds a new set of eyes. But can you just talk about how much more room you think there is in the organization on the cost savings side, given the sizable amount of cost that you've talked about?

And then how you're balancing how quickly you move with the risk associated with a lot of this change? And then historically, you have kind of talked about this balanced approach of driving savings and investment. It sounds like that might not be the case now where maybe you do want to put some upfront investment into the business. I'm curious as to where you stand related to that philosophy.

Sure. Thanks for the question. So regarding cost structure, here's what I would say. We actually believe there's still substantial blue sky in terms of cost out. And I think about 3 areas in particular. First and foremost, cost of goods, as I mentioned, our Buying Better Together. We're seeing great response there and expect that to accelerate and our ability to do that is real. The second piece is in goods not for resale, and that's simply aggregating the demand of an $80 billion company more effectively. As we've gone back through in recent weeks and looked harder at what the benefits might be there end-to-end, we see real savings.

The other piece is SG&A. We did some work last year and saw a substantial reduction in headcount. But quite frankly, there's more to be had. And you'll see us taking aggressive actions there in the next 12 to 18 months as well. And then finally, in store conditions. So obviously, we are running better stores. We're going to invest in the customer value proposition, but we've also got opportunities in terms of how we manage shrink and waste in the business and have a strong line of sight on how we do that.

Your question about speed. The goal here, yes. Speed is going to be critical, but what's going to help us balance against any conflicting priorities is focus. Speed on fewer initiatives will result in stronger results faster. Clarity for the team matters, and that's exactly what we're striving for here. Cody, anything to add on?

No, I would just say simply put, we think there's a lot more room to run on the cost side and at a more accelerated pace because we do recognize the need to fund that investment.

Great. And then just a quick follow-up on the portfolio. You obviously have some very good assets. And then as you mentioned, you have some assets that are underperforming. Can you maybe talk a bit more about some of the criteria you're looking at when you're assessing these businesses? And I don't know to the extent that you can help us sort of size how big the asset base that you would truly consider sort of underperforming and it sounds like maybe turning into noncore would be?

Cody, why don't you take that and I'll chime in.

Yes. I don't know that we're ready to declare any of that right now. That's part of the comprehensive review that's ongoing. But what I would say is, obviously, we look at store performance. And then we also look at the capital that's required to maintain it. So I think it will be a comprehensive review. I don't think it's all that significant overall, but that work is underway, and we'll be back to you with a clear plan.

Thanks, Cody. What I would add to that, it's both a blend of looking at where we're not performing as we would like. But maybe equally, if not more important, is also leaning into the markets where we're very strong, #1 or #2 market share. And how do we double down our investment and get returns on that capital and investments more effectively faster.

Our next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Partners.

Susan, can you talk to value perception versus reality? And I know it will differ market by market. But generally speaking, the comparison of the 2 and then the speed with which you'll be able to improve value perception, right? Because to really move the needle, you've got to invest a lot and market it aggressively in the markets you choose to do that in. So your thoughts on all of that.

Sure. John, thanks for the question. So a great question on value perception. And as we talk about it internally and I think in the industry, it's a blend, right? It's what are the quality of products I'm getting, the variety, the services, the ease of the shopping experience balanced out by what I'm willing to pay. And so as I think about that with Albertsons Companies, I think we've been quite clear. Our goal is not to be the cheapest guy in town, but rather to have the right balanced value proposition that resonates with the customers that we serve uniquely by market.

And from a price position, our goal is not to have a broad-based reduction, but rather as we've shared before, a very surgical and strategic price investment by market, by category, both in price and promotion, again, in ways that resonate uniquely with the customers that we're serving. So our approach is methodical, data-driven, and we'll be able to share a lot more of the shape of that when we talk again at the fourth quarter.

Maybe the follow-up, right, is there's a lot you're looking at in terms of the portfolio and things sort of maybe upstream from the stores. So how do you keep -- it's easy for that to be distracting to people, right, over the next 6 months. How do you sort of insulate the stores from any of that distraction that might be upstream in this process?

Such a good operational question. And here's the answer. Part of ACI Edge was about centralizing decision-making and lowering cost of goods. The other part was about creating simplicity in our operational model. So our 4 regional Executive Vice Presidents, that's their job right now. It's really fundamentally to elevate store conditions, keep the teams focused on taking care of our customers better than anyone else and continuing to raise the bar every single day. With that kind of focus on elevating store standards and execution, it eliminates the distractions from all the noise happening around us. Our team knows that we have essentially 2 roles in our company. We either serve customers directly or we serve those that serve customers.

Our next question comes from the line of Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs.

You called out high inflation in your own P&L. So seeing if you could talk about what level of inflation you were seeing in your business in the quarter? What are you seeing in terms of your own transportation expense? What are you hearing from suppliers? And how do you think about how inflation should trend as we move through the back half of the year?

Leah, thanks for the question. So what I would say is we saw CPI pick up to about 2.5% in the second quarter. And I would tell you that we passed along less than that, maybe 2%, 2.1%. As far as the outlook, Cody, maybe I'll ask you to chime in on that piece.

Yes. No, I think that's exactly right. And as we look at the back half of the year, it's probably -- we are seeing suppliers come with some cost increases. We obviously have a playbook by which we handle that. And we are seeing inflation across the P&L, but that's not new for us. We've been dealing with headwinds for some time now, and we'll continue to do that.

Okay. That's helpful. And then since shrink kind of reemerged as a headwind in the quarter, maybe you could talk about the magnitude of that headwind. Was it all related to the outbreak in produce or anything else you would call out there? And just kind of tying this with another theme that you called out with improving the store experience longer term, a big opportunity in shrink. So just more detail on maybe where your mix is executing in inventory management and the opportunity to leverage there and how we should think about that?

Yes. In the quarter, I would say the lion's share of the increase there was completely related to the cyclospora outbreak and its impact on produce sales and the like. And as we look ahead, we've got a lot of the tools. We've got a lot of the foundational elements built to accelerate shrink reduction. And so we're very focused on that as part of the store operations and the elevation we're looking for there.

Cody, that's exactly right. And Leah, one of our countermeasures against the pursuit of shrink reduction is also managing the customer experience. We recognize they want to have choices. We want to make sure we're providing them the breadth of quality and variety that they're looking for, and we do have the tools and technology to manage that as effectively as possible.

Our next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

Susan, can you give us your perspective on pricing, where you stand nationally, locally and any progress since you've taken over?

Simeon, so once again, from a national perspective, we really -- we do look at it that way, but it's really more important for us to look at it market by market and literally category by category and item by item. Our opportunities vary across the country versus the competitors that are in the market surrounding us. So it's a varied answer. But our approach has been very surgical. Last year, we engaged in 3 different price campaigns, and we saw strong success there. As we look forward, we're learning from those pilots, understanding what drove the inflection in units faster, what drove the inflection in profitability faster, and we'll make very strategic investments as we move forward, again, as part of the larger plan that we'll come back and discuss in the fourth quarter.

And then the pulling of guidance, how does it -- how does capital allocation factor in? Does it get a second look? And what happens with repurchase in the interim?

Yes, sure. So Simeon, what I would say is, obviously, we're looking at capital allocation very, very holistically. Through the first 2 quarters of the year, we repurchased about $400 million in shares. We've got $1.7 billion remaining on the auth, and we'll continue to be opportunistic against that. But at the same time, we are looking holistically at capital allocation priorities.

Our next question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer & Company.

So maybe a shorter-term question first. I know you guys aren't guiding. But in terms of some of the puts and takes for at least the top line, some of the headwinds that you're expecting in the back half of the year, whether it's IRA, cyclospora, just curious if there's anything you can quantify or even just highlight some of the puts and takes for the balance of the year there.

Yes. Maybe just to unpack the ID a little bit. Obviously, the headline ID at minus 0.8%, pharmacy was up low to mid-single digits, which leaves the core down about in that just a little bit over 1.5% range. We're obviously not guiding the rest of the year, but I would tell you the same thing that we said earlier, which is nothing has fundamentally changed as we've looked at the exit rate from the second quarter. Obviously, the quarter did have the 30 basis point cyclospora impact and 30 basis points of egg deflation. Those should be sort of cyclical items, not structural headwinds.

Great. And then my follow-up question, maybe for Susan. This might be difficult to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. As you think about the turnaround efforts, like any sense of how long this can take? Is it -- you get into early next fiscal year, you start to see benefits right away? Is it a multiyear turnaround? So just any initial thoughts on just the timing of how quickly you guys can turn around the business?

So Rupesh, you're right. Again, we'll come back with more clarity in the fourth quarter earnings call. But here's what I would say. The company is focused. We're moving with speed, and we have strong alignment across the organization. So we're not waiting. While there are deeper dives to be done in certain areas, there are clear lines of sight on things that we can do right now to materially change the trajectory, and that's what we're focused on.

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

First off, any update on the CFO search? And maybe to what extent do the Board changes and the comprehensive review affect the time line or perhaps the type of candidate that you're looking for?

Thanks for the question. So our CFO search is underway, and we're making good progress there. And I would tell you that I believe the shape our Board is taking as we've made the recent changes and as we continue to evolve is very exciting. Again, having Meg on board has been incredibly helpful to us. I think it sends a strong signal of her support for the organization as did her comments earlier. I am confident that we will get the right fit from a CFO perspective. Someone that's aggressive, wants to drive change and help shape strategy for the future. I'm very optimistic about our search.

I did want to follow up maybe about the consumer perception of value that you've already been asked about in a couple of ways. I mean, really, with the rise of e-commerce and maybe the more transparent pricing from retailer to retailer that it allows, do you think the perception of value is more linked to the absolute level of pricing in a way maybe it wasn't in the past? And if so, I guess, how do you think about overcoming that in kind of the context of not wanting to be a low-cost provider and instead offer this greater value on a more holistic basis?

Yes. So that's a great question. I would say, absolutely, transparency on price has clearly increased for the customer. However, price and value are not always the same thing. So as customers are looking for products they're willing to buy at prices they're willing to pay, I think that's where we can create points of differentiation. Price, yes, is about what I'm paying out of my wallet, but it's also about the convenience of location. It's about our ability to leverage our very, very strong loyalty program and create personalized offers that may mean something very different to me as a consumer than it might to you as a consumer. So it's absolutely more transparent, but we have the tools and vehicles to be able to cater to our customers on a broad base, but also maybe more importantly, on an individual level through our loyalty program.

Our next question comes from the line of Robby Ohmes with Bank of America.

My 2 questions, just one would just be, can you speak to owned brands and where this fits in and any changes you may be making? Should we expect even more of an acceleration than you would have already been planning? And then the other one would just be -- why don't we start with that one?

Sure. Of course. Great. Thanks for the question. So yes is the answer. We are absolutely accelerating our efforts around own brands. Over the past several months, we've been improving the variety and quality of the product that we're carrying and also working aggressively on the cost. We want to have the best products that our customers are looking for at the lowest possible price. And you'll start to see the execution of that actually already be done, but you'll see that further accelerate as we continue on with our strategy.

And then just in terms of promos versus tightening the spread, are you making a big shift on the spread and sort of backing off from promos? And are you looking at doing any kind of more aggressive SKU rationalization with the CPG brands?

So it's a balance, right? There are absolutely areas. And again, remember, very surgical by market, by category, where we'll be making frontline pricing changes. We're also refining our promotional strategy as we move forward as well, making sure that the promotions are well targeted. They're getting the return, they resonate with our customers, and they're delivering what we expect on the bottom line.

From a SKU rationalization perspective, what I would say here is we are very optimistic about our ability to grow share in own brands. We're also very aggressively pursuing cost reductions across the organization. We want to carry the products our customers are looking to buy. That said, we'll also make the right decisions to make sure that we are as efficient as possible from a labor perspective. We offer the right variety to serve our customers and that we're getting the right costs to be able to do that as effectively as we can.

Our next question comes from the line of Bill Kirk with ROTH Capital Partners.

How much of the business review will be predicated on the outcome of the trial against Kroger? Given the damage amounts, I would imagine that the trial outcome could influence funding plans, funding needs and asset decisions.

So we're not really going to talk about the litigation at this moment in time. And I would say that we are moving forward with our actions right now regardless of what's going on in that space. We have a clear line of sight to what we need to do to change our trajectory as the business stands today, and that's what we're focused on.

I'm not really looking for like what we think of the litigation. It's more -- it's a large dollar amount. And so is determining some of the business plan dependent on just learning the outcome.

Yes, Bill, I would say it's not. We're accelerating our cost out and productivity programs, looking for ways to fund our investments in the customer value proposition and looking at everything holistically without giving effect to litigation or otherwise.

Okay. And then a real quick follow-up. I might have missed it. It was a number you've given before. I don't think I caught it today or at 1Q. But what did loyalty member growth look like in the second quarter?

Yes. Loyalty members continue to grow. And what's really important is when we look at those that are actively engaged in our platforms and participating in the rewards, et cetera, we see that their spend is anywhere from 3 to 4x higher than someone who isn't. So those will continue to be critical levers for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Joe Feldman with Telsey Advisory Group.

You've talked a little bit about capital allocation before with buybacks. But how are you thinking about CapEx given the situation right now? Like do you guys pull back a little bit in the second half to kind of understand where you want to invest? Or what's the -- is that $1.9 billion to $2 billion that you talked about last quarter still kind of where you want to be for the year?

So I'll start, and I'll turn it over to Cody. So we are absolutely investing behind our highest return opportunities. That said, Joe, of course, we're still investing in our fleet, being very thoughtful about those investments and making sure that they're getting the returns that we're expecting. Cody, what would you add?

Yes. I would say a lot of the projects that are contemplated in the 2026 spend are underway, and those are good ROI projects that we expect to continue. So I don't -- I wouldn't fundamentally call that a reset in the back half.

That's helpful. And then with -- as you guys are looking at this turnaround and the acceleration that you're talking about and operational improvement, how are you leveraging technology to help with that? Do you have the right technology in place? I'm assuming AI is some part of that. But do you need to have that infrastructure improve before even getting to where you want to be? Or maybe you could share some thoughts on that.

Thanks, Joe. Yes. As you may recall, we have our 4 AI big bets. And to your question, each of them are actually designed to help accelerate the focus that we have now around driving improvements in store standards, improving the customer value proposition and taking cost and complexity out of the business. It's actually incredibly complementary. Our merch intelligence, big bet, is literally about enabling faster, smarter decision-making on category decisions, whether it be assortment all the way through to price and promotion. Store labor is one of our key AI big bets. And of course, productivity is incredibly important for us in doing it in a way that helps us best serve our customers. That's a key piece.

The last one or one of the others is demand forecasting, absolutely essential in our business, and that's end-to-end from all the way from farm to table, if you want to think about it that way, how can we create stronger demand planning so that we can better improve our in-stock results and optimize inventory at the same time. So AI is absolutely essential, complementary, and we're not waiting. Some of it will come later, but some of it is helping us right now.

Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citigroup.

This is Brandon Cheatham on for Paul. I want to circle back to some of the price investment conversation. Just anything you could share on how much has been funded by buying better, how much you've been able to share with vendors? And if you could help give any details on what some of your goals on kind of those funding buckets might be going forward?

Sure. Thanks for the question. What I would say is we are absolutely using our vendor partners. They're leaning in with us to help invest in price. There are also cases where we're finding other sources for that investment. So it's a mix between the 2. And what we're looking at now, part of what we'll be doing over the next couple of months is a deep dive on how we can accelerate those investments and find the right pools of funding, again, both in cost of goods sold, goods not for resale, but also in taking costs out of the business. So it's a blended effort between vendor support and internal cost out.

Got it. That's helpful. My follow-up is, is there anything you can share on some of the progress you've made in trying to gain more share of your pharmacy customers' basket?

So our pharmacy business remains strong. Cody shared the sales growth that we've experienced. In spite of some of the top line headwinds, which are just noise with the Inflation Reduction Act, we're actually seeing strong prescription count growth, which is really important to us. And just as a reminder, that's actually a profitable scenario for us. We've seen a nice turn to profitability in our pharmacy business. Our pharmacy customers also have a strong loyalty to the total store and drive 3x larger basket size and lifetime value. And we continue to see the benefits of customers engaging in both parts of our ecosystem and reaping the rewards there.

Our next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets.

I was wondering if you could just give any more specific update on the Buying Better Together program and to help us understand to what extent that is being executed, whether that be the percent of your national buying that's on that program and just how the savings are coming in, I believe it was really -- those savings were really supposed to build this year. And does this business review and the fact that you're considering maybe exiting some areas of underperformance, does that cause you to rethink or pause any efforts on that program?

Kelly, thanks for the question. So we are clearly -- we say clearly that we are centralizing center store. And as we're looking at the buying better together, that message has been very clearly and transparently communicated, obviously, internally, but more importantly, externally to our vendor partners. And the negotiations have begun with that in mind. We are in the process of going through our largest suppliers and working closely with them to secure a lower frontline cost of goods and then also working on our promotional strategy moving forward.

As far as the potential impact of exits, I do not believe the decisions that we might make are large enough to have a dramatic impact on any of those vendor negotiations. So it should not have -- it does not weigh into that decision at this moment.

Okay. And just also I was wondering if maybe you could just share maybe a candid assessment of price gaps and where -- are you still making progress on that front? Or is the goalpost kind of moving? Or are you seeing signs that the goalpost is moving in the pricing -- the competitive pricing dynamic? And is that what's fueling kind of this need to kind of step up investments? Or is it also just this customer that's more sensitive and being more reactive to the environment?

So what I would say is we clearly are not satisfied with our price position, hold stop. That said, our ability to drive change and impact customer, both their impression and reality is exactly what we're undertaking right now. We know we have an opportunity to improve, and we know where those opportunities are, again, down to the item and category level. So our approach is to attack that in a rational way, but this is why we're taking a moment so that we can go back, look at how we can accelerate cost out, how we can accelerate lower cost of goods and how we can improve the customer experience while at the same time, strategically investing in price.

Ladies and gentlemen, our final question this morning comes from the line of Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

Susan, could you talk about the comps performance with respect to Albertsons' various banners and talk about the role of geography as well?

What I would say is we don't disclose individual banner performance. But what I would say is there are definitely unique pressures across the country. And you can see this in national data, not necessarily specific to Albertsons. Unit pressures may be a little bit tougher in the West, a little bit still negative units across the entire industry countrywide, again, more pressure in the West. It really comes down to the coast typically being a more pressured environment, and then that pressure reduces slightly as you move inward to the middle of the country.

Okay. So that concludes the question-and-answer part of today's call. But before we end, I want to take a second and just thank our associates for everything they do to serve our customers and our communities. As you all know, and I believe all of you believe, their commitment is one of this company's greatest strengths. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we also are clear on what the opportunities are. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming months. Thanks for your time and your continued interest in Albertsons.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Welcome to Albertsons Company's First Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. I would like to hand the call over to Cody Perdue, Senior Vice President, Treasury, Investor Relations and Risk Management. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Susan Morris, our CEO; and Sharon McCollam, our President and CFO. Today, Susan will provide an overview of our first quarter results and perspective on the current operating environment, including the actions we are taking to improve execution, strengthen our customer value proposition and position the business for stronger long-term performance. Sharon will then cover our financial results and updated outlook before we open the call for Q&A.

I would like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make today are only as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any such statements.

Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in this morning's earnings release. And with that, I will turn the call over to Susan.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Let me begin by discussing this morning's announcement on Sharon's retirement. Of course, I first want to thank Sharon for the lasting impact she's had on Albertsons and her exceptional partnership. Since joining the company in 2021, she played a critical role in shaping our financial, operational and strategic priorities, bringing a unique combination of financial discipline, operational expertise and transformation leadership.

Most importantly, Sharon has helped position Albertsons for its next chapter of growth, leaving the company with a strong foundation, a clear strategic direction and the capabilities needed to drive long-term value creation. We are conducting a comprehensive search process, evaluating both internal and external candidates to identify a transformational leader who combines exceptional financial acumen with a strategic vision to drive sustainable growth and long-term value.

I'll turn now to our results for the quarter. Identical sales declined 0.8%. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.013 billion, and adjusted earnings per share was $0.42 per share. While pharmacy and digital delivered strong growth, their performance was not enough to offset broader pressures in our core business. These results were below our expectations, and we're taking decisive action to improve future performance. Our response is to accelerate execution and surgically invest in our customer value proposition even as we manage through a more pressured unit environment.

While it's weighing on near-term earnings, it is targeted to improve traffic, units, loyalty and the overall trajectory of the business over time. As we invest now to strengthen our customer value proposition, we're also accelerating actions to fund those investments over time. Today, we're introducing the ACI Edge, a simpler, faster, more connected operating model that helps Albertsons turn scale into greater customer impact.

The ACI Edge starts with two decisive actions, moving from 11 divisions to 4 regions: California, West, South and East and centralizing center store merchandising. These actions are not simply about changing how we're organized, they are about creating a stronger operating platform that allows us to move faster, make better decisions, scale successful ideas more consistently and deploy resources against the markets, banners and capabilities with the greatest opportunity.

At this center, we'll leverage enterprise scale more effectively across center store merchandising, servicing, supply chain, technology and talent. In the regions, we'll share up an accountability and strengthen execution in the areas that matter most to our customers: fresh, service, store standards, local merchandising and community connection. That balance is the core of the ACI Edge. The economics and capabilities of a national retailer, combined with the relevance and customer connection of a local grocer.

The ACI Edge also extends beyond the operating model. With more than 2,200 stores and tens of millions of loyalty households, our data and AI capabilities increasingly allow us to personalize the individual customer experience. By combining that insight with a simpler organization, we can deliver a more relevant customer experience while improving the return on every investment that we make. This new operating model also creates clear accountability. Each region will be led by a proven Albertsons executive with end-to-end responsibility for performance while one enterprise merchandising organization will manage category strategy and supplier partnerships across the company.

That gives us clearer ownership in the field, greater purchasing scale at the center and a faster path from decision to execution. These changes are already underway. Leadership appointments are complete, center store centralization has begun and work streams across merchandising, sourcing, supply chain and overhead are progressing. As the ACI Edge matures, we expect it to generate approximately $200 million of incremental annual run rate benefits with savings building through fiscal 2026 and the majority realized in fiscal 2027. We also expect approximately $50 million of transition costs over fiscal 2026 and '27.

Importantly, these savings are not the end goal. There are additional fuel for reinvestment today into sharper value, stronger fresh execution, greater personalization, digital convenience and ultimately, unit growth. The ACI Edge directly supports our 3 strategic priorities: leveraging our winning footprint, delivering a customer-centric experience and creating balanced value. It gives us the speed, consistency and accountability to execute those priorities more effectively across the enterprise.

Ultimately, we will judge success by what our customers experience every day, better value, stronger fresh execution, higher in-stock levels, more personalized experiences and stronger store standards across every market that we serve. Technology and AI are foundational to the ACI Edge. Our objective is to create a simpler, more connected enterprise where information flows seamlessly, decisions are made faster, and our teams spend less time navigating complexity and more time serving our customers.

We're creating a future-fit organization that provides easier access to insights, automate through teamwork and enables better decisions at every level of our business. Our 4 enterprise AI priorities are focused on the areas where we see the greatest opportunity to drive growth, improve execution and expand margins. Digital customer experience, merchandising intelligence, labor optimization and supply chain optimization. These are not stand-alone technology initiatives. They are capabilities designed to strengthen and simplify how we operate every day and fully support our regional structure.

Ultimately, this creates meaningful operating leverage and additional capacity to invest what matters most delivering greater value, stronger fresh execution, and more personalized experiences and driving continued innovation for our customers. Technology and AI are not separate initiatives. They are the foundation of a simpler organization, a more customer-centric operating model and a stronger, more competitive Albertsons for the long term. Again, this quarter, we continued to make progress across each area. In digital customer experience, we're building AI-powered experiences that improve engagement, increased basket size and create a more seamless shopping journey.

Customers using conversational search and planning tools continue to spend more and engage more deeply with our platform while retention trends are improving as adoption grows. We're also continuing to expand partnerships with leading AI providers, including Google, OpenAI and Microsoft, allowing us to reach more customers wherever they choose to engage. In merchandising intelligence, we're implying AI to improve category planning, promotions, vendor collaboration and margin management. Our early pilots continue to produce encouraging results, and we're expanding those capabilities into broader planning processes with selected vendor partners.

These tools will help merchants make faster, more informed decisions and negotiate lower costs while reducing friction across the organization. All of this is a key foundation for our center store centralization. In labor optimization, our AI-powered workforce management platform remains on track for enterprise-wide rollout in early 2027. The solution expands automated scheduling, improves labor adherence, enhances associate self-service and supports a better frontline experience, helping us more effectively align labor with customer demand, improved productivity and create a more consistent experience for both associates and our customers.

In supply chain optimization, we continue to expand our machine learning capabilities to improve forecasting, inventory productivity and replenishment decisions. Improved forecast accuracy is lowering manual intervention and strengthening in-stock performance. At the same time, we're building a unified AI-powered ordering platform that brings demand planning, supply planning and replenishment together into a single decision engine. We're also scaling computer vision capabilities that help improve freshness and quality throughout our produce supply chain. These 4 enterprise scale AI investments are focused on the areas with the greatest opportunity to drive growth, improve execution and expand margins. Beyond these investments, we're embedding AI across the company to improve decision-making to automate workflows and enhance productivity at scale.

Our technology teams are focused on AI first development, accelerating how quickly we can build and deploy new capabilities across the business. Combined with our simplified operating model, these efforts position us to drive better execution, expand margins and deliver more consistent long-term financial performance. Digital and loyalty remain key drivers of both growth and customer engagement. Digital sales grew 13% this quarter with penetration increasing nearly to 10.5%. Our loyalty ecosystem continues to scale personalization, and we're seeing clear behavioral benefits.

Engaged members shop more frequently and with higher average basket than nonmembers, contributing meaningfully to both sales growth and customer lifetime value. Execution remains strong across our fulfillment network. Again, this quarter, Flash delivery continues to be the fastest-growing segment of our digital offering, highlighting once again the strength of our proximity advantage complemented by our extensive fresh offering. Including both our first-party and third-party businesses, e-commerce was profitable in the first quarter. This milestone demonstrates that we are successfully growing digital sales while improving the underlying economics of the platform and creating a business that can generate profitable growth over time.

We're continuing to deepen engagement through more personalized experiences, ongoing improvements in the online journey and expanded fulfillment capabilities. We expect digital and loyalty to remain key drivers of frequency, retention and lifetime value supporting more consistent top line growth. Pharmacy remains one of our most important growth platforms. While reported sales results continue to be pressured by the Inflation Reduction Act and branded generic mix, we continue to see outsized script, immunization and clinical service growth.

Beyond sales growth, pharmacy drives deeper customer engagement across our ecosystem by connecting health care, digital and grocery in ways that are difficult to replicate and create a competitive advantage in the markets we serve. Our pharmacy business is profitable on a stand-alone basis and continues to improve. Our media business delivered strong growth in Q1 with on-site revenue up significantly year-over-year, driven by increased monetization of both new and existing display placements. Building on that foundation, we introduced an industry-first branded entertainment offering, shopper inform content that was created in our stores, which opens a new higher value inventory category for our brand partners.

In parallel, we expanded our commerce media capabilities by integrating sponsored product discovery into AI-powered conversational search. This positions us to monetize customer engagement at the point of highest intent, creating a more effective and valuable platform for our partners. Together, these innovations are increasing the quality of our media inventory and enhancing our ability to drive higher returns on ad spend supporting continued growth of this high-margin business.

Productivity remains foundational to our strategy, because it gives us the fuel and flexibility to improve the customer experience while strengthening the economics of the business. The move to 4 regions and the centralization of center store merchandising further support that effort by allowing us to leverage scale more effectively across sourcing, merchandising supply chain and technology. In turn, these changes improve sourcing effectiveness, inventory productivity and decision-making across the enterprise.

We are delivering against our productivity commitments and are on track to realize more than 1/3 of our 3-year $2 billion productivity target in fiscal 2026. Our confidence in that goal is growing as the simplification of our operating model is uncovering additional opportunities across the business. At the same time, the operating environment continues to evolve. Inflationary pressures and the investments required to strengthen our competitive position, all increase the need for productivity. As a result, our focus is not simply on achieving the original $2 billion target. It's on continuously expanding the opportunity set creating additional fuel to reinvest over time.

Turning to our customer value proposition. We approach value across 3 connected dimensions. First, price and quality anchored by our own brand portfolio, where customers can access a compelling range of opening price point, core and premium products that deliver both affordability and trust. Second, personalization and convenience, enabled by our digital and loyalty ecosystem, allowing us to tailor offers, promotions and experiences at the individual level while providing customers flexible ways to shop across stores and digital channels.

And third, the customer experience, anchored in our fresh and food forward offerings for quality, service and differentiation matter most. In the current environment, we believe the appropriate response is to make life simpler for our customers. We're accelerating our investments because improving the customer value proposition is the most direct path to strengthening customer engagement, loyalty and long-term growth. While those investments create some near-term pressure on earnings, we believe they will improve the overall growth trajectory of the business.

Today, customers expect all of these elements together. Our ability to deliver across each dimension while funding targeted investments through productivity allows us to remain competitive on value while protecting longer-term returns. Own Brands is a key example of how this model comes to life. Our portfolio expands a broad and growing set of categories across the store, can deliver structurally higher margins while creating value for the customer and drive stronger loyalty and repeat engagement.

Our largest brands, including Signature Select, Lucerne and O Organics continue to scale with high repeat rates and strong customer sentiment. We're elevating product quality, expanding penetration in value-focused categories, accelerating innovation in premium and better-for-you segments and strengthening both in-store visibility and digital integration to drive trial and repeat as we pursue ultimate sales penetration of 30%. Over time, this balanced approach to value positions us to deepen customer engagement, strengthen loyalty and drive share gains.

Stepping back, the purpose of the ACI Edge is straightforward, to improve the trajectory of the business. We're building a simpler, faster and more customer-centric Albertsons. That means leveraging the scale where scale creates value, empowering our regions where local execution matters most and using technology and data to connect the two more effectively. Productivity is an important part of this work, but it's not the end goal. The end goal is stronger execution, better customer outcomes and more consistent financial performance. As we accelerate productivity, we'll continue to reinvest in the areas that matter most to our customers, value personalization, convenience, fresh execution and store experience.

Combined with our investments in digital, loyalty, media and AI, we believe these actions strengthen our competitive position and support sustainable growth and stronger earnings over time. The actions are underway, the leadership structure is in place, and we are moving with urgency to turn these changes into better results.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Sharon to walk through our financial results and fiscal 2026 outlook in more detail.

Thank you, Susan. Before I turn to the financials, I want to take this opportunity to say that it has been a privilege to serve Albertsons and work alongside its talented teams across the organization. Together, we have strengthened the company, navigated significant change and built an even stronger foundation for the future. I will be retiring with tremendous confidence in Albertsons' future and deep appreciation for our associates, leadership team and everyone who made this journey so meaningful.

I want to sincerely thank Susan, who has been an extraordinary leader and an inspiring business partner, my peers, our corporate and frontline associates and in particular, my direct reports for their exceptional contributions to the Albertsons story. I would also like to thank our Board and shareholders for their support. It has been an honor to be part of the Albertsons' family.

Now turning to the quarter, I first want to acknowledge that our performance fell short of our expectations. We have moved quickly to address those issues and are accelerating the execution, productivity and the ACI Edge actions Susan outlined to improve performance as we move forward. In the first quarter, Identical sales decreased 0.8%, reflecting both ongoing declines in industry units and the macro pressures we have discussed. As Susan shared, the decline was most pronounced in our lower income customer segments, where we continued to see softness in both units and basket.

In addition, reported results were pressured by approximately 100 basis points from the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and 50 basis points from deflation. Excluding these headwinds, Identical sales increased approximately 0.7%, driven by continued strength in pharmacy scripts and digital growth. We also saw an ID sales headwind from the ongoing brand to generic mix shift in the pharmacy. Gross margin in Q1 was 26.6%, a decline of 23 basis points year-over-year, excluding fuel and LIFO. The decrease in gross margin rate continues to be driven by the mix shift impact of outsized growth in digital sales, while productivity benefits mostly offset surgical investments in customer value.

The gross margin rate also reflected the favorable rate impact associated with the lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA. The selling and administrative expense rate, excluding the impact of fuel, increased 42 basis points year-over-year. The increase in the SG&A rate was primarily attributable to increases in rent and occupancy costs, merger-related litigation, business transformation costs and depreciation, partially offset by a decrease in employee costs. The SG&A rate also reflected the unfavorable rate impact associated with lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA.

In dollars, our adjusted SG&A was approximately flat, reflecting the benefits of our productivity initiatives. Q1 interest expense increased $25 million to $167 million compared to $142 million last year due to higher borrowings and slightly higher average interest rates. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 was $1.013 billion and adjusted EPS was $0.42 per diluted share.

Turning to capital allocation. Our overall priorities remain unchanged. We are continuing to invest in the business to support long-term growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning excess capital to shareholders in a disciplined manner. Consistent with these priorities, in Q1, we invested $522 million in capital expenditures related to the modernization of our store fleet, including 4 new stores as well as continued investment in our technology and AI capabilities.

We then returned more than $300 million to shareholders, including approximately $225 million of share repurchases under our existing $2 billion authorization and $84 million in dividends. Ended the quarter with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2.3x, a level that continues to provide ample financial flexibility. I'll now walk through our updated 2026 outlook. As we look to the balance of the year, we are planning prudently around a softer unit environment while continuing to invest in actions that strengthen our competitiveness and customer value proposition.

Our more cautious view reflects ongoing pressure on lower-income consumers, softness in grocery industry unit trends and the potential for additional affordability pressure from supplier cost increases. Accordingly, our updated outlook reflects both a more challenging near-term demand environment and increased investments in customer value. While these actions will pressure near-term earnings, we believe they are strategically necessary to strengthen customer engagement, accelerate unit growth and improve the long-term trajectory of the business. With these actions, our confidence in the long-term earnings power of the business remain unchanged.

Pharmacy trends remain healthy. Digital continues to deliver outsized growth, and we are moving with urgency to improve execution across our grocery operations. As such, we are updating our fiscal '26 outlook as follows: Identical sales are now expected to be in the range of negative 0.5% to negative 1.5% or 0% to 1%, excluding the 150 basis point expected full year headwind from the pharmacy IRA. This assumes a gradual improvement in grocery IDs as our investments in the customer value proposition accelerate, offset by lower pharmacy IDs as we face IRA headwinds.

Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be in the range of $3.55 billion to $3.625 billion as we accelerate investments in our customer value proposition. Adjusted EPS is now expected to be in the range of $1.75 to $1.85 per share, including approximately $600 million of share repurchases during fiscal '26, consistent with our capital allocation priorities. The effective income tax rate is expected to be in the range of 24% to 25%. And capital expenditures are now expected to be in the range of $1.9 billion to $2 billion.

I'll now turn the call back to Susan for closing remarks.

Thank you, Sharon. As we look ahead, our priorities are clear, our actions are underway and our accountability is increasing. We've moved decisively to address the areas that need improvement. Through the ACI Edge, we're simplifying our operating model moving from 11 divisions to 4 regions and centralizing center store merchandising actions designed to make us faster, more focused and more effective in serving customers and creating shareholder value. We're aligning our scale, technology, talent and resources behind a clear objective, improving the trajectory of the business.

That requires us to make surgical investments in the customer value proposition now while improving execution across our stores and banners accelerating innovation and creating a more consistent growth and earnings profile over time. At the same time, we continue to invest in the capabilities that will shape our future, digital, loyalty, media, AI and data-driven personalization. Combined with our simplified structure, these investments give us confidence in our ability to compete, adapt and win in a rapidly evolving marketplace. We're focused on delivering better results in the near term, but we're equally focused on building a stronger Albertsons for the years ahead.

We believe the ACI Edge will allow us to better leverage our scale improve execution, reinvest more effectively in our customer value proposition and create a more competitive and resilient business over time. But we have work to do. We're confident these actions position us to improve the trajectory of the business and create long-term value for both customers and shareholders.

I'll now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.

Sharon, I wish you the best in retirement. I wanted to start on the investments, specifically the price investments. And I was hoping that you could provide a bit more color on the strategic plan here, -- meaning how much are you investing? How broad? Is this promo or EDLP? Has the work that you've done so far provided evidence that you'll get a return? And then what's the ultimate goal here on price caps?

Hi, Ed, thanks for the question. So first of all, on the price investments. As we've mentioned before, we're investing very surgically and selectively. So this is not about broad-based discounting. It's very targeted market-specific investments in the areas where we believe customers are making purchase decisions. So it's around price perception, around fresh, personalization and convenience.

We're funding the investment through productivity. As we've shared previously, we've been investing in different ways in 3 key markets over the last year. And we've learned from those investments where the elasticities are, what works, what doesn't work, and we're taking that knowledge as we apply it to, again, very select and strategic markets and categories across the company.

As far as an index versus our competitive set, I don't think we're willing to disclose that. What I will say is when we think about our value proposition, of course, it's about price, but it's also about quality. It's about service. It's about convenience and leveraging all of those and finding the right balance to make sure that we are bringing customers to us versus them making other choices. Own Brands is a key part of that. We've shared that before and is also a key part of our price investment. Sharon, anything to add?

No, Susan. I think that's absolutely right.

Can I just maybe ask a follow-up, and I want to kind of step back sort of bigger picture. The backdrop is tough in grocery. Price investment stories in this business are always difficult to execute. But you trade at 4x EBITDA, you have assets. Has the Board considered strategic alternatives as an option? Or does today's news basically kind of mean that the current strategy is the path forward, and that's how we should be evaluating the company.

And first and foremost, our primary goal is, of course, delivering shareholder value over time. So full stop there. We do believe in ACI Edge, both the reorganization of the company, the centralization of center store and service of rightsizing the value proposition that is in need of adjustment. From a strategic alternative perspective, of course, we're always making sure that we're considering every angle when we think about delivering shareholder value, but that's not the primary discussion that we're having today.

The next question comes from Mark Carden with UBS.

And Sharon, you'll be missed. Congrats on your upcoming retirement. Maybe to start, just on the centralized merchandising. You've talked about fully centralizing this for center store. Can you maybe provide a bit more color on how this builds in your prior centralized buying initiative? What are the biggest enhancements you expect to get here? And how should we think about timing?

Yes, Mark. So we -- you're right, we've been talking about buying better together for quite some time. And over the last, oh gosh, let's call it, 2 years, we've been building AI-driven tools, stronger processes in support of this evolution. And we're at the point right now where we feel we can not only buy better together, but also deliver stronger merchandising plans using the tools that we've built.

So this is not only about securing a lower cost of goods, of course, it is. But it's also about making stronger category decisions, assortment decisions, price and promotion decisions from a center store perspective, yes, across the entire company, but using the data and tools and the information that we have to also be able to be very surgical at the local market level, but being able to do so from the center.

From a time line perspective, the process is underway. And as we look at bringing all 4 Ps into the center, if you will, and we're expecting to be complete somewhere in spring, early summer of next year.

That's great. And as a follow-up, you called out some expected pressure on industry units. Are you seeing any outsized headwinds on any particular categories as customers take items out of their baskets? And then how should we think about the potential timing of some of the supplier price increases that you mentioned?

Sure. So there are certainly categories that are feeling more pressure than others. And what we are seeing is, again, the most pressure coming from our lowest income customers. We're seeing a shift to private label. We're seeing a shift to value packaging trade downs. I think we've talked about this before in certain commodities. And again, it's a very bifurcated situation. Lower income customers are shifting more to cheaper proteins as an example, our higher-end customers seem to be a little bit more resilient. The second part of your question?

Just in terms of the timing for the supplier increases?

Yes. So we're seeing supplier cost increases that's just a part of our business. As we look towards the second half of the year, we're expecting to see incremental pressure there. And as a reminder, our first response is always pushing back. We are also manufacturers. We understand where cost increases are coming from, whether it's fuel, packaging and so forth. We push back. And then a negotiation begins. And in worst case scenarios, we have to make a tough choice on whether or not we're going to accept carry those products. But ideally, it's about a negotiation. We're going to be pushing our vendor partners very hard to absorb those costs on their own. We're being very clear today with our goals on rightsizing our value proposition. We're being clearer than we've ever been before. With our manufacturing and vendor partners on the centralization of center store, we expect them to lean in.

The next question comes from John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Partners.

Sharon, congratulations on your retirement. Susan, a question I want to start with value perception, sort of variability across your markets, how we spread from best to worst? How do you think about that? Is that now changing, say, in the last six months because of pressure on the consumer? And then I know you care about absolute performance, but do you think you're gaining share in the supermarket channel?

John, so from a value perception perspective across the company, you're right, we have different competitive sets, different customer bases that we're serving. And even if I step back for a second and look at the total industry units, we are definitely seeing different unit pressure, as an example, the West seems to be more under pressure from an industry perspective on units than the middle part of the country and the East. So as we think about our opportunities, and this goes back to why we're being very surgical and selective about our price investments, it's not a one-size-fits-all answer.

So -- and again, we have the tools and AI modeling on elasticities to be able to manage that effectively. And of course, ACI Edge is about giving us not only the tools and information to do that, but fuel for that growth as we see productivity. From a share perspective, it's -- we don't share specifically, but we are -- and again, it varies across the company. I would say we're doing our share with traditional food is in a better spot than multi-outlet as a whole.

Maybe as a follow-up. The -- so with the new org structure, so what do you think you get -- the biggest changes to come out of that? Do you think execution-wise? And then I know at some point, you were looking at a strategic review of markets. Do you think there -- are there now markets that you think you'd like to exit or you need to get through ACI Edge first before you know?

So going back to ACI Edge. It's -- thanks for the question because it's -- yes, it's a restructuring, but it's really about running the company in a better way. It's about getting greater scale where customers don't always see it, where it's less relevant to them or they don't -- when we do it well. And then gaining greater local relevance, or they do see it. And then finding the productivity to reinvest in value. And for us, again, yes, of course, that's price, but it's also fresh, personalization and digital. And that's the combination of where we believe that we can improve unit earnings and shareholder returns over time.

With regards to the markets, we're constantly evaluating our business and making decisions where strategically we want to lean in and grow and where perhaps some areas are less strategic and we want to exit. The ACI Edge is more about optimizing our operating model to improve execution and to end through the organization and accountability. It's not necessarily about exiting markets. And I think we've shared this before, over time, there are probably a handful of smaller areas that we would look at. But our primary focus right now is on our core business and driving an inflection in unit growth.

The next question comes from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

And Sharon, congratulations on your retirement. I wanted to maybe just start off on the gross margin side. You noted the pressure in the quarter and that it did come, I think, from fulfillment costs for digital. But at the same time, there was the call out that e-commerce was profitable in the quarter, and I think the digital growth was actually a bit lower than we've seen in recent years. So maybe expand a bit on, one, how you were able to kind of drive that profitability in that business despite the gross margin callout and really where the gross margin pressure is coming from?

Thanks, Tom. So what I would say about the profitability of digital is we continue to see the economics improve through higher order density, better fulfillment productivity and stronger customer engagement. And I think we've talked to you before about some of our proprietary tools that we use, but Sharon, let me turn it over to you and to give some color on the P&L side.

Absolutely. So e-com has tipped over into profitability. And the reason that you see it called out is that is from a mix perspective within the gross margin, the rate of the gross margin for e-commerce is much lower than traditional grocery. Therefore, even as a small profit contributor, it still creates a negative mix shift into the gross margin.

Okay. And then on the ID sales side, I think originally, the expectation was ID sales would be down year-over-year in the first quarter and then kind of progressively improve the midpoint of the outlook would imply that the 1Q rate is essentially sustained, but it sounds like there was commentary in the prepared remarks about this expected improvement in the back half. So I guess I want to think through two things. One, should we be thinking about something progressively softer in the second quarter and then improvement thereafter? And when you think about the improvement in the back half, how much is your view of how the industry evolves versus some of the Albertsons specific initiatives starting to take hold?

Sharon, why don't you take that, and I'll follow up.

Okay. Great. As we think about the unit trajectory for the balance of the year, we believe that the industry will only slightly gradually improve and that we, from our actions will have very modest improvement going through the balance of the year. So where we are at a negative 0.8% ID sales, and that's the total company. And I'm going to talk about grocery and pharmacy in a minute. I think you need to be thinking about very modest improvement, but improvement each quarter. What's important in that is that, that improvement is expected to be in the grocery side of the business.

As we move through the year on pharmacy, pharmacy is performing extremely well, but we will be comping script buys from last year going into Q2 and beyond. And so actually the mix within the ID sales going into the back half changes a little bit. But from a modeling perspective, just extremely minimal improvement really coming Q3, Q4 as we invest in the customer value proposition. That's how I would think about it.

The next question comes from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs.

Congrats, Sharon as well. It's been a pleasure over the years. I just wanted to go back to the gross margin discussion from the last question. I mean that was helpful color on the quarter. But just as with the updated guide, maybe you could just walk through the key puts and takes we should keep in mind as we move through the year? I'm just trying to get a sense of how we should think about the pace of these incremental investments that you've announced today.

Absolutely. So just from a guide point of view, I want you to think about Q2 very similarly to Q1, including on a year-over-year basis as far as adjusted EBITDA goes. We're in the transformation. We're moving forward. Now when you get into Q3 and Q4, you're going to see in the back half, I'm going to give you like a look for the back half, it's going to improve. The year-over-year decline will improve a little bit in the back half for products -- for all the reasons we're talking about, some unit inflection, modest at improvement. And then, of course, the productivity that we'll bring in behind that. So you'll see a modest -- a little bit of an improvement in the back half.

Okay. That's super helpful. And then I just wanted to go back to the new edge model. I mean there's been a lot on the sharper value kind of proposition, and we've talked about price investments a lot. But the other things you've called out, elevating the store experience, greater differentiation in fresh. I mean just what are really the opportunities there? Where do you feel like you're in a gap versus peers? And then I guess, ultimately, as I think about investing, is it more remodels, more labor hours? Just trying to get a sense there and how you prioritize those as well?

Sure. Thanks, Leah. So I guess to your point, we firmly believe that customers don't choose their grocer on price alone. They choose based on the overall value equation. And that's our advantage. It's our opportunity, not advantage. It's combining the neighborhood convenience that we have. We're already in your backyard. Our strong fresh execution that we have across the organization, our ability to continue to deliver and enhance personalized value. So not just blanket cost reductions or price reductions or promotions, but personalized value.

And of course, the digital convenience that we have, we said in the script, our Flash delivery in e-commerce continues to be one of our fastest-growing mechanisms. And as I think about that, it's not only about the speed of being able to deliver usually in well less than an hour, but the fact that we have a full complement assortment. So ACI Edge helps us deliver upon this more consistently. And as I think about this, one of the things that's important to note -- the first thing that we did as an organization when we made the regional change was to complete our leadership appointments first.

Again, I mentioned this in the script, our top leaders in the organization are now overseeing the top region -- or over the top of the region. And then we're sequencing the rest of the implementation very carefully, making sure that what we cannot do is disrupt the front line. Changes like this create risk. We believe that we've mitigated that risk with our emphasis first and foremost, on better, simpler store execution, clarity and accountability and ownership and then again, driving fuel with the centralization process so that we can reinvest over time. Some of it's in price. Some of it's going to be in the personalization, in enhancing our fresh experience across the store and again, continuing to grow our digital business and our media income business.

The next question comes from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

This is Erica Eiler on for Rupesh. And Sharon, also I just want to offer my congratulations on your retirement. So just tackling on to that last question. It seems like a lot of the efforts, whether we think about improving the value proposition and leaning into convenience and [ differentiating ] in fresh are things that, that grocery customer has become accustomed to in demand at this point. So I'm just curious, what are things that you're doing beyond those fundamental grocery expectations that the consumer has to drive even more differentiation into the box.

Great. Thanks, Erica, for the question. The first 2 things that come to mind as I'm answering the question is our work around, again, the importance of using our national scale for center of store decision-making is, yes, about taking those decisions, the paper category as an example, the laundry category, very important categories. But the way the customer shops those are not dynamically different across the entire country. However, there are categories and items, fresh, in particular, where it is very regionalized. So as we think about how we're going to show up differently for our customers, it's using data and information to fuel how we think about 2 things, in particular, our micro market merchandising and then our macro resets.

And with regards to micromarket merchandising, this is an understanding that the simplest thing for a company to do is pretty much run the same footprint across the entire organization, but that's not what our customers need and expect. What we need is to give them consistency and execution, great store standards, great service and then delight them and prevent them from going anywhere else by giving them the offering that they're looking for in their local community, whether that's a different assortment of fresh, whether it's the right complement of barbecue sauces and seasonings, whether it's really paying attention to how we show up differently in produce, knowing that I'm in Boise, Idaho today, Huckleberry's are going to be a big deal next month.

Also next month in New Mexico, I'm going to be Roasting Hatch Green chili on for my stores, being able to unleash the magic of that local marketing and merchandising that appeals to the customers that we're serving by neighborhood, that's a key point of difference.

And then zooming back out just for 1 second, I mentioned the word macro. And as we think about macro, I've been in this business for 41 years. And as I look across the store, in many retailers, we have certain set sizes or space allocations or adjacencies that have been the same for decades. The customer has changed, and we've been implementing what we call macro resets in key markets across the company with great success. And this is about rightsizing space allocation for the way customers shop today. Think about the beverage aisle. Think about functional beverage. Where does protein belong in the store when you think about all the supplements and the enhanced beverages and those kinds of things. Our macro resets are leveraging the way that our customers are shopping today and how they're shopping tomorrow, rightsizing space creating more logical adjacencies and amplifying holding power on the categories where we see the most growth.

That's super helpful. And then just as a follow-up, I mean as we think about all your actions collectively from investments in the consumer value proposition to ACI Edge, I mean, how long do you think it could take for the benefits to materialize to help you get back to algo?

So we -- first and foremost, we are moving with speed. I know that and not dangerous speed, but very calculated planful speed. That said, some of the changes that we're making will be gradual and incremental and happen over time. Sharon, I don't know if you have a comment on the long-term algo and any insights that you want offer there.

Yes. The goal is to use ACI Edge to accelerate the business such that we can get back into the algorithm. Obviously, we're going to be coming from a lower base. And as we look into '27, it's going -- like Susan said, this is -- we're going from 11 regions to 4 -- 11 divisions to 4 regions, et cetera. So I would say that we need to be looking for gradual and incremental improvement, getting to 2% ID sales, which is part of that algorithm, this industry unit question, we are not seeing forecasts that show major improvement yet at this point.

But we got to keep in mind that the backdrop with what is happening with the more geopolitical issues, et cetera, are making this a very difficult time to read. So we're not ready to call that at this point. What we know is that this is going to drive incremental unit value, customer engagement, et cetera, and that we expect it to start playing into 2027.

The next question comes from Paul Lejuez with Citibank.

I'm curious if you can quantify for us what you are seeing on the cost inflation side? And how much of that cost inflation do you think you'll be able to pass through to consumers versus have to absorb? And how might that change as we move throughout the year? And then second, just bigger picture, higher level, I'm curious how many stores you have that are unprofitable. And if there are any real estate actions that you're contemplating to help the overall profitability of the company, perhaps closures, selling the real estate? Anything like that, that you're thinking of?

Thanks, Paul. So starting with the cost increases. So to date, the cost increases that we've seen have been very moderate. And from a customer perspective, I would tell you that we are not passing through the inflation that we're seeing. That's part of how we think about investment, right, is holding the pricing at a more rational level and not passing all of that through. That said, -- as I'm sure you are hearing from our CPG partners, we fully expect to see cost increase. And the fuel situation continues. They're already signaling that with us throughout the end of the year that we'll expect to see costs continue to ramp up.

Again, we -- as best we can, and again, very surgically with great intention, we will work to not pass that through to the customer where it matters the most. And that's both by us perhaps taking some compression in margin. But again, as I said earlier, also pushing back on our vendor partners and helping them realize the fact that this is Albertsons leaning in, in a very clear and decisive way on centralizing center store, which should unlock a great deal of efficiencies, certainly for them, which we expect to pass through to us.

You had a second question around the profitability of stores. And here's what I would say. Our stores -- unprofitable stores is a very, very small number. And outside of the period during the merger process, our hygiene is very rigorous. We're continually looking at our store base and making decisions on whether to keep the stores or can we turn them around, can we change the profitability or making the difficult decisions from time to time to exit those stores. And we've not seen a dramatic shift or increase in store profitability at this time. Again, it's a pretty small number of our fleet.

The next question comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

Sharon, thank you your insights and your influence you've left the lasting impression on many of us. So wishing you all the best and what's next. Susan, I want to ask that you've narrowed it down to 4 divisions. Can you give us a sense of the performance variability. So you mentioned California units were tougher. Are IDs negative at all 4? Or is it a matter of improving more so in 1 or 2 divisions to help turn the ship?

What I would say, Simeon, is -- and we don't disclose results by division, which we're now calling regions, by the way. That said, we did share that in the West industry units are more pressured, and we see something similar. That said, in many of the markets in the West were outperforming our traditional food competitors. Their market by market, depending on the customers that we serve and the competitors around us, our results can vary quite widely. But again, one of the goals of ACI Edge and the 4 region structure is to create more consistency in our operational execution to leverage our size and scale so that we can create those efficiencies and invest very surgically across those many markets that we operate in to rightsize opportunities where we see them and to amplify growth where we're already strong.

Okay. And to clarify, the $200 million, that's all going to price? Or is that on top of productivity initiatives to help further bend the SG&A curve?

So the $2 billion that we've stated before exists. The $200 million is incremental. And yes, we do intend to reinvest that into price. That's part of price and other elements of our value equation, personalization, digital and other.

Okay. And you were asked this, but just to clarify, it's being surgical, you're not changing your high low, maybe it's going to be more modified high low, but you're certainly not moving to like EDLP. It will still be promotional-based pricing strategy?

That's correct. We are not making a huge change in our go-to-market strategy from a pricing promotional perspective. It's really just about sharpening, specifically at the customer level and at the market level, both again through frontline pricing, but also through personalization. The other thing that we haven't talked about much throughout the call today is just our Own Brands. We've shared our aspiration of hitting 30% penetration, and we're more convicted than ever in that goal, especially at a time where our team has been doing a phenomenal job of leveraging down the costs on our private label products and our Own Brands products, therefore, allowing us to be able to sharpen price points, especially on commodity-driven items and being able to drive that back into price investment, give the customers great quality products at prices they're willing to pay.

The next question comes from Robby Ohmes with Bank of America.

Sharon, wishing you the very best in retirement as well. Really, I just have one question. I was wondering if you could -- maybe, Susan, tell us what you're seeing right now in the promotional competitive environment? And kind of following up on Simeon's question, appreciating that you're not going to change high low or however you're phrasing it. But what -- how would you characterize sort of the June, July time frame? Is large competitors? Are they getting more promotional, more competitive than Albertsons typically seen historically? Or are we kind of seeing the normal seasonal activities from your largest competitor?

So I would say that we are seeing a fairly consistent promotional environment to what we've seen in the previous months. That said -- that's a promotional perspective. That said, we're also seeing some of our competitors as we are investing a little bit more in frontline pricing. Again, it seems to be pockets. It does appear to be widespread at least not yet at this moment in time. We stay very close to our price indices versus all competitors and are managing that effectively. But again, this is part of the reason that we're looking to invest as we do see opportunities very surgically, market by market, category by category to invest.

And then just a quick follow-up. The low-income consumer from your perspective, are they -- where are they going?

There's a variety of answers there. Our biggest leakage is to the big players so Walmart, Amazon and to some degree, [indiscernible] from a price competitive player. And that's where surgically, whether it's in frontline pricing, but also we're able to use our personalized deals and our loyalty program to market specifically to those lower income customers and be able to give them some price locks, so hold on pricing, some offers that help stretch their basket and maybe keep them from leaking as aggressively to some of the price -- pure price players.

This concludes the question-and-answer session at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Susan Morris, the CEO for closing comments.

Thank you. So before we conclude our call today, I just want to take a moment to thank our associates for their commitment to our customers, our communities and to each other. You are what makes this company special. Every day, you bring our strategy to life. You're committed to giving -- and we are committed to giving you the tools, the support and the clarity that you need to succeed. And to all of you on the call today, we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter, and we'll talk to many of you soon. Thanks for joining us today.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for your participation in today's conference call. This concludes today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Welcome to the Albertsons Companies' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call, and thank you for standing by. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded.

I would like to hand the call over to Cody Perdue, Senior Vice President, Treasury, Investor Relations and Risk Management. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Susan Morris, our CEO; and Sharon McCollam, our President and CFO. Today, Susan will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and update you on our strategic progress, highlighting areas of particular focus as we enter fiscal 2026. Then Sharon will provide the details related to our fourth quarter and full year financial results and our outlook for 2026 before handing it back to Susan for closing remarks. After management comments, we will conduct a Q&A session.

I would like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make today are only as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any such statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in this morning's earnings release.

And with that, I will hand the call over to Susan.

Thanks, Cody. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. In the fourth quarter, our teams led with operational agility and strong execution. Despite greater-than-expected pharmacy headwinds, identical sales increased 0.7%, while our resilient operating model and ongoing productivity drove better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA of $903 million.

For the full year, we delivered results in line with our expectations, while investing in capabilities that strengthened our business, further positioning us for long-term growth. Also during fiscal '25, we returned more than $1.8 billion to shareholders through share repurchase and dividends, underscoring our commitment to shareholder returns and disciplined capital allocation. Throughout 2025, our teams leaned into a new day, executing with focus amidst a volatile and uncertain macro environment. The results we delivered validate the effectiveness of our investments, the progress we're making across the business and the strength of the foundation that we have built.

As we enter 2026, we do so with confidence as reflected in today's outlook. This confidence is further reinforced by our announcement this morning to increase our quarterly dividend by 13% and refresh our existing share repurchase authorization to $2 billion. But before we talk more about the fourth quarter and 2026, I want to step back and talk about how we see the future of Albertsons and how we're positioning the company to win in a competitive value-focused grocery environment that requires differentiation.

At the core of our strategy is a clear conviction. The future of grocery is personal, and true personalization is a durable competitive advantage. Our mission is to become the most-loved grocer in the neighborhoods we serve by transforming routine transactions into differentiated customer connections and experiences that deepen engagement. It's not a reinvention of who we are, it's a deliberate build on strengths that already differentiate us and give us the right to win.

We have one of the strongest store networks in the country. In our markets, our stores are within 15 minutes of approximately 120 million people, giving us a structural advantage in trip frequency, pharmacy access and fast same-day fulfillment. Put simply, our store network cannot be replicated and is further strengthened by our team, our data, AI and next-generation technology capabilities, which allow us to personalize a customer's entire experience.

We also have the scale and capabilities to deliver sustainable value. In our stores, we provide market tailored fresh offerings and value-enhancing services. In e-commerce, we offer speed, convenience and variety from our store-based fulfillment model. In pharmacy, we don't just fill prescriptions, we immunize and treat our patients along their wellness journey. And we have a strong loyalty engagement where deep relationships with our banners and brands provide us the data and insights to personalized experiences at scale.

These foundational strengths working together bring our strategy to life under 3 tightly connected pillars: a winning footprint, a customer-centric experience and balanced value. Our winning footprint is not only a critical differentiator but a deep and structural competitive advantage that enables both convenience and local relevance. We're taking a disciplined market-by-market approach to banner optimization, store modernization, market densification where we have the right to win and store rationalization where the economics are structurally challenged. This is not about growth for growth's sake, it's about optimizing return on investment, elevating the customer-centric experience and ensuring that every store plays a clear role in winning in its local market.

To elevate the customer experience, we're creating scalable yet personal experiences, experiences that are differentiated, combine caring service, quality and fresh, convenience, value and own brands, all while remaining simple and easy for our customers to navigate. To deliver this, we're building on capabilities and offerings where our brands already have credibility and our customers' trust. Fresh is a great example. Our customers know they can trust us with their custom birthday cake order, to have perfectly trimmed steaks for their barbecue or to be there for them with our fresh-cut options. We're leaning into our strength as a scaled Fresh destination combining service, solutions, innovation and expertise to drive both loyalty and share.

We're also expanding into what we call food now, broadening our role in customers' daily lives by providing meal solutions that allow us to compete for a larger share of food occasions, not just the weekly stock up. Today, our deli and prepared foods drive more than 1/3 of total trips, and we have outsized share of wallet that continues to grow in this area.

At the heart of our mission, we are deepening the personal digital and loyalty relationship, connecting online and in-store experiences so customers feel recognized, seen and valued wherever they engage with us. The outcome we're driving here is simple. Customers don't just shop with us, they choose us. We're very clear-eyed about today's consumer. They remain focused on value, making a balanced value proposition more critical than ever. Our approach to this is deliberate and sustainable. Scale is a real advantage that we will leverage every day, including capitalizing on buying better together at the national level, expanding our own brand penetration, and growing our retail media platform, all to provide fuel to reinvest in value.

At the same time, we're accelerating automation and AI-enabled tools across merchandising stores and supply chain to improve efficiency to add further fuel for investment.

We are surgically investing where it matters most to our customer. That includes getting sharper on key value items and driving own brand penetration, both funded through structural margin improvement in productivity, not short-term trade-offs. But it also includes the convenience, speed and value we can offer with our assortment. The result is building a balanced value equation that works for customers, and in turn for all stakeholders while protecting long-term returns and making us our customers' retailer of choice.

Underpinning all of this is our team powered data-driven and AI-enabled company, using technology not to replace the human element, but to amplify it. As we look ahead, our focus is on building a company that can grow sustainably through all cycles. We have a clear path to accelerating revenue growth, strengthening margins and improving returns while staying true to what makes Albertsons distinctive.

Becoming the most loved grocer in our neighborhood is how we bring this to life, while building on the initiatives and capabilities we've been focused on, making grocery personal at scale, earning customers for life and delivering long-term value for shareholders.

I'll now turn back to the quarter to highlight the progress we are making across our priorities that continue to strengthen our foundation and position us for sustainable, profitable growth in fiscal 2026. Technology and AI fit at the center of our transformation. Our 4 big bets: digital customer experience, merchandising intelligence, labor optimization and supply chain optimization are not pilot programs. They're all long-term structural initiatives designed to drive growth and expand margins.

This quarter, we continue to see tangible progress. In digital customer experience, AI-driven capabilities are modernizing the way customers shop, delivering personalization that drives higher conversion, larger baskets and greater loyalty.

Merchandising intelligence. Automated insights and intelligent pricing tools are improving category decision-making and supporting structurally stronger margins. We are in flight with tools that are reimagining price and promotional strategy as well as category management and assortment decisions.

Labor optimization. Our generative AI scheduling tools will improve forecast accuracy, reducing complexity for associates and driving labor efficiency.

In supply chain, our AI power demand forecasting and computer vision are improving availability, quality and freshness, while lowering inventory and fulfillment costs. As part of our investments in supply chain, we've launched Gateway, a proprietary AI-powered tool that boosts inventory efficiency and replenishment for promotional center store SKUs. All of these initiatives are building the modern technology-enabled Albertsons that will define our competitiveness in fiscal 2026 and beyond.

Our digital and e-commerce business continues to be a strong growth engine, building on the momentum that we delivered throughout fiscal '25, digital penetration surpassed 10% in Q4, a new milestone for our omnichannel ecosystem. Our first-party business continues to scale rapidly and contributed nearly 90% of our 16% digital growth this quarter as we continue to elevate our customer experience. Our AI-enabled shopping assistance, already showing meaningful lift in basket size, continues to enhance personalization, and we see significant runway ahead as customer adoption increases.

The strength of our store-based fulfillment model also continues to differentiate. Our proximity advantage enables speed and efficiency at scale as we continue to fulfill more than half of digital orders in under 3 hours. Additionally, the vast majority of delivery households are eligible for a 30-minute flash delivery, which is our fastest growing digital segment.

We maintained strong conviction in digital as a driver of sustainable growth and margin expansion as we scale retail media, enhance marketing efficiency and strengthen loyalty engagement. Our third-party business also remains a convenient choice for some customers and is a gateway for introducing new customers to our first-party offering.

Our loyalty ecosystem continues to be one of our strongest competitive advantages, creating deeper stickiness and fueling our strategy. Membership grew 12% to more than 51 million members, with more frequent transactions, easier reward redemption and higher spending among engaged households. The program's momentum reflects both simplicity and relevancy. Customers are gravitating toward immediate value, including increasing redemption through the cash off option, which is clear evidence that we're meeting their needs in a value-focused environment.

Loyalty is also a flywheel for growth. It enriches our data, strengthens our media collective and helps us personalize promotions with increasing precision. Across the board, loyalty is driving higher lifetime value, deeper omnichannel engagement and a more predictable, resilient revenue base, all essential components of our long-term growth algorithm.

Our media business gained further momentum in Q4, driven by deeper integration across our platform. By embedding media into the customer journey and merchant partnerships, we're delivering targeted, measurable value at scale. In the quarter, our personalized ad pilots delivered a 90% lift in conversion and click-through rates, validating a clear path to scale personalization, driving higher relevance and improved return on ad spend. This approach is translating into a structurally attractive profit stream that amplifies and fuels our core retail business.

Our customer value proposition continues to strengthen, making shopping more affordable, intuitive and personalized across our market. By combining our rich store, customer and category level data with disciplined price investments, we are delivering clear, more consistent value. Through targeted pricing actions, improved loyalty-driven promotions and continued own brands innovation, we're reinforcing trust with customers who increasingly expect transparency and consistency in their weekly shop.

Our approach remains deliberate, protect affordability, sharpen value perception and use data-driven personalization to meet customers where they are across income levels, trip types and missions. The results, a value engine that supports growth and protects margins through all cycles.

In pharmacy, we delivered improved profitability despite top line pressure from the government-mandated Inflation Reduction Act that took effect this quarter. This performance reinforces our confidence in our strategy to improve pharmacy stand-alone profitability, while also driving materially higher customer lifetime value among customers who shop both pharmacy and grocery. Looking ahead to 2026, we remain focused on increasing operational productivity through expanded central fill, enhanced procurement and the scaling of higher-margin services while maintaining disciplined management of reimbursement and regulatory headwinds.

Finally, productivity remains a foundational pillar of our strategy and a meaningful source of both fuel and flexibility. Across fiscal '25, our teams executed with discipline, unlocking efficiencies across labor, store operations, supply chain, merchandising and global capability centers. This included a deliberate focus on reducing shrinking expense and improving units per labor hour, driving better in-store execution and structurally lower cost.

Importantly, this work does not reset in 2026, it builds. As we enter fiscal '26, we are scaling the same productivity engine further through a $2 billion 3-year productivity program, supported by our technology agenda and our 4 big bets in AI. Our progress continues to strengthen our operating model and reinforce our ability to grow through all cycles. Our teams delivered a strong close to fiscal '25, and we are entering fiscal '26 from a position of confidence, clarity and momentum.

With that, I'll turn it over to Sharon to walk through our financial results and 2026 outlook.

Thank you, Susan, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here with you today. Before turning to results, I want to briefly update you on this morning's announcement of our proposed nationwide opioid legal settlement framework. This framework provides for a $774 million settlement payable over 9 years that was recorded during the fourth quarter. This proposed settlement is a meaningful step toward resolving our opioid-related litigation without any admission of wrongdoing or liability. We remain committed to patient safety, strong pharmacy practices and being a constructive partner in addressing the opioid crisis as communities' needs evolve.

Now let me turn back to our fourth quarter results. In Q4, we delivered better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS despite industry-wide pharmacy dynamics that pressured reported identical sales. ID sales in Q4 increased 0.7%, net of approximately 145 basis points of pharmacy-related headwinds versus the expectation we provided in our Q3 outlook of approximately 65 to 70 basis points. These headwinds were primarily driven by a greater impact from the Inflation Reduction Act, which I will call IRA, and broader industry affordability dynamics. Specifically, IRA pricing and mix pressure accelerated more quickly than expected, while the industry shifted toward a higher generic to brand mix. Together, these factors represented an approximate 105 basis point headwind to ID sales in the quarter.

Importantly, while the top line impact was meaningful, the margin impact was favorable as generics are structurally more accretive. In addition, we saw a greater moderation in GLP-1 growth, driven by tighter payer criteria and increased direct-to-consumer penetration. This represented an incremental 40 basis point headwind to identical sales compared to our Q3 outlook. So in total, pharmacy created an approximate 145 basis point headwind to our Q4 ID sales expectations, with better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA flow-through.

In grocery, units in ID sales in Q4 remained pressured in our lowest income cohorts. And deflation also created a meaningful sales headwind as we cycled the significant egg shortages from a year ago, a dynamic that we expect to persist into the first quarter of 2026. Gross margin in Q4 was 27.2%, a decline of 25 basis points year-over-year, excluding fuel and LIFO. The decrease in gross margin rate continued to be driven by the mix shift impact of outsized growth in digital sales, while productivity benefits offset our surgical price investments. The gross margin rate also reflected the favorable rate impact associated with lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA.

Selling and administrative expense, excluding the impact of fuel and the opioid settlement framework, improved by 2 basis points year-over-year as we continue to accelerate productivity and cost-containment discipline. The SG&A rate also reflected the unfavorable rate impact associated with lower sales due to the pharmacy IRA.

Q4 interest expense increased $40 million to $141 million, compared to $101 million last year due to higher borrowings in the extra week in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to 2024. Adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was $903 million, including approximately $68 million related to the 53rd week, and adjusted EPS was $0.48 per diluted share as productivity continued to drive fuel for investment and the bottom line.

For the full year, identical sales increased 2%, and we generated $3.9 billion of adjusted EBITDA. This performance reflects the resilience of our operating model and our ability to continue to drive productivity across the business. These results reflect our financial agility to both reinvest in the business and return capital to shareholders, which brings us to capital allocation.

I want to reiterate our capital allocation priorities. First, invest in the business to drive growth and value for our customers. Next, maintain and grow our dividend, which we increased 13% this morning to $0.68 per share. And finally, opportunistically repurchase shares while maintaining a strong balance sheet. In order of these priorities, we invested $1.84 billion in capital expenditures in fiscal '25 to modernize our store fleet, advance our AI, digital and technology capabilities and elevate our supply chain. In the store fleet, we remodeled 94 stores and opened 9 stores as we refresh the asset base for long-term growth. In AI, digital and technology, we accelerate our investment in our 4 big bets as we create greater structural cost advantages, deepen customer loyalty and unlock new profit pools.

Also in fiscal '25 from a cash return to shareholders perspective, we returned $1.8 billion of capital to shareholders, including $322 million in dividends and nearly $1.5 billion in share repurchases, including the completion of our $750 million accelerated share repurchase program.

As we look forward to 2026 and beyond, we remain confident in the strength of our balance sheet and our cash flow generation. As such, now that the ASR is complete, the Board has again increased our remaining share repurchase authorization to $2 billion in total, which we expect to opportunistically complete over approximately the next 3 years.

We ended the year with our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio at 2.24x, demonstrating the strength of our balance sheet and capacity to fund growth and return capital to our shareholders. Finally, in the fourth quarter, we opportunistically refinanced $2.1 billion of existing bonds in 2 tranches, $1.2 billion of 5.625% notes due 2032 and $900 million of 5.75% tack-on notes due 2034. These proceeds were used to refinance our $1.35 billion 2027 and $750 million 2028 note maturity.

I'll now walk through our 2026 outlook. As we look ahead to 2026, we view the year as an important step in returning the business to earnings growth, while continuing to invest in the capabilities that support sustainable long-term value creation. Our strategy remains focused on the areas where we see the greatest opportunity to drive profitable growth. Digital continues to be a powerful engine as we expand our base of loyal, engaged customers and scale the business in a disciplined and increasingly profitable way. At the same time, our focus on cost control and productivity remains central to our approach, enabling us to reinvest in high-impact initiatives, expand margins and maintain financial strength.

In pharmacy, we expect continued improvement in the underlying trajectory of the business. Excluding the top line headwinds associated with the IRA, we believe pharmacy scripts will continue to grow, supported by immunizations in value-added clinical services that enhance customer engagement and profitability. With that backdrop, our fiscal '26 outlook represents a year in line with our long-term algorithm and a double-digit TSR, including our expected dividend yield and share repurchases.

Identical sales are expected to be in the range of 0% to 1% or 1.5% to 2.5%, excluding the 150 basis point headwind from the IRA and assuming near flat reported pharmacy sales. Looking at quarterly cadence, we expect identical sales in the first quarter to track below our full year range, including the IRA and significant ongoing egg deflation. As we move beyond this dynamic, we anticipate a sequential improvement in sales trends throughout the year.

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $3.85 billion to $3.925 billion, representing growth of approximately 2.5% at the top end of the range, excluding the 53rd week impact in 2025. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $2.22 to $2.32, including approximately $600 million of share repurchases during fiscal '26, underscoring our confidence in the business and our commitment to returning capital to shareholders. The effective income tax rate is expected to be in the range of 24% to 25% and capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $2 billion to $2.2 billion as we accelerate our investment in new stores, remodels, AI-powered technologies and digital capabilities.

Taken together, we believe fiscal '26 marks an important step forward, delivering adjusted EBITDA growth, strengthening earnings resilience and positioning the company to create sustained value.

And with that, I'll turn it back to Susan for closing remarks.

Thanks, Sharon. As we look ahead, 3 things should be clear. First, Albertsons has a differentiated growth model built to win in a highly competitive industry, and is rooted in proximity, customer centricity and balanced value. Second, fiscal 2026 is the year where the investments that we've made begin to translate into accelerating earnings power and improving returns. And third, our confidence is grounded in the strength of our productivity engine, efficiencies we are driving across the business that expand margins, fund reinvestment and give us the flexibility to grow through cycles.

The environment remains dynamic and competitive intensity across food retail is not easing, but our strategy is built for this reality. We have a defensible footprint that creates everyday convenience, distinct fresh experiences, a differentiated digital and loyalty ecosystem that deepens engagement and lifetime value of pharmacy business with long-term earnings power and an AI-enabled operating model that strengthens margins, improves execution and compounds returns over time.

Above all, our confidence in the year ahead comes from our people. To our 280,000 associates, thank you. Your resilience, your commitment to customers and pride in our banners bring our strategy to life every day, whether it's delivering fresh, high-quality food, supporting customers on their wellness journeys or serving communities with care. You are the foundation of our success. And as we advance our transformation, we will continue to invest in the tools, technology and support systems to help you do your best work.

I want to thank all of you on the call today for your time and support. We know who we are, how we win and where we're going. And we're building a company that can grow sustainably, generate strong cash flow and deliver long-term value for shareholders. We look forward to sharing our progress with you in the quarters ahead. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from the line of Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs.

I wanted to start out on productivity, you talked about your efforts building as we go through '26. Just -- can you provide more detail on what you've been vetted regarding productivity within the guide as we move through the year? And how we should think about the split between COGS and SG&A at this point?

Yes, we just reset our productivity to $2 billion over the next 3 years. You can think of that ratably over that period of time. And when you look at the big areas that, that comes out of, it's going to be our store operations, including shrinkage and Rx, you're going to see us buying better together. Sourcing, both GNFR and in the admin areas, we expect to see benefit supply chain. So we have amplified our activities in this area materially, and we feel very confident in the delivery of this new productivity target over the next 3 years.

Leah, what I would add to that is that the strength of the productivity really shown through for us in FY '25. We showed that we can fund strong investments, still deliver EBITDA. And as Sharon mentioned, as we think about the shape of productivity moving forward, the fact that we raised our expectations there from $1.5 billion to $2 billion over the next 3 years, that shows that we believe there's more to be had.

We mentioned our AI big bets, and we're starting to see returns there on those investments. Our buying better together is yielding strong results, and we can talk more about that. The bulk of the savings though will be coming through the SG&A side of the business.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then I just wanted to follow up on the ID sales guide. Thanks for the color, Sharon, on the improving sequential outlook for the year. But just if you can provide more detail on the grocery side of the house, your view of volumes and inflation as we move through the year?

So Leah, what I would say there -- and I'll hand it over to Sharon, is first, remember -- and we shared this in the script. The reported IDs of 0% to 1% include about a 150 basis point headwind from the IRA. So if you think about that, the underlying business will be running closer to 1.5% to 2% range.

Also, remember that we're thinking about this not just about how we grow top line, but the quality of top line growth. And there are several things that we mentioned in the call. We've got the advantage of proximity and trip frequency. We're now looking at how we can optimize our stores to drive better returns. From a customer-centric perspective, we're really engaging deeply in loyalty, digital personalization and increasing our fresh penetration to drive frequency and lifetime value. And from a pricing perspective, we're closing pricing gaps where it matters, but we're doing it with productivity funding, not through margin erosion.

Sharon, anything to add?

Yes. And Leah, your question is how do we see the cadence ex Rx as we move through the year. We're expecting the industry units to remain pressured, particularly in the first half of the year and expect Q1, we said it will actually be below our guidance range in total, including IRA. And then we will have sequential improvement as we move through the year and expect likely to be positive in the back half.

Our next questions are from the line of Mark Carden with UBS.

So to start, just on the pricing front, some of your larger competitors continue to talk about investing in their value propositions. Have you seen much of a step change on this front? And then you talked about being able to fund your anticipated changes with your productivity initiatives. Just curious if you see much risk or need to make any deeper investments in the year ahead in any of your specific markets like you did this past year?

Mark, thanks for the question. So a couple of things. First of all, we closed the gap on pricing versus MULO in the fourth quarter. So we are seeing improvements there. And I think we shared a year ago, we have a very different price position across the many markets that we operate in. So our approach is very surgical, not broad-based. We're investing where it matters most to customer value perception, especially in key value items on our private label, our own brands, and also through loyalty and personalization. We're funding that through structural productivity and margin improvement, not looking for short-term trade-offs, and that's how we're improving the price competitive perspective of our business, but also protecting long-term gross margin growth.

Great. That's helpful. And then with everything that's going on in the Middle East, can you walk through the main implications you expect to see from higher fuel prices? Do you see demand destruction or trade down tend to accelerate when the price of gasoline is at a certain level? Does it change your inflation outlook? And just broadly speaking, how impactful do you expect it to be on your fuel margins?

Yes. So we're still expecting industry inflation -- food inflation to run around that 2% range. That said, you should know that we have not been passing through that inflation at the 2% rate. We've been working on that to help bolster our price position surgically across the company.

And as we look forward, from a fuel perspective, what I would say is maybe this and just thinking about the consumer for a second. We do see units remaining pressured across the industry, and that pressure certainly is unevenly distributed. What we're seeing is increasing pressure on the lower income cohorts. It's reflected in ongoing affordability changes, we're seeing further pressure from staff regulation and so forth. So -- and by the way, the middle and income customers remain more stable in terms of the pressures that we're seeing there.

But that said, we recognize our customers are focused on value. Our lower income households are most elastic, and that's why we continue to describe our value actions as very surgical. We're trying to improve the value perception where it changes behavior, again, while protecting long-term returns through productivity funding.

Our next question is from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.

Yes. Could we just start with the gross margin, and I'm curious if you could provide a bit more color on how you're thinking about the gross margin in the upcoming year. There's a number of, I think, puts and takes here. And just curious as to whether you think that's a line item that we'll continue to improve.

Yes. So in 2026, we will continue to see benefit from the IRA. So you can anticipate that there will be a positive coming from that piece of it.

On the mix shift side where we are seeing the digital business continue to grow, while less than previous years because of the improvement we're seeing in profitability in the digital business, it's still not running -- obviously, margins of the grocery business. So we see the digital mix still playing out. And the investments that we're making price and others, we've got the productivity to offset it. So we should see the margin flat to slightly better as we progress through the year in 2026.

And when we think about that, the previous question about how is the Iran situation affecting us. One of the things to keep in mind is what we know at this point, we've included the pressures that the higher fuel costs will provide related to our transportation and the distribution expenses, et cetera. Obviously, we're expecting that -- hoping that this comes to an end in some shorter period of time. If that continued throughout the year, there could be some incremental pressure, but we are very comfortable right now with what we've included in our outlook.

Okay. And then I just wanted to follow up on the guidance that you talked about with the share repo. I think you mentioned $600 million this year and $2 billion in 3 years. With cash -- with CapEx going up and the opioid sentiment, there's roughly, I think, a $300 million incremental headwind there. Can you just talk about what the offsets are to that? How you're thinking about leverage within the context of all of that? Just kind of curious as to the drivers of the cash flow to deliver the share repo.

Yes. So one area -- when you look at the big bets and you listen to the initiatives that are underlying our productivity, we are expecting in 2026, an improvement in working capital. And our guess would be that half of that probably will be funded by working capital improvements.

In addition to that, we continue to believe that we are going to be able to take this CapEx and invest it, improve the store fleet, see the benefits in the back half of the year coming from the 4 big bets and be able to then at the back half of the year further accelerate working capital. So from a leverage point of view, we're very comfortable with where we are and we will see how this progresses through the year, but feel very confident in the returns that we will see from those capital investments.

Our next question is from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

First, more of a philosophical question. It looks like the implied guidance is flattish margins, you can correct me if I'm wrong. If the comps end up being a little bit better at the high end, are you in reinvest mode at almost -- at any cost? Or do you let that flow through to earnings? How should we think about that both this year and the next couple of years?

Simeon, thanks for the question. So I'll start and I'll ask Sharon to chime in a little bit as well. So first and foremost, we want to -- I want to underscore the impact of our productivity agenda. And again, as I mentioned before, when you look at the results from FY '25, we've shown that we can actually deliver strong productivity and strong EBITDA flow-through.

And we're scaling that further in FY '26. And that agenda is now accelerated and amplified by our 4 AI big bets, which are already yielding real results. We're starting to see increased customer take on AI-enabled shopping assistance. We're seeing a basket lift size there. In merchandising, we're already in flight with tools that help us reimagine price and promo and manage our margin spend very, very effectively. We've talked about supply chain helping us with our in-stock perspective and optimizing inventory levels through our proprietary gateway forecasting capability. So we see strong improvements there. We think it will be a very balanced year from that perspective.

Sharon?

And Simeon, as I think about if units inflected faster than we expected and we saw real momentum with our customer, we will evaluate when that moment comes. But to get that flywheel going and to get that momentum going, we will definitely invest behind the customer and the growth because long term, that will be a catalyst for staying in the algorithm and maybe even improving the algorithm over time, and that would be our goal for 2026.

Okay. And then a follow-up. It sounds like you have a digital advantage and you have the assets and capabilities in place to drive it. Can you tell us the KPIs? When you report the e-commerce growth, how -- like what level of growth are you targeting? What level of growth are you satisfied by -- like -- and are you turning -- are you bending the curve in -- across all markets? Are you seeing some progress scattered across your regions?

Thanks, Simeon. So we're very pleased with the results of our digital penetration. We shared on the call that it's now surpassed 10%. If sales grew 16% in the fourth quarter, but what's important to note there, it's over 40% to your stack. And by the way, we're not done. We think there's still a lot of upside there. We're excited about the growth. 90% of that roughly coming from our first party, which is very attractive for us because of the relationship with the customer and the data side.

On the other side of it, execution has been strong. More than half of our orders are delivered in less than 3 hours. Our Flash delivery, under 35 minutes, I believe, is one of our fastest-growing verticals in that space. And then we're really excited about the improvements that we made from a 5-star service program. We've gained return customers because we're delivering better in-stock, on-time deliveries and high-quality fresh products that we're committing to our customers.

Our next question is from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citibank.

Curious if we can we go back to the fuel for a second. I'd love to hear what your assumption is for fuel profits in F'26? And also, if you have witnessed any change in consumer behavior since gas prices have increased over the past month or so? And then I also wanted to ask about your own brand's performance in 4Q relative to the rest of the store and what your assumptions are for F'26 on own brands?

So we are seeing, again, a shift in the consumer, primarily localized with the lower income consumers that shift towards the value. We've spoken about the increase in auto cash back on our loyalty program. So we are starting to see some changes there. At the same time, we're also still seeing consumers making trips to multiple retailers. So we'll watch that closely over time. And then we anticipate to see it -- an uplift in our fuel rewards program moving forward.

Sharon?

And from a fuel perspective, at this point in time, again, within our forecast, we are assuming that this conflict is going to end in a reasonable period of time. And assuming that's the case, we're expecting -- let's think of it, in the near flat trajectory for 2026.

And then the own brand penetration as you look out to F'26?

So on brand, as we mentioned before, we're seeing fairly flat penetration at this moment in time, but it's one of our top priorities as we move forward into 2026. We've made some pretty significant investments in restructuring the team, in cost negotiation improvements, while also amplifying -- we're certainly protecting the quality that we have. So one of our primary initiatives in terms of driving value now and through the rest of 2026 is absolutely increasing own brand penetration.

Our next question is from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Partners.

Susan, I want to start with -- can you talk about the lag between value perception and reality, right? And how long that takes to shift? And I know it will probably differ market by market. With that in mind, is it reasonable to think about exiting '26 with the positive food volumes? Or is that ambitious given the industry backdrop?

John, thanks for the question. So it's a very philosophical view, by the way. From a value perception to a reality perspective or -- what we're seeing there is really doubling down on how we're communicating to customers about value and what it means to them specifically. You'll hear us talking a lot about personalization. And of course, that means personalized offers through our app and so forth. But the value perception can come in a variety of ways, simplified pricing at the shelf level. Yes, of course, personalized offers coming through our app, but it also comes through relevance in terms of assortment at store level, variety and quality of fresh, which, by the way, as a reminder, we're already in the neighborhoods where our customers live. So our ability to deliver that fresh fast, whether it's in-store or online, that proximity is an advantage that we have there.

Your second part of the question was, remind me?

Well, just what's -- is it ambitious to think about food volumes inflecting as an exit rate at the end of the year?

Yes. So we absolutely see an inflection as we go throughout the year. Clearly, the customer -- consumer remains pressured in the first quarter, and we're seeing that as much as the industry is, but we expect that to increase sequentially over time.

Sharon, would you add to that?

And John, I just -- when I answered the question about the cadence through the year of the ID sales, I said that in our outlook, we are assuming that we do get to positive at that point in time. Industry unit is going to be a catalyst that underlies that, and we will see what happens with industry units as they progress through the year as well.

Great. And then my follow-up just on, right, sourcing better together, and that's always been a really large opportunity, right, given the base. Where are we on that? Because it sounds like most of the incremental productivity agenda is SG&A. Is there still an equally large opportunity in COGS? And is that still over that 3-year time period?

John, great question. So yes, absolutely, there is more to be had from buying better together. And we were talking about this earlier. I'd say we're somewhere around the fifth inning, if you want to think about it that way, the fourth or fifth inning.

What's materially changed is we've not only put new leadership in place since late last summer, we've also reconstructed the team here, and we're already working differently with our vendor partners. Some examples, we used to have 3 national sales events. It will be 5 this year. We've already worked with our vendor partners on securing -- I'd mentioned this a moment ago, lower owned brands costs. We're now in discussions with our top vendor partners on how we can amplify the value equation for our customers, but do so in a way that protects our margins by asking them to lean in differently and helping us fund that growth as we move forward in the future.

Our next question is from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

I just want to go back to the new higher CapEx range. Is this a new baseline level we should think about going forward? And then in terms of the plans to open up new stores, is there any more color in terms of the number of new stores? And if there's a geography tent and the expectation for store closures?

In the new store fleet modernization program, there will be incremental new stores next year. We haven't given a number yet. But think about maybe -- not maybe, up 50% from this year. And then on remodels, we are amplifying our remodels materially in that number. So do I expect it to be a new baseline? These are easily measurable. You open, you've remodeled, you see the result that you get. Assuming that we see those kinds of returns that we're expecting based on the work we did in 2025, we would likely remain in this range, but we'll let you know how it's going throughout the year, and we'll give you an outlook for '27 later in the year, obviously.

Great. And then my follow-up question, just on retail media. Just curious, the key priorities for the year? And then as you look at the efforts this past year, any major surprises of note?

Rupesh, what I would just say there is that we continue to accelerate growth in our media collective. And over the past year, the team has done a phenomenal job of improving return on advertising spend for our vendors, speeding up the rate at which we're able to feed back that data to our vendor partners so they can make better decisions on how they move forward. We've opened up inventory substantially and are leveraging that inventory well.

I think we shared in the script also that we have been highlighting some experiments on personalized ads, which is -- which has had incredible take rate from a customer perspective, but also delivers a really strong return from our vendors for our vendors. So we're looking at acceleration there. So as a key driver of not only productivity and funding our digital business, we also see the media collective as a strong source of building relationships with customers and driving unit growth in the future.

Our next question is from the line of Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

You gave some helpful detail on ID sales expectations as 2026 progresses. I just wanted to maybe tie that in with the expected cadence of earnings growth and to what extent we should think about earnings, excluding the extra week, of course, aligning with that cadence of ID sales?

Yes. So in the first quarter, that will be our most pressured quarter because of the fact that the comp sales will be below the ID sales range due to the dynamic of the IRA and on top of that, the egg deflation. But when we start getting into Q2, Q3 and Q4, we are expecting adjusted EBITDA growth in every quarter improving sequentially as we get through the year as our productivity kicks in.

Great. And then I wanted to follow up just on the CapEx. You mentioned both store investments and technology and some expected benefits materializing in the second half, is that mainly related to the technology benefits? And then when we think about some of the store level investments, when do we start to see those becoming more of a contributor?

Yes. On the early remodels we do in the year, you should start seeing benefit as you get into the back half of the year. And that -- but they're going to be coming throughout the year. So it's a small benefit in this year, and you'll see it obviously in 2027.

And then on the investments that we are making, we've been making them all year on the 4 big bets. And many of those, like, as an example, one of the ones Susan spoke to, Gateway, in her prepared remarks, actually launched nationwide in February. So the benefit from that initiative, we would start to see growing as we go throughout the year.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Mushkin with R5 Capital.

So my first one just goes to loyalty. You guys are seeing some really nice growth there. But on a unit basis -- and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but on a market share unit basis, it seems it's in the grocery business, maybe flattish to down. And so I was wondering like kind of square that for me? Because your loyalty is growing really fast. I think you said trips are up, but yet, it looks like there's a little market share erosion. So I was wondering if you can kind of walk me through that?

Sure. So thanks for the question, Scott. Yes, as you stated, we definitely see industry units under pressure. And I think we saw a further decline in the industry from Q3 to Q4. That's true for us as well. That pressure is concentrated, as we mentioned before in our lower income cohorts. And this is where we look at our role is to turn our footprint, our proximity into preference for our customers through sharper value, stronger loyalty engagement, differentiation in fresh, better omnichannel experience and all of those types of things.

So we are -- we mentioned before, units will be -- are pulling tougher in the first quarter, but we expect and plan for a gradual improvement as we go on throughout the year. Our initiatives are built to drive that improvement. And again, leveraging the value of our proximity, fresh and personalization are some of the key drivers that we're using to achieve that growth over time.

Perfect. And then my second question, just again, like John is maybe a little more philosophical. When you think about your kind of natural shelf price versus your promoted price, how do you guys think about that vis-a-vis the maybe high, pretty high price point at the shelf without it being promoted and the impact on the value perception?

Sure. So what I would go back to is what I mentioned a few minutes ago and just speak to the fact that we definitely look at price market by market. Our price position is very different across the country, depending where we're at. And so that's a very surgical approach that we take because of that, where we can massage promotional in one area. We're working on frontline pricing in another. In previous quarters, we mentioned the investments that we've made, largely in frontline pricing, also in promotional pricing, but in our 3 divisions.

We've seen strong customer feedback, strong improvements. We're very pleased with those results. But again, even across those 3 deployments, if you will, the execution has been slightly different. One market might need heavier promotional increases, another market might need more relief from a frontline perspective. So a very surgical approach for us moving ahead.

Our final question is from the line of Robby Ohmes with Bank of America.

I'll wrap it into one question. There's actually -- it's really just 2 follow-ups. The first, I think -- I can't remember, Sharon, I think you mentioned the moderation in GLP-1 growth was more than expected. I was hoping you could give a little more color on is that expected to continue? And does that have a -- should we think that it's going to be a negative headwind, obviously, to store traffic?

And then the second one was on, I think, Susan, you mentioned you have seen more increased cross shopping. Is that, again, another headwind to store traffic? And overall, how is store traffic looking as digital keeps increasing as well?

Let me take the GLP-1 comment. So in our ID sales forecast for 2026, we have assumed that this GLP-1 pressure will continue and -- to some extent, and only because of the clampdown from the payers. Many health plans have made a decision not to pay for GLP-1s for consumers in 2026. So for weight loss only, where it's being taken for weight loss only. So we do think it is possible that, that will continue during the year.

As far as the question related to GLP-1s and traffic, this is -- many of our GLP-1 customers are already customers of the store. If they were not taking GLP-1s, I believe they will continue to come to our store. So I see this is a very unique drug and has a lot of implications as it relates to food. So I don't know that I would immediately make that correlation.

I will let Susan talk about traffic in the stores and our customers and where we see that happening.

Thanks, Sharon. And also just a side note, too, on the pharmacy, we are still growing script count. I want to make sure that comes through clearly. And that's important for us for a variety of reasons, including the traffic side, but as well as building larger baskets and customer lifetime value.

From a traffic perspective, what I would say is -- we would say traffic has been fairly steady. And what our focus has been is we've got great proximity. We're already in the neighborhood that serve our customers today. So how do we stop that second trip? And that's where we're focused on increasing in-stock, which we've done. That's where we're focused on fair pricing -- fair frontline pricing, again, surgically across the country, great promotions funded by our productivity, and then excellence in fresh. So if we're giving our customers what they need at prices they're willing to pay in their neighborhood, that's how we think about stopping that second trip. That's why the investment in our store fleet is so important to us. That's why we're thinking about this customer-centric experience, again, loyalty, digital, pharmacy, fresh penetration, all of those things so that we can give them the balanced value equation that resonates uniquely with them.

At this time, we've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back over to Susan for closing remarks.

So before we wrap up, I just want to thank our investors and analysts for your questions and your continued engagement. And to any employees that might be listening in, thank you for the work that you do every day to serve our customers and strengthen our business. We appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to continuing dialogue. Have a great day.

This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.

Welcome to the Albertsons Companies' Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call, and thank you for standing by. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Cody Perdue, Senior Vice President of Treasury, Investor Relations and Risk Management. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the Albertsons Companies' Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Susan Morris, our CEO; and Sharon McCollam, our President and CFO. Today, Susan will provide an overview of our third quarter of 2025 and update you on our progress against our strategic priorities. Then Sharon will provide the details related to our third quarter financial results and our outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2025, before handing it back to Susan for closing remarks. After management comments, we will conduct a Q&A session. I would like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make today are only as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any such statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in this morning's earnings release. And with that, I will hand the call over to Susan.

Thanks, Cody. Good morning, everyone, and happy New Year. This quarter marked the first since we declared a new day at Albertsons, and we delivered. We drove bold decisions in our tech and AI transformation, purposeful investments to strengthen our customer value proposition and accelerated execution in digital and pharmacy. In the face of a government shutdown, SNAP delays and a challenging consumer backdrop, our team executed with discipline and urgency. Identical sales grew 2.4%, digital sales rose 21% and adjusted EBITDA was $1.039 billion. These results underscore the resilience of our model anchored by more than 2,240 neighborhood stores. Our proximity, deep fresh expertise and trusted portfolio of brands gives us a clear advantage in serving more than 49 million loyal customers and advancing our Customers for Life strategy. We're building a structurally advantaged Albertsons, one that wins in any environment, and yet our current valuation does not reflect the progress that we've made or the long-term earnings power we're creating.

This disconnect only sharpens our resolve to execute faster, scale our transformation and deliver the performance that ultimately commands the value this company deserves. Our mission is clear: growing customers for life by leveraging our strengths, sharpening our competitive edge and delivering consistent value for customers, all while driving sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. During the quarter, execution was strong, and we delivered meaningful efficiencies through intentional and methodical cost control. Importantly, year-over-year unit trends improved sequentially versus the second quarter, reflecting the impact of our surgical price investments and reinforcing the effectiveness of our broader strategy. I'm extremely proud of how our team is executing. Also during the quarter, we continued to advance our strategic priorities with intent and conviction to position us for profitable growth as we enter 2026.

These priorities include modernizing capabilities through technology, scaling digital engagement and monetizing our media collective, enhancing our customer value proposition and unlocking structural productivity gains. As we look forward, one of the most exciting drivers of our transformation and a key source of long-term competitive advantage is technology. Our advanced cloud data infrastructure provides the foundation for scaling AI solutions and business processes across the enterprise. Additionally, we're enhancing our agility and speed to market with our global capability center in Bengaluru. We're not just adopting AI, we're working to scale it across the enterprise to fundamentally change how we operate and how customers experience Albertsons. This is not incremental. It's designed to be step change in speed, intelligence and personalization. Our teams are energized and our foundation is strong, and our strategic priorities are clear.

With bold decisions and partnering with world-class leaders like Google, OpenAI and Databricks, we're building a future where every decision is smarter, every process is more efficient and every interaction is more seamless. So where are we focused first? Our transformational big bets are in 4 critical areas. First in digital customer experience. Digital customer experience is a critical pillar of our growth strategy. By leveraging AI, we're creating differentiated experiences that go beyond convenience. They increase basket size, drive repeat trips and deepen loyalty. Early results are compelling. Our Ask AI search capability is already delivering a 10% increase in basket size for those customers using it, signaling a meaningful revenue upside as adoption scales. In addition, our autonomous shopping assistants are meeting customers where they are and delivering frictionless personalized journeys, keeping our omnichannel customer experience modernized and on trend.

Next, in merchandising intelligence. We'll be equipping our merchants with AI-driven insights and automated execution to optimize pricing, promotions and assortment decisions, transforming category management and driving margin improvement. Our vision is the future where intelligent automation guides these decisions, freeing our people to focus on strategy and innovation. Our ambition is for customers to truly feel seen, to reliably find the essentials they need at prices they trust while also discovering unique inspiring items that make our stores a destination and eliminate the need for a trip elsewhere. Next, in empowering and managing labor. We're deploying generative AI to optimize labor forecasting and scheduling across our retail labor model, reducing costs while improving associate experience through intuitive conversational tools. By leveraging AI, we ensure the right associates are in the right place at the right time, which not only drives productivity, but also elevates customer service.

This transformation simplifies complex scheduling tasks, frees up associates to focus on the customer and positions us to deliver consistent execution across thousands of stores. Finally, optimizing our end-to-end supply chain. AI demand forecasting is central to our supply chain transformation, enabling precise product tracking from vendor to customer. By applying advanced analytics and computer vision, we're improving forecasting accuracy, fulfillment, quality and on-shelf availability, optimizing labor and inventory while ensuring that customers can find the products they need when and where they need them. In sum, our tech and AI initiatives are designed to be scalable enterprise-wide programs that can deliver measurable impact and build the foundation for tomorrow. By embedding this across our business, we will unlock structural cost advantages, accelerate speed to market and create new profit pools. We're turning technology into a growth engine, improving margins, deepening customer loyalty and positioning us to win.

With momentum accelerating and a clear road map, we're confident that this transformation will help drive sustainable value for customers and long-term returns for shareholders. Turning to our digital and e-commerce business. We continue to gain market share with sales up 21% this quarter and penetration now at 9.5%. As we've consistently said about our e-commerce business, the resilience, scalability and customer proximity of our store-based fulfillment model remains a structural advantage in last-mile fulfillment and positions us well for profitable growth. In fact, during Q3, more than half of our orders were delivered in 3 hours or less, underscoring the speed and convenience that differentiate our offering. In addition, more than 95% of our delivery households are eligible to receive our Flash delivery in as soon as 30 minutes. We're also adding features to our platform like the AI shopping assistant I just mentioned, a groundbreaking tool that redefines the shopping experience.

This AI-powered assistant enables customers to interact in natural language, receive personalized recommendations and build smarter baskets faster, whether they're planning meals, discovering new products or shopping for specific occasions. This innovation enhances convenience for our customers while strengthening our competitive advantage by leveraging rich data to optimize marketing, improve loyalty and unlock new monetization opportunities through our media collective. Our pharmacy and health business delivered another outstanding quarter. Growth was driven by strong execution in our immunization offering, GLP-1 therapies and core prescriptions. We captured leading share in immunizations and strengthened long-term customer relationships. These efforts reinforce our position as a trusted health partner and deepen engagement across channels. Customers who engage across both grocery and pharmacy continue to demonstrate significantly higher lifetime value, underscoring the strength of our Customers for Life strategy.

Based on the strength of this performance, we remain on track to deliver profitable growth in our pharmacy business in 2025, supported by disciplined execution and efficiency initiatives. Scaling higher-margin services, expanding central fill capabilities, driving innovative procurement and leveraging operational efficiencies continue to be key priorities as we position this business for sustained growth into 2026 and beyond. In loyalty, we continue to drive digital engagement and value creation with membership growing 12% to over 49 million members in the third quarter. Program enhancements and simplification continue to fuel deeper engagement. Members are transacting more frequently, redeeming rewards more easily and spending more. 40% of engaged households continue to choose the cash off option, underscoring the appeal of immediate value for our most engaged and loyal customers.

Loyalty also serves as a rich data source for our merchants and for our media collective, enabling targeted marketing and monetization. Most recently, we again extended the value of our loyalty platform beyond grocery with the launch of a new offering with Uber One, offering members exclusive benefits and savings, further strengthening engagement and broadening the appeal of our platform. Our media collective continues to gain traction as a high-margin growth engine. In Q3, on-site media delivered double-digit growth year-over-year. We also strengthened performance by adding transaction capability to off-site ad units. These improvements drove higher ROI for our partners, faster campaign activation, positioning us to capture incremental spend. While the retail media space remains highly competitive, our advantage lies in the depth of our loyalty data and omnichannel reach, which enable targeted, measurable campaigns that improve both partner outcomes and the customer experience.

Looking ahead, we're focused on scaling these capabilities and unlocking new monetization opportunities, creating a structural profit pool that complements our core retail business. Few companies possess the depth of store level, customer level and category level data that we do, and we're increasingly using that data to deliver a more relevant, localized and differentiated customer experience. From a customer value perspective, we continue to invest in value through loyalty enhancements, personalized promotions and selective price investments in key categories. And these actions, combined with vendor funding and own brands innovation are strengthening engagement and driving unit growth. In our own brands portfolio, we have a clear path to growing penetration from 25% to 30%. In the divisions where we've launched our new lower-price campaign, we continue to see fundamentally better unit trends and growth in unit share, reflecting the impact of our targeted strategies.

We also very carefully manage the pass-through of inflation to deliver value for customers across the entire company, ensuring affordability while protecting margin. Importantly, unit trends for the quarter improved sequentially even with the government shutdown, again, underscoring the resilience of our approach. Productivity remains a cornerstone of our transformation and a critical enabler of our investments. Our teams are executing with discipline across multiple fronts, optimizing our labor model, redesigning ways of working, including a targeted global diversification of talent to drive efficiency at scale. We're also unlocking structural savings through automation, advanced analytics and process simplification across merchandising, supply chain and store operations. In pharmacy, where growth continues to accelerate, we're streamlining fulfillment and procurement to improve cost to serve while also enhancing the customer experience.

These efforts are not isolated, they're part of our comprehensive plan to deliver $1.5 billion in productivity gains over the next 3 fiscal years, creating capacity to fund innovation, strengthen our value proposition and improve profitability. Already in 2025, we're seeing the benefits of our productivity reduce SG&A spend as we accelerate our efforts around labor optimization. By attacking waste, modernizing labor planning and embedding technology into core processes, we're building a leaner, more agile organization that's positioned to win. Finally, before I hand it over to Sharon to cover the financial details of the quarter and our outlook for the remainder of the year, I want to spend a minute on the consumer backdrop and what we continue to see from our customers.

Consistent with what you've heard from others, the environment remains mixed and continues to reflect pressure across income segments. At the low end, shoppers are clearly stretched, putting fewer items in the basket each trip and prioritizing essentials while visiting more frequently as they manage their cash flow. Middle-income households, which have been relatively resilient, are showing some signs of softening with increased price sensitivity and trade down behavior emerging in certain categories. At the high end, spending patterns remain largely stable, but even these customers are becoming more conscious of price and value, reflecting a broader shift towards cautious discretionary spending.

Looking ahead, our outlook and actions are fully aligned with these dynamics. We're leaning into personalized promotions, loyalty enhancements and the surgical management of cost inflation to deliver immediate value while continuing selective price investments in key categories to support unit growth. At the same time, we're leveraging technology and AI, just as we discussed, to deepen engagement and optimize the shopping experience, ensuring that our strategy not only addresses current consumer behavior, but also positions us to capture share and drive profitable growth as behaviors evolve. Sharon, over to you.

Thank you, Susan, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here with you today. Building on Susan's comments, Q3 did mark a new day for our Albertsons teams. Disciplined execution and purposeful investments drove a 2.4% identical sales increase and a 21% increase in digital sales. While temporary headwinds from the government shutdown and delayed SNAP funding negatively impacted ID sales by approximately 10 to 20 basis points, we sequentially strengthened our year-over-year unit trends, clear evidence that our targeted price investments are working and reinforcing the resilience of our model. In pharmacy and health, sales increased 18% as we delivered another strong quarter and deepened engagement through immunization and value-added services. Loyalty membership grew to 49.8 million, reinforcing the strength of our Customers for Life strategy.

At the same time, as Susan shared, we continued scaling the media collective and advancing our technology transformation, including embedding AI across the enterprise and modernizing capabilities to drive productivity and growth. Each of these initiatives contributed to the results we just delivered for the third quarter, which I will discuss now. From a top line perspective, ID sales grew 2.4%, which is net of the 10 to 20 basis point government shutdown headwind, and we saw encouraging growth in areas where we made price investments. Gross margin came in at 27.4%, a decline of 55 basis points year-over-year, excluding fuel and LIFO, reflecting the expected mix shift impact of digital and pharmacy and our targeted price investments. Importantly, year-over-year gross margin improved sequentially versus Q2 as productivity benefits partially offset targeted investments, demonstrating that our actions are delivering results even as we prioritize value for customers.

Our selling and administrative expense rate was 24.9%, down 33 basis points year-over-year, excluding fuel, another clear proof point of disciplined cost management. This improvement reflects ongoing productivity initiatives and operating leverage, which we are using to fuel our investments to drive growth. Interest expense increased $7 million to $116 million this quarter, primarily due to borrowings related to our $750 million accelerated share repurchase program announced last quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 was $1.039 billion and adjusted EPS was $0.72 per diluted share, in line with our expectations and reflective of the strategic investments we're making in long-term growth. Turning to capital allocation. Our priorities remain clear: invest in the business to drive growth and value for our customers, maintain and grow our dividend over time, opportunistically repurchase shares and preserve a strong balance sheet that gives us flexibility to accelerate investment when opportunities arise.

In Q3, we invested $462 million in capital expenditures to upgrade our store fleet and advance digital technology and supply chain capabilities. In our store fleet, we opened 2 new stores, completed 23 remodels and closed 16 underperforming locations, all actions that strengthen our asset base for long-term competitiveness. From a digital and technology perspective, we further invested in AI and digital transformation to create structural cost advantages, deepen customer loyalty and unlock new profit pools, further modernizing the company for sustainable, profitable growth in an evolving retail landscape. We also returned $77 million to shareholders through our quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share and continued our $750 million accelerated share repurchase program, which began last quarter and is expected to be complete in early 2026.

The benefit of this ASR will accrue to EPS as we move through fiscal 2026. There is also $1.3 billion remaining under our existing $2.75 billion authorization that can be executed at the completion of the ASR. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio ended the quarter at 2.29x, underscoring the strength of our balance sheet and capacity to fund growth while returning capital to shareholders. Finally, in the third quarter, we also refinanced $1.5 billion of existing indebtedness in 2 tranches: $700 million of 5.5% notes due 2031 and $800 million of 5.75% notes due 2034. These proceeds were used to refinance our $750 million 2026 bond maturity and repay $750 million in borrowings under our revolving credit facility, demonstrating the strength and flexibility of our balance sheet. Before we turn to the outlook, I'd like to give you a quick update on our year-to-date labor negotiations. As a reminder, in fiscal '25, we had collective bargaining agreements covering 120,000 associates up for renewal.

As of today, we've successfully reached agreements covering more than 112,000 of these associates, leaving only 8,000 left to bargain this year. Now let's walk through our 2025 outlook. Our focus remains squarely on investing in and driving long-term profitable growth through our strategic priorities. Digital remains a powerful growth engine as we continue to add loyal shoppers to our ecosystem and scale the business profitably. Disciplined cost control and productivity also remains a key focus of our strategy, fueling reinvestment into these high-impact initiatives while maintaining financial strength. At the same time, we expect our pharmacy business to continue to accelerate, driven by immunizations and value-added services that enhance customer engagement through profitability. In pharmacy, however, on January 1, 2026, the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare Drug price Negotiation Program took effect, reducing consumer prices and supplier costs on certain branded drugs.

While this will result in lower reported pharmacy sales, the impact to profit is near neutral. In the fourth quarter, we estimate and have included in our outlook an approximate 65 to 70 basis point headwind to identical sales, which will equate to a 16 to 18 basis point impact for the full year with no impact to adjusted EBITDA. With that as the backdrop, we're updating our fiscal '25 outlook as follows: for identical sales, we are narrowing our range to reflect the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act to 2.2% to 2.5%. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be in the range of $3.825 billion to $3.875 billion, including the approximate $65 million in adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter related to our 53rd week. We are narrowing our adjusted EPS to a range of $2.08 to $2.16. The effective income tax rate is expected to be in the range of 23% to 24% and capital expenditures are unchanged in the range of $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion. And with that, I will hand it back to Susan for closing remarks.

In closing, our Customers for Life strategy is building a future-fit distinct Albertsons company, one that combines scale with local relevance, advanced analytics with deep experience of our teams and operational excellence with bold growth ambitions. The path forward is clear, the opportunities are significant and we're just getting started. Q3 demonstrates the strength of this foundation and the acceleration of our transformation. We're not just navigating a competitive and dynamic environment, we're reshaping it. Our investments in digital, loyalty, pharmacy and retail media are delivering measurable results today, while our AI strategy positions us to lead tomorrow. When we get together again for our fourth quarter earnings release, we'll share the next evolution of our Customers for Life strategy, building on the progress we've made and the strength of our model.

As we've said, at the core of this evolution is a deeper integration of data and AI across the enterprise. We're not using AI as a short-term lever. We're embedding it into merchandising, labor and supply chain to create a durable structural advantage. From personalized shopping and merchandising intelligence to supply chain optimization, these capabilities are already scaling, driving lower costs, faster execution and compounding returns that will support growth and profitability for years to come. We're also focused on delivering a more differentiated customer experience. We'll provide an overview of micro market merchandising and how we're leveraging our robust customer data to create more curated experiences across assortment, pricing and promotion, while further strengthening our leadership in fresh and expanding affordable meal solutions. In parallel, we're actively transforming our portfolio for the future. We'll outline how we plan to densify, differentiate and scale our network, including through strategic partnerships.

We're targeting markets where we have strong share and growth as well as opportunities where we see a clear right to win through new store development and strategic acquisitions that enhance our footprint, drive supply chain efficiencies and create meaningful synergies. Supporting all of this is our continuous productivity engine. We'll reiterate our commitment to disciplined cost management while outlining the next tranche of initiatives designed to deliver benefits in 2026 and beyond, fueling reinvestment in growth, innovation and customer value. As we approach fiscal 2026, we do so with confidence and a clear path to sustainable, profitable growth. To our 280,000 associates, thank you for your passion and commitment. You're the driving force behind this transformation. And together, we're creating an Albertsons that wins for our customers, our communities and our shareholders today and for the long term. We look forward to continuing this journey and delivering against our priorities. Thank you, and we'll now take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mark Carden with UBS.

So to start, you continue to make surgical investments in value, and they seem to be gaining traction with the grocery unit growth. At the same time, you've got some of your larger competitors continue to make price investments as well. Just how is the overall pricing environment lined up relative to your initial expectations? And do you see much risk ahead for the need for incremental price investments?

Mark, thanks for the question. So first, I'd start out with, we are taking a very surgical and targeted data-driven approach to our price investments. And I think we've shared that we've seen green shoots in the categories where we're investing. I also want to make sure that I call out that price investment comes in 3 ways for us, well, many ways, but 3 of them are our investments in loyalty, our investments in pulling forward on promotion, base price investments and then how we're managing through inflation. We're working very hard to soften the pass-through of inflation to our customers. So that said, we are pleased with the progress that we see in our price investments to date.

I also want to make sure that you understand that our price gaps are very market-driven, category-driven, and we're very thoughtful about how we're approaching each of these investments. Our price indices versus competitors often miss our personalized loyalty discounts, and that really materially makes a difference in our effective price. So we do intend to continue to invest very surgically, very thoughtfully. We're pleased with the initial results that we've seen and recognize there are some more surgical opportunities out there. But also, I want to remind you that we look at price as one key piece of the value equation, along with that, our fresh capabilities, our proximity to our customers, our e-commerce and pharmacy expertise that add value for the customer.

And Susan, I might also add -- oh, go ahead, Mark.

No, please, Sharon, go on.

I also want to add that another area of key focus for us, which we can talk about later, is our own brand focus. That has been a primary offering that we have put front and center for our customers because to provide value, our own brands is one of the tools in our toolbox in order to do that. And it is an area that we are doubling down and amplifying.

That's great. And then just as a follow-up, you guys have talked in the past about your ability to capitalize on some of the drug store closures that are taking place across the country. How are you progressing with getting your new pharmacy shoppers to cross over and purchase more grocery items? And are you seeing any changes to the timing or lifts just given some of the macro pressures that you highlighted in the call?

Sure. So again, we're very pleased with our pharmacy growth overall. We've -- much of it has come from organic growth inside our store. We're seeing core scripts, excluding GLPs grow. Obviously, GLPs play a factor as well. What we typically see is the bulk of our customers are already shopping with us in some way, shape or form in grocery. And as they convert into the pharmacy, that's when we start to see the deeper relationship. They become more highly engaged. They adopt our digital platforms. They engage in our loyalty programs. And I think we've shared with you in the past, it's somewhere around a 1- to 2-year journey depending on the customer to get to a fully robust loyalty platform with us. But that said, again, I want to remind you that the bulk of our customers are already shopping in the store. It's really about deepening that engagement. We're pleased with the acquisitions that we've had, both some that we've paid for and many of our customers are just choosing to come to us, which we see as a structural advantage from the services that we provide.

Our next question comes from the line of Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs.

I know it's a little too early to guide for FY '26 at this point, but there are a number of potential headwinds investors have been concerned about, such as disinflation and just ongoing volume pressure within food across the industry, along with the lower Medicare drug prices, as you noted in the prepared comments. But then you have your own efforts in driving unit improvements, which we saw this quarter, along with the ongoing productivity efforts. So just see if you could comment on a high level, the puts and takes we should think about next year and your confidence in being on algo.

You bet. Leah, thanks. So first and foremost, I want to reiterate our confidence in our algo. And the reasons we believe in that is our Customers for Life strategy is working. We see that we have outsized upside in pharmacy, in our digital and customer growth. Our media collective, which we've shared is very early in its journey. We've talked about our focus on value enhancement, which includes pricing. It includes loyalty, as Sharon just mentioned, own brands. We're pleased with our technology modernization. But again, that's early stages, and we believe there are more unlocks to come in the future there. And then our productivity agenda continues to deliver quarter-over-quarter, and we only expect that to grow. And I think all of these feed one another. Pharmacy, digital and loyalty grow engagement in baskets. Media creates high-margin fuel. Our productivity and tech agenda frees up resources to reinvest in value. So we are very confident in our ability to deliver the algorithm. Sharon, what would you add to that?

I would only add that each of these initiatives, Leah, build on one another. And as you think about it for '26 and you think about the year, it's gradually and incrementally going to build. So as you're calendarizing the year, think of it in that way. And I think that this concept of gradual and incremental, I don't care who you're talking to about AI and some of the digital transformation that's occurring, that learning is so powerful and the value that it is bringing to the bottom line just continues to grow. So as we look forward to next year, the other thing about the algo that Susan didn't say is remember when we gave that, we talked about this last quarter. We ran multiple scenarios. We know that this environment is constantly changing and evolving, and we acknowledge everything that you just said around the different aspects of the macro that could be affecting us. But our plan at this point in time has levers to pull. And again, I will reiterate Susan's confidence in our ability to get into the algo next year.

That's all really helpful color. Just wanted to go back to the lower ID sales guide for this year. And I understand the impact from the Medicare drug prices that you detailed. But within the lower guide, it's still implying a fairly wide range for the fourth quarter. So just maybe more detail on how you're thinking about the key drivers there? What gets you to the high versus low end? And how much is just tied to the uncertainty in the consumer, as you highlighted, just a broadening pressure across income cohorts? And then if you could, any color on kind of where quarter-to-date trends are tracking for ID sales?

I think there's key areas, Leah, where the guidance range is wide. First and foremost, we've got this 65 to 70 basis point impact that we are anticipating from the Inflation Reduction Act's drug pricing issue. So you pointed that out. We've tried to incorporate that. That's 10 to 20 -- 16 to 18 basis points on the full year. It's very significant. But within pharmacy, there's also a lot of other opportunities happening. There are scenarios where GLP-1s going, what's going to be the adoption with New Year's resolutions around weight loss, the pill that's coming out for GLP-1s. So there is upside in our mind depending on how each of those play out. We're also keeping a -- I would say, a cautious view around industry units. You pointed it out on the units in the industry, and that can be ranged. So within those ranges, we're keeping everything that we currently see in mind. And again, I would say this, when you take out the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on the drug pricing, we are very much where we expect it to be at this point in time.

Our next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.

So I just wanted to follow up on that -- the algo next year maybe to start. And I just want to make sure, are you saying that if the backdrop stays where it is currently from a unit volume standpoint and we have slightly less pricing, which obviously is going to put some pressure on IDs that you still think that you can get to your algo next year? If that's the case, maybe can you just talk about what the levers are that you might be pulling in order to do that? And then big picture here, can you maybe talk about the temptation to move a bit faster from an investment standpoint to generate longer-term growth versus the desire to deliver EBITDA growth in line with the plan?

Ed, I'll start, and I'll ask Sharon to chime in as well. So as she stated just a couple of seconds ago, one of the pivotal points of our strategy is our ability to be agile. And recognizing that the market is dynamic, there are different levers that we can pull to meet the algo. We've continued to talk about our acceleration in digital platforms, merchandising intelligence, our pharmacy and customer experience, our price investments and so forth. We believe they'll deliver outsized growth. And a lot of that growth is building as we exit 2025 and continues to grow as we go throughout 2026. We recognize there are some pressures from the pharmacy Inflation Reduction Act that we just spoke of. I want to make sure everybody understands, too, though that, that is a top line pressure, it is not a bottom line pressure. It's actually net neutral to the bottom line. Sharon, what would you say?

Ed, I want to be -- make sure that I understand your question because with the Inflation Reduction Act, the 16 to 18 basis points that we have quantified on the full year comp for 2025, that is only 2 periods for us this year. So you can see the magnitude of that for 2026. It is possible. We said that we would have a 2-plus percent comp store sales increase because of this Reduction Act, to that point, it is possible the comp will be -- on a comparable basis, it won't be comparable. There will be a significant headwind, could be as much as 125 basis points to the comp. And if that was the case, you may not deliver the comp number with ex the Inflation Act, it would be in the 2%-plus. But it may be different depending on how many more drugs get added to that. So we've got to think through that. When we're talking about the algorithm, we are talking about on a comparable basis to 2025, we expect comp store sales growth to be 2-plus percent before the adjustment for the Inflation Reduction Act and that adjusted EBITDA will grow slightly faster than that.

Got it. And then just a follow-up. I was hoping maybe you could talk about the progress of the cost savings and how you're tracking so far against the plan and the cadence in terms of savings as you think about 2026?

Yes. So I would -- I'll start off and just say we're executing very well against our $1.5 billion plan, as we've stated, driven by technology, automation, analytics. We've also undergone process redesign across the company in merchandising, supply chain, store operations. You can see the results that we've shared in our SG&A. We're very pleased with what's flowing through to the bottom line there from a productivity perspective. That said, though, part of our productivity is meant to fuel our growth in terms of the reinvestment in price, how we're structurally managing our store labor and developing stronger customer experiences, both in-store and online. Sharon, anything you want to offer about our outlook on productivity?

Yes. When we get into 2026, in our Q4 discussion, as Susan shared in our call, we'll also be giving you an update on productivity. We do see new opportunities with all of the things that we've talked about, and we'll be giving you an update on our productivity agenda. To Susan's point, we are achieving our productivity and to some extent, exceeding our productivity. You can see that in the numbers that we're delivering. And we expect to continue to be pushing that heavily as we go into 2026. And these opportunities, of course, are like everything I keep saying, they're gradual incremental because they're building on each other.

Our next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Securities.

Susan, you guys have -- you've acquired a lot of customers, this 12% growth, right, year-over-year over the past couple of years. Can you talk to wallet share, right? When I think -- and you also talked about that 1- to 2-year journey with pharmacy. When I think about maybe your upper decile loyalty members, average loyalty brand new, can you maybe at least give us some guidance on how those wallet share numbers differ, right? So like is the highest decile 2x the average? Or what does that look like? And then is there much difference, I guess, with the pharmacy customer, some of those new ones are still lagging, right, the wallet share of mature pharmacy customers.

Thanks, John. So our digitally engaged customers spend approximately 2 to 3x more than those not engaged in digital. And engagement rises further as they broaden through our ecosystem. So as they engage in online ordering, in loyalty, and different features on our app, our health as an example, our pharmacy. And when we get -- when pharmacy enters that ecosystem, we start to see that number grow, 4x, 5x. So our most loyal customers definitely have outsized growth in lifetime value. And our focus there is to continue to build upon that strength as customers engage with us, delivering more personalized journeys. We talked about our AI assistant, offering meal planning. We can help you curate a party or different occasions. And all of those things help deepen baskets and repeat trips for us.

Okay. And maybe a follow-up. You talked about the divisions where you've invested in price. I'm curious, have they crossed over into positive food volume territory? And then maybe related to that, I think you've talked about core, noncore assets and wanting to double down on some of the strongest markets. Do you see potential to exit markets and redeploy those assets and resources to the strongest ones or not really?

Okay. So with regards to the price investment, I'll speak to it more at the category level. We have seen strong unit improvement in the categories that we've invested. In many cases, they've moved to positive year-over-year. In other cases, the decline has lessened substantially. And as we think about our price investments, I want to remind you, too, that we've got some areas where we've executed a new low price campaign, but there are other areas where we're leveraging price in terms of deepening promotion, and as I mentioned before, the mitigation of inflation pass-through. So we're very pleased to see the positive customer response there in share as well. With regards to our fleet, yes, we're evaluating our entire portfolio end-to-end as we always do.

And I think we mentioned a couple of calls ago that because of the merger, we were unable to conduct some of the normal hygiene that we would do in terms of store closures, and you'll see an upsized list of closures as we exit 2025 based upon that. But as we look forward, yes, we're looking very much at where we're strong and want to grow, again, organically or through acquisition. And then we'll also evaluate markets where we perhaps aren't performing like we should and make a determination on if we can grow, if we can invest differently and make a change there.

And John, I would add to that, that we are also looking to materially sophisticate our real estate operations in 2026. In addition to that, we are looking at all noncore -- when I say noncore assets, surplus real estate, things -- other things like that, everything is being evaluated at this point in time. I want to make sure, however, that we are not having a similar conversation to other competitors in the grocery landscape. We did not have material type investments like others. And in no way do I -- are we indicating or signaling any type of massive write-off in front of us.

Our next question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer & Co.

So just going back to, I guess, the gross margin line. We've seen now improvement for really the last 2 or 3 quarters. It's the lowest decline that we've seen all year. Sharon, just curious how you're thinking about Q4, some of the puts and takes there and whether you'd expect further improvement versus what we saw in Q3?

Yes. I think as you think about Q4, you should think about it more like Q2, and here's the reason. In the third quarter, we saw an exceptionally strong pharmacy business and it was in the value-added side of the business, which brought some incremental profit. It really moved from Q4 into Q3 because of what happened nationally with flu and fear of COVID. We saw an acceleration into the third quarter that will then turn itself around in the fourth quarter. And fourth quarter pharmacy margin is never as strong as Q3. So I think if you model out more like Q2, you'll be in the neighborhood.

Great. And then maybe my follow-up question, just going back to the GLP-1 conversation. Given some of the enthusiasm out there on the pill format, does your team at this point think it's -- it sounds like -- does your team at this point think it could be more of a tail or maybe even a bigger tailwind as we go into next year? Is that the current thought process? Or just any thoughts on how your team is thinking about it?

Yes, we absolutely think it can be more of a tailwind as we move forward with the accessibility and delivery mechanism change in pills versus shots and so forth.

Yes. And Rupesh, I think the inflection on the pill version of the GLP-1, it is not -- so it's not broadly used, obviously. And it will depend likely on the side effects. But at this point, we do not see it having a material impact one way or the other on the EBITDA in pharmacy. This is really about top line, and it's really about our patients. If they could come out with a pill and provide our patients with a pill form versus the injection form, that would be great for the patients. But from a material P&L point of view, I don't see it in the short term as something that you need to worry about from a modeling point of view as it relates to adjusted EBITDA.

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

I wanted to ask again on just the price investment side. It sounds like there was perhaps a more intense promotional environment in November, especially when SNAP benefits were deferred. One of your competitors discussed the likelihood of higher promotions persisting into subsequent quarters. I think you earlier addressed your tactical actions on this call, but I wondered if you might talk maybe more broadly about what you're seeing across the industry and whether we should think about maybe more promotions funded by food producers or if more of that funding is coming from kind of the grocer side?

Tom, so with regards to pricing, yes, we also saw a more aggressive promotional environment this year. And certainly, it was accelerated throughout the holiday season. As we've mentioned before, our customers are absolutely more price sensitive. Our value-focused competition is clearly showing growth. But that said, our market density and strong locations, combined with our loyalty and AI-driven personalization help us create a more durable edge to serve our customers faster and at a closer proximity while protecting value. So we absolutely see promotional investments continuing. By the way, our -- by nature, we are a promotional merchant. That's who we are. That's who we've always been. And with our buying better together work, where we've spoken before about how we're leveraging our size and scale as a national company to procure a lower cost of goods to secure more promotional funding where it makes sense. All of those things will help us support where we need to be to meet the customers where they are in terms of price impression.

And the timing for us, when you think about our productivity related to buying together, where we're bringing our buying the divisions and buying together at the national level, the timing of that and the fact that, that is an opportunity in front of us, it completely is in line with the timing of the nature of your question. So obviously, that is opportunistic at the moment.

Our next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

This is Zach on for Simeon. You mentioned a sequential improvement in unit trends. Can you speak to the composition of that trend? Is it loyal families spending more? Is it new customers? And how much is coming from digital versus in-store?

So what I would say, just a reminder too, for everyone that the industry -- what we've seen in the industry is units were slightly positive in the first quarter, turned negative in the second quarter and remained flat to negative in the third quarter. And obviously, within that backdrop, our unit trends improved sequentially, and we credit that to our surgical price investment and to our loyalty-led value. I would say that we continue to see customers very price sensitive, thinking about how they prioritize essentials. We're seeing some smaller baskets in those price-sensitive customers and obviously, some trade down that's happening as well there. We know that customers are more value aware. Their spending remains relatively stable for us. And again, our personalized promotions, our targeted price investments, our own brand innovation, all of these are designed to support unit recovery over time.

And as a quick follow-up regarding digital sales, what does the economic model look like today? And where are you on the profit curve there?

Sure. So I'll start and I'll ask Sharon to chime in on some of this. But as a reminder, it continues to be a very powerful engine for us. We shared that sales were up 21%. We're very pleased with our penetration growth quarter-over-quarter. And also, we have a structural advantage in that for last mile, over half of our orders are delivered in less than 3 hours. And I think we shared 95% of our households are eligible for flash delivery, which means as fast as 30 minutes. So that reinforces speed and convenience for us. From a profitability perspective, we continue to see margin improvement as we scale adoption and embed AI into everything that we're doing end-to-end. And Sharon, do you want to add any color on profit?

Only that we had said that we expect that as we continue to grow, we will get to profitability possibly at the end of this year or going into next year. The volume levers, obviously, the fixed cost. And when we're talking about profitability, we are not including retail media, and we are fully allocating that P&L with fixed cost.

Our next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets.

Sharon, I wanted to go back to the efforts to shift the buying to a national buying campaign rather than more localized. Just wondering if you can talk about how that is progressing? Did the savings, are they starting to come through as you expected? And what does that imply for maybe the gross margin outlook into the fourth quarter and next year?

When we laid out our productivity, Kelly, we said that we expected the big benefits from that to come in year 2 and year 3 of our productivity program. That's the response to the earlier question that as we are seeing this more competitive environment, this is still in front of us. I'm going to turn it over to Susan in a second because the other thing that we're doing simultaneously is in our 4 big bets on AI, merchandising intelligence is one of those. And that provides a very data-driven way to approach this change -- material change in the way we're working. And I'll let Susan talk about the merchandising organization and how that's transformed since she took this role. So Susan, do you want to add a little bit to that?

Of course. And I'll just tag on to your AI comment as well. The merchandising intelligence that we listed under AI does exactly what Sharon described, but -- and it's also meant to help us not only create better customer experiences, create curated assortment, but also optimize the profitability of our price and promotion end-to-end. So we're very excited about our proprietary work there. From an internal construct perspective, we've -- as we've shared before, we've got a new merchant, Michelle Larson, took the seat a few months ago. And under her leadership and with the collaboration across all of our divisions, we're actually very -- we're bullish about what we're going to be able to capture from a benefits perspective as we leverage our size and scale to buy better together. We've got alignment across every single one of our divisions. We've got a common calendar. We're building the right processes and tools, as I just mentioned, from an AI perspective to support all of this. So we're very bullish about the future potential benefits that we will deliver in 2026 and beyond.

That's helpful. Can I just follow up a little bit on the discussion of the units. I believe the plan was to try to approach flattish units by year-end. I was wondering if you can talk about if that's possible still on the horizon in terms of the core grocery categories? And can you also talk about the performance of fresh versus branded? I think you talked a little bit about private label, but just some of the growth in some of those categories versus your expectations?

I'll start, and then I'll let Susan take the second half of your question. In the outlook that we have for the fourth quarter and as we think about where we will start to go into the algorithm in 2026, in light of industry units being negative and the trends in that having no clear sign of material improvement or catalyst for improvement, we will -- we did not assume that we would be at flat units coming into 2026 and don't expect to be in 2025 Q4.

And what I would add to that is, again, we've seen strong unit inflection in our price investment categories and other categories as well. We are bolstered by what we're seeing there, and that only helps us gain confidence in our pricing approach. and supports what we want to do as we move into 2026 and beyond.

Our final question this morning comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi.

You gave us an update on 3 income demographics earlier in your comments. I'm curious what you actually saw in each of those 3 during this quarter? And how does that differ in-store versus online? Curious where you're seeing yourselves gain share by income demographic or maybe even losing a little share.

Sure. So thanks, Paul. So we are by nature, by the -- our go-to-market strategy, we are -- appeal more to the middle and upper income customer base. Now that said, we serve everyone in many markets across the country. And as we've said before, our low-income customers are certainly stretched, and that is where we're seeing a smaller baskets. They're focusing on essentials. Our middle-income households also, though, do show some softening. And what we're seeing there is maybe a trade down. So instead of buying steak, they're buying ground beef and so forth. Our higher-income customers, their spend is largely stable, but also we are starting to see them be increasingly value conscious. And that's, again, where we're really leaning into our personalized promotions, our surgical cost inflation management making sure that we're delivering value across all cohorts, and we're able to leverage our loyalty programs to help us do that in a more meaningful way.

Just one follow-up on units. If we ex out pharmacy in terms of this quarter's ID sales, how does that look in terms of pricing versus units if we look at the ID sales ex pharmacy?

I think it's going to -- we expect Q4 to look pretty similar. We're expecting to see similar trends to Q3.

And what was that inflation piece, the pricing piece in Q3?

We didn't give that specifically. CPI was up 2% in Q3. We did not pass through 2%, and we passed through less than our cost inflation. That's what you see in the margins.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you all for your time today. That concludes our Q&A section. Have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.