Alex Behring

And you guys have 30 minutes to decide whether you want to say something.

It was delicate at the time because Tim Hortons is a brand of a magnitude that I almost want to say that I'm unsure whether it exists in the U.S.

It's just so, so large, the brand in Canada and so important for the Canadians.

that this information about a deal coming out the wrong way at the wrong time could have killed it after all this six months.

So you ask Dan, when is it that he was nervous?

This is when I, in spite of my then already abandoned Mena gray hair, was nervous.

So apparently, I mean, we were not privy to all the details, but the board dynamic there between him and the prior CEO that was chairing the board and whatnot, there was some genuine doubt about the deal and they were discussing it intensively.

And also, I think that what sealed the deal for them, of course, the financial proposal, but it was also the reassurance on our part that our owners in Canada, our Tim Hortons owners, which were the heart and the core of the brand, would really thrive under our ownership.

That was key for them.

They really cared about that.

There were thousands of owners in Canada.

They made the brand into what it is.

The franchisees, you mean.

The franchisees, which in the case of Tim's, they call them owners.

I think that was key for them.

Once we disclosed what our plans were, why we thought that they would work out and so on and so forth, that went a long way with them as well.

Because that helps.

Dismiss the finest concerns about what happened in the past.

We learned a lot just by virtue of spending so much time with him.

And I think Warren had this uncanny ability to quickly identify whether a business is good or not and really, really have clarity around that.