Maura Topper: Thank you, Charles. If you would please turn to slide six, I would like to review our third quarter results for the partnership. We reported net income of $12.3 million for the third quarter of 2023, compared to net income of $27.6 million in the third quarter of 2022. The decline in net income was primarily due to the very elevated fuel margins that we experienced in the third quarter of 2022, as Charles noted earlier. Adjusted EBITDA was $44.2 million for the third quarter of 2023, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $62.6 million for the third quarter of 2022. Our distributable cash flow for the third quarter of 2023 was $31.4 million versus $15.9 million for the third quarter of 2022. The decrease in distributable cash flow was primarily again due to the exceptionally strong results in the third quarter of 2022 in addition to an increase in cash interest expense that also impacted our third quarter net income.
Our distribution coverage for the current quarter was 1.57 times, compared to 2.55 times for the third quarter of 2022. On a trailing 12-month basis, our distribution coverage was 1.43 times for the 12 months ended September 30, 2023, compared to 1.74 times for the comparable period ended September 30, 2022. These strong distribution coverage ratio statistics provide continuing evidence of the strength of our business as our team continues to execute on our organizational goals. The partnership paid a distribution of $0.525 per unit during the third quarter of 2023 attributable to the second quarter of 2023 for a total of almost $20 million. Charles discussed, some of the primary drivers of our topline and gross profit performance for the quarter earlier.
Turning to the expense portion of our operations. Operating expenses for the third quarter increased $3.8 million compared to the 2022 third quarter. As with last quarter, the increase was primarily driven by incremental operating expenses in our Retail segment due to the conversion of lessee dealer and commission locations to company-operated locations earlier this year. The incremental operating expense for the number of locations we converted the company-operated retail locations is in line with our expectations for these sites as they are converted to company-operated locations. Adjusting for the known incremental operating expenses, we add to the business when converting a store to the company-operated cost of trade. The increase in our other operating expenses was below the inflation levels being experienced in the wider economy.
This is a meaningfully moderated operating expense profile than we have seen for the past 18 months. So we continue to monitor the impacts of inflationary cost pressures on our business. The largest driver of operating expenses, our store labor costs, which are primarily the result of the number of labor hours our stores are staffed and wages. Year-over-year, our same-store labor hours are up approximately 2% as our team has continued their focus on ensuring our stores are open and appropriately staffed to meet customer needs. Although, we have experienced year-over-year cost pressures in the area of maintenance and supplies spending, these have been offset by our team’s continued focus on cost management in other areas of the business, which have benefited us in this recently completed quarter.
Our G&A expenses increased 4% for the quarter year-over-year. So this was primarily driven by higher equity compensation expense with all other G&A expenses roughly flat year-over-year. Moving to the next slide. We spent a total of $10.4 million on capital expenditures during the third quarter, with $8.5 million of that total being growth related capital expenditures. This was in line with our third quarter of 2022 spend of $10.4 million, which included spending for our rebranding efforts related to the acquisition of assets from 7-Eleven in 2021. During this past quarter, growth related capital spending included image upgrades that are being funded primarily through incentives from our fuel suppliers. As of September 30, 2023, our total credit facility balance was $762.5 million, up slightly from our June 30, 2023, balance of $761.5 million and below our end of 2022 balance of $765.1 million.
During the third quarter of 2023, we experienced a generally rising fuel price environment, which resulted in a usage of working capital during the quarter. We also will continue to receive the fuel supplier incentive funds related to our image upgrade projects in future quarters as upgrades are completed. These two net uses of capital during the quarter are generally items we consider timing matters and drove the roughly flat quarter-over-quarter balance on our credit facility. The credit facility defined leverage ratio was 4.35 times as of September 30, 2023. We continue to remain focused on our operational performance and associated cash flow generation to manage our leverage ratio at approximately 4 times on a credit facility defined basis.
Additionally, although, we have felt the impact of the elevated interest rate environment, as with prior periods, we continue to benefit from the interest rate swaps we put into place in early 2020 and recently in April 2023. Approximately 65% of our current credit facility balance is swapped to fixed rates. As of September 30, 2023, taking the interest rate swap contracts the partnership currently has in place into account, our effective interest rate on the capital credit facility was 4.9%, which is an attractive rate against the current rate backdrop. In conclusion, as Charles noted, despite this quarter’s year-over-year comparisons, we had a strong third quarter with positive performance in fuel and merchandise gross profit in our Retail segment.
We ended the quarter with a strong balance sheet, with a continued focus on maintaining a leverage profile that provides us with flexibility to opportunistically invest in our business. We appreciate the efforts of all of our team members around the country during this past busy summer season that is most of our third quarter and we look forward to continuing our strong performance into the fourth quarter and 2024. With that, we will open it up for questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions]
Charles Nifong: Well, it doesn’t appear we have any questions today. Should you have any questions later, please feel free to reach out to us. As always, thank you for joining us and have a great day.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Thank you.
