This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk04: 22 results conference call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note, participants are limited to one question at a time. If you would like to ask a follow up question, please re-enter the queue. Should you require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, This conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Anath Krishnan, Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
spk13: Thank you, Denise, and we appreciate you all joining us this afternoon. With me today are CEO Miguel Martin and CFO Glenn Ibbitt. After the market closed, Aurora issued a news release announcing our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. The release and accompanying financial statements and management discussion and analysis are available on our IR website and via CDAR and EDGAR databases. In addition, you can find the supplemental information deck on our IR website. Listeners are reminded that certain matters discussed on today's conference calls could constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties related to our future financial or business performance. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. The risk factors that may affect actual results are detailed in our annual information form and other periodic filings and registration statements. These documents may be accessed via CDAR and EDGAR. Following prepared remarks by Miguel and Glenn, we will conduct a question and answer session for our analysts. However, we ask you to limit yourselves to one question and then return to the queue. With that, I will turn over the call to Miguel. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you, Anand. In an environment defined by political upheaval, record-setting inflation, and market volatility, we are intent on controlling what we can control and delivering on our target of reaching a profitable adjusted EBITDA run rate by the first half of fiscal 2023. In fact, I'm very pleased to tell you that our plan is working, and we're in a better position to hit this goal than we were a quarter ago. The foundation of our confidence is our global medical cannabis business, which is both defensible and stable, with margins that exceed 60%. These are highly desirable characteristics in today's volatile economic environment. And in addition to being the number one Canadian LP in terms of medical cannabis revenue over the last 12 months, the business continues to grow in other parts of the world, especially in Europe and Australia this quarter. The second reason for our confidence is cost savings, and we're pleased to have identified additional opportunities. Recall from last quarter, we said we'd achieve the higher end of our targeted $60 to $80 million savings annually by the first half of fiscal 2023. Today, we are announcing that we've identified an additional $70 to $90 million of savings within that same timeframe for a total of $150 to $170 million of savings annually. Importantly, our total cost savings won't impact planned growth investments, but we expect them to materially reduce our cash needs. Our third reason is the balance sheet, which remains among the strongest in the industry and puts Aurora in a position of strength, particularly in challenging times. We currently have approximately $283 million in cash, inclusive of our early repurchase of $141 million in convertible debt. further strategic and value-accretive opportunities, and about $190 million U.S. remaining under our ATM program. Fourth, OKO, our science and innovation business, is one of the largest catalogs of high-quality genetics and IP in biosynthesis available for licensing. OKO represents a capital-like, long-term revenue growth opportunity that we believe makes Aurora unique and can drive success by enabling our licensing partners to deliver a continuous stream of innovation to the market. Let's take a deeper dive on our medical business. During Q3, international medical revenue was up 55% compared to last year, but down from Q2 because of our large shipment to Israel last quarter, which we did not expect to recur this quarter. As you know, predictability of revenue, especially in developing markets, can be affected by regulatory complexities, such as timing of government approvals and import permits. We are currently selling medical cannabis products in seven EU countries, Germany, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, UK, Denmark, and France, and are either the market leader or in the top three in all of those countries. We estimate today there are around 150,000 patients in the EU. But if it were to reach similar adoption levels as Canada, i.e. 1% of the population, the patient pool could expand to 3.5 million patients. In Poland, revenues grew threefold year over year as we followed up last quarter's record-breaking shipment with another strong quarter. We have established a leadership position in the Polish flower market with an estimated 70% share and expect this success to continue as we launch new cultivars in Q3 accompanied by a marketing push. In the UK, our revenues increased 60% compared to Q3 last year. Growth was driven by a rapid increase in patient numbers. as more evidence has come out and more physicians prescribe cannabis. While there is no reimbursement currently, which is a barrier to growth, we have not seen any pricing erosion. We are also preparing to launch extracts in Q4 and have already completed the first delivery to our import partners. In Germany, we had two of the top three best-selling products in dry flour for all of calendar 2021 and currently estimate we are number two in market share. Our market share is growing steadily in the extract markets thanks to new product innovation. While growth in patient numbers is moderated due to slow prescriber adoption, Germany remains the largest market in the EU with 83 million citizens, and we are bullish given the new coalition's plans to legalize adult rec cannabis and improve medical patient accessibility. In France, we have completed three shipments to date for the pilot program, where we are the exclusive supplier of dry flowers. Early estimates have us generating revenue as early as March 2023. In the Netherlands, we partnered with one of 10 license holders to sell legally produced cannabis in approximately 10% of the country's coffee shops. The Netherlands is roughly half the size of Canada, which recall is a $5 billion retail market. And like France, we expect sales here to begin in calendar 2023. Finally, in Australia, our revenues rose 300% year over year, driven by record numbers of patients. Through our exclusive supply agreement with MedRelief Australia, we offer medical patients an EU GMP certified range of products, including dry flower and recently released vapes. Let me reiterate that we believe that the cannabis growth story over the next several years will center on international medical and recreational. While the EU is currently a medical-only market, several governments have announced plans for recreational schemes, most notably Germany. The EU cannabis market is expected to be $6 billion by 2025, and we expect to grab a sizable market share given our regulatory expertise, compliance protocols, testing, and science. These attributes will put us in the pole position for success. Turning now to the Canadian medical market, we not only have a competitive advantage, but our direct-to-consumer approach drives our industry-leading margins. Overall revenue was mostly flat in Q3 compared to Q2, although our market share expanded 200 basis points to 26%. We attribute these share gains to the best-in-class patient, clinician, and physician service we offer, along with the launch of a number of premium products and innovations. our insured patients made up 79% of our domestic medical sales, up from 73% in Q2. This is a key to stability, and we believe bodes well for the future. The infrastructure to acquire, retain, and move the patient through the process requires significant resources and experience. And the truth is that a lot of that same infrastructure and know-how of patients in the Canadian market is directly applicable to our success in other key markets as such as UK, Germany, and France. Regarding Canadian adult rec, our Q3 revenue reflects persistent macro challenges, including excess inventory and pressure on older SKUs. As we have said before, these dynamics are unsustainable, but we have the scale and resources to navigate through this industry consolidation. In the meantime, our focus remains on maximizing profitability by leveraging low-cost production and further rationalizing facilities that no longer make sense. And we have also entered higher margin categories. From April to July, we plan to launch 40 new products, which we expect to benefit both rec and medical channels. These include our first infused pre-rolls and hash offerings, brand new cultivars from our breeding program, and a bevy of new vape, edible, and concentrate flavors. Our full year 2022 innovation calendar includes a significant number of new products, and we have established a regular cadence of new product innovations. Finally, I want to conclude with our recent accretive acquisition of Thrive. Thrive is most widely known for its award-winning flagship recreational brand, Greybeard Cannabis Company, which was recognized as the number one brand recommended by Canadian bud tenders in 2021. This transaction will place the talented management team who thrive in charge of our Canadian REC business, which we expect will drive improvements in our cultivation practices and premium product offerings. This team have been able to build a profitable premium business with limited resources that will immediately contribute to either that or our bottom line. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Glenn.
spk05: Thank you, Miguel. Good afternoon, everyone.
spk10: I'll start off with a few key highlights. We take pride in having one of the strongest balance sheets among Canadian LPs. At quarter end, we had $480 million of cash and no term debt. During Q3, we repurchased $13.4 million in principal on our 2024 convertible debt at a total cost of $11.8 million, including accrued interest. And in early May, we repurchased another $128 million in principal on our convertible debt. at a total cost of $122.9 million, including accrued interest. As of today, we have $229 million of principal remaining on our convertible debt. We believe that debt reduction, even though maturity is still almost three years out, is a prudent and defensive capital allocation decision. This debt reduction will save annual cash interest costs of $8.5 million. Also, in early May, we closed the Thrive acquisition for which we paid mostly cash, about $26 million cash up to $38 million price. We continue to have access to a shelf prospectus with $887.6 million U.S. still available under it, including $187.6 million U.S. remaining under our ATM programs. As we have stated before, we don't need this capital for operating purposes. But Considerate is available for strategic M&A and other value creation opportunities. Our cash flow continues to improve with $39.3 million used in operations and working capital in Q3 compared to $66.2 million in the same period of last year. And based on the additional targeted cost reductions in calendar 2022 that Miguel described, we expect cash flow to continue to improve. We are also progressing closer to our EBITDA positive milestone, as we reduced our loss by $8.6 million versus last year. However, compared to last quarter, our adjusted EBITDA loss increased by $3.2 million. This is purely due to revenue differences, as I'll explain shortly. As gross margins remain strong and healthy, and SG&A expenses continue to decline further as part of our business transformation plan. Q3 net cannabis revenue was $50.4 million, compared to $60.6 million last quarter. The change was mainly due to variable cadence from quarter to quarter of shipments to Israel, and partially due to lower consumer cannabis net revenue because of competitive pressure to cross the portfolio, coupled with retail store closures during the quarter in key provinces that impacted our premium offerings. So let me address each of our core businesses in a bit more detail. Canadian medical revenue was $24.8 million in Q3, down slightly from Q2. As we have said previously, our Canadian medical patients fall into two groups, those with cost reimbursement and those without it. To build on what Miguel said earlier, we have purposefully repositioned our business to focus on the insured patient population, which should allow us to further improve our bottom line. Our international medical revenue was $14.6 million and reflected 55% growth versus the prior year, with a decrease of 26% sequentially. However, remember that Q2 revenue included approximately $8.5 million in net sales to Israel. Excluding the impact of the Q2 Israeli sales, net international medical revenue increased sequentially by 29% and was driven by growth in important markets, including Germany, Poland, the UK, and Australia. So taken together, our leading medical businesses in Canada and Europe performed well, as usual, generating $39.4 million in sales and a gross margin of 64%, slightly from the prior quarter. Medical represented about 78% of our Q3 revenue and almost 90% of our total Q3 gross profit. This segment distinguishes us from our competitors, and the stability of the gross profit generated in these businesses is a critical component for us in reaching a positive EBITDA run rate by the end of the first half of fiscal 2023. Our Q3 consumer revenue was $10.3 million, which reflected a 28% decline compared to the last quarter. Consumer cannabis represented about 21% of our Q3 revenue and about 11% of our gross profit. As I mentioned before, The revenue decline is primarily attributed to price pressures across our portfolio and was exacerbated by COVID-related store closures in January that impacted our premium brands. It is important to note that even as our consumer cannabis net revenue fell, our consumer gross margin improved 600 basis points to 29% as we continued to shift towards a higher margin product portfolio. In March, for the first time in our history, Sanraf sales were greater than daily special revenue. This shift is important for our path to a positive EBITDA, and combined with the acquisition of Thrive, we expect to see this move to premium margins accelerate. As an example of the importance of this shift, in Q3, despite revenue being off $4 million quarter over quarter, gross profit was only down $280,000. SG&A, which includes R&D, came in at $42.3 million in Q3, and this included $2.7 million in restructuring costs and prior period accruals. Excluding these costs, adjusted SG&A was $39.5 million, our lowest level in almost four years, which was pre-adult use legalization. While our SG&A is already well controlled, we are certainly not done with the efficiency and expect to make significant additional progress as part of our updated targeted range for cost savings. So pulling all of this together, yes, we generated an adjusted EBITDA loss in Q3 2022 of $12.3 million. The $3.2 million change in adjusted EBITDA loss as compared to last quarter was primarily driven by the lower level of sales in the Israel. and was partially offset with a $2.3 million decrease in adjusted SG&A expense. Now, I'll give you a bit more color regarding our revised cost savings target of $150 to $170 million on an annualized basis. We plan to have executed all of the necessary changes before the end of calendar 2022 and expect these savings to be evenly split between cost of goods sold and SG&A. They should be reflected in our P&L, either as they occur over the next three quarters for SG&A savings, or as inventory is drawn down following production-related savings. And of course, all of it positively impacts our cash flow as the changes are executed. Today's announcement of the closure of our Aurora Sky facility in Edmonton is part of our business transformation plan. This decision is in keeping with our strategy in the Canadian adult rec market to focus on higher margin premium categories and to move away from purposefully producing for the low to no margin categories. We are working toward a leaner, more agile operating model that is expected to provide strong upward EBITDA leverage as future revenues increase. Resulting from these strategic business transformation changes, we recorded a number of one-time non-cash accounting charges in Q3, Goodwill in the Canadian market segment was written down completely, a charge of $741.7 million. And we recorded specific asset impairments of $176.1 million and an inventory provision charge of $63.6 million. So summing up, there are three key takeaways from my financial review of Q3 2022. First, our balance sheet remains strong, supported by a healthy cash balance, reduced convertible debt levels, and improving working capital and cash flow. Second, our medical businesses in Canada and internationally provide us with a competitive advantage and are critical to us generating sustainable profitability. And it's worth noting, we generate more gross profit from our medical cannabis businesses than any of our Canadian LP competitors do from their entire cannabis businesses. And finally, we've worked hard to increase the targeted range for cost savings, These are expected to have material positive impact for bottom line and cash flow and reflect the leaner operating models or positions as well for future growth. So thanks for your interest in Aurora. I'll now turn the call back to Miguel.
spk08: Thanks, Glenn. Before Q&A, let me share some final takeaways. We expect to achieve a positive adjusted EBITDA run rate by the end of the first half of fiscal 2023. Second, our medical cannabis business continues to be a smart business to invest behind, particularly in an environment of war in Europe, high inflation, and possible recession. It has defensible characteristics, high margins, and in our view, no one does it better both domestically and internationally. Third, we expect direct market in Canada to correct, and when that process is complete, we will have added opportunity for market share and pricing. Our focus in the meantime is rationalizing our footprint and driving cost efficiencies. Fourth, our science and innovation program adds another capital-wide opportunity to our portfolio, and our strong balance sheet positions us for continued organic growth and strategic M&A. On that note, we have already demonstrated considerable patience and discipline in evaluating acquisitions, seeking targets that not only fit strategically but are also rationally priced. The creative M&A is a vital part of our plan going forward, and we believe we're in a great position to create shareholder value over time. So in closing, we're delivering on our stated goals, most notably our business transformation plan, which is squarely on track. We appreciate your time and interest today. We're energized for the rest of the year. And now I'll turn it over to the operator to open the lines for questions.
spk05: Thank you, Seth.
spk04: At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. As a reminder, participants are limited to one question at a time. The first question we have is from Michael Labrie from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thank you. Good evening. Evening, Michael. So it's no surprise to see Aurora Sky finally get closed all the way. I think it has capacity several times what you're selling at the moment, but it's a big facility. It was sort of a showpiece of the portfolio for a while. How much of the incremental sales are driven by that? Is that really the majority? Is it all of it? Is it just one of several pieces? And a little bit related to that, to understand how the savings flow through, could you maybe touch on the sequential deterioration in EBITDA margins from last quarter to this one? I know it's always a little bit lumpy, but what was some of the drivers there and how much of that is, you know, how should we think about the savings really hitting fiscal 23 versus starting to see them in the fourth quarter this year?
spk08: Sure. So let me kick off on sort of a top line point, and then I'll let Glenn go into some of the modeling points. You know, Michael, I think as you're well aware and many people are aware that these massive facilities that were built, you know, particularly in Canada, you know, really were built with this idea that you could grow cannabis, particularly flower, you know, in Canada and ship it all around the world, including the U.S. and parts of Eastern Europe. So that was obviously has not come to be. Secondly, you know, consumers very quickly evolved into being very discerning. We're seeing that not only in Canada, but we're also seeing it in the U.S., and we're starting to see it as well in Western Europe. These massive facilities that employed a significant amount of automation just were not built for purpose for this environment. And one of the things I think I would mention here is Aurora has been very aggressive in proactively right-sizing the companies for what it needs. So most recently, as we've announced, Aurora Sky was down to about 25% capacity. The carrying costs on fixed and what that means across your system was just untenable. And we did everything we could to try to find locations to be able to sell that type of flower cannabis, and it just didn't work. So I think that should be an indication, I think, to everybody that we will continue to make the tough decisions that we need to make in order to have the proper you know, sort of overall footprint. Secondly, when you have such a complicated network with facilities all over Canada, it creates a lot of excess cost in the overall sort of simplicity of that system. And so there's added benefits, not just because of the carrying costs of Aurora Sky, but also to the simplification, you know, with the closure of other facilities that we've announced as well, which will have a significant impact overall. And so, you know, I think those are all sort of important points. I mean, Glenn, do you want to grab the second part of Michael's question in terms of the flow through. Just the one thing I will mention, Michael, is that we're really proud of how quick and how fast these savings are going to hit our balance sheet. And I think you'll see them quite quickly. But Glenn, if you could talk about the modeling and the timing.
spk10: Yeah, sure, Mike. So the initial tranche of savings that we announced last year that we're pretty much getting towards the end of executing are mainly driven by operational centralization. And so, for instance, Polaris was just finally shuttered in April and the manufacturing lines that have been moved back east are just up and running now. Sorry, external noise here. So the timing on those, you should start seeing a lot of that, the positive impact on cash flows starting to come through in the next quarter. Now, this additional tranche of savings that we've announced is a combination of both shuttering of some facilities that Miguel talked about and SG&A cost reduction. It's about 50-50 on that additional tranche of savings. The SG&A cost reductions are expected to be executed over the next couple of quarters, so we'll see them hitting immediate weight. And the sky reduction, I mean, our current plan is to have sky shut down by the end of summer. So I think the next couple of quarters will be telling in terms of cash flow savings. Obviously, the production side, as it hits our cost of goods, takes a quarter or two to flow through following that. So we expect to see the margin improvement coming through toward the last quarter of the calendar year, maybe even a little bit in the in our September quarter as well. So we haven't really seen it, Mike, impact other than the SG&A savings. We haven't really seen the stuff impact our financials yet, but it's coming.
spk08: I mean, Michael, one other point I'd make is, for example, Closing Sky will save us $7 million a quarter in cash savings. So it's significant.
spk05: Okay, great. Thanks so much. Thank you.
spk04: The next question we have is from Andrew Carter from Stifle. Please go ahead.
spk03: Yes, thanks. Good afternoon. So I just want to ask, you've upgraded the target by $90 million, and your adjusted EBITDA loss was $12.25. So multiply that by four, $48 million loss. You got $90 million of cost savings. Are you saying that we should be getting to a $40 million EBITDA run rate that's not even including Thrive or the tail end of the old saying? I just want to make sure I'm squaring and think of this correctly. Thank you.
spk05: Glenn, you want to walk through the staging, and then I'll talk about how to think about the timing? Sure.
spk03: Not really the timing, guys. I was actually saying, is that just an out-of-bounds absolute number to think about, that 90 plus a $48 million annualized loss, 45 over the next two years? Thanks.
spk10: I'm having a little trouble following your question there. Our SG&A, we expect to take it down on a quarterly basis below 30%. and we expect our margins to continue to be where they're at or improve over time through the centralization, just more efficiencies coming out of the operation. So in between the two, as you can see, taking our SG&A down from roughly the 40 that it's at now down below 30 is going to take us most of the way on the cost reduction that we need to get to positive EBITDA, even without depending on revenue growth.
spk08: Yeah, I mean, I guess, Andrew, the only piece I'd add is if you took Q3 and you made the presumption, particularly as it pertains to gross profit and adjusted EBITDA of what the REC business is up to, and you, I think, presume a bit of steadiness to the other two pieces of business and you drop the SG&A savings that Glendis mentioned, you're there. I don't think. I don't think it flips to a plus 40, and I would not want to profess that, but that's sort of the back of the envelope math on why I think people should have some confidence in the adjusted EBITDA target.
spk05: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. The next question we have is from Vivian Aza from Cohen.
spk05: Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. This is actually Victor.
spk07: I'm on for Vivian Azar, and thank you for taking the questions. Of course, Victor. Good. How are you? How are you? Good. So given the recent comments by Germany's health and finance ministers on accelerating adult use legalization, can you frame the adult use opportunity there and offer your thoughts on the timing? Can you also offer some color on how you look to leverage your current competitive position in the medical market to approach the opportunity there? Thank you.
spk08: Sure, I'd be happy to. So, you know, I think that the first thing with all of these countries, you know, whether it's Germany or whether it's Netherlands or you pick any of these EU countries, it's a similar regulatory framework in terms of the regulators. And they start with production and they get into manufacturing protocols and all the EU GMP and the different pieces of it. So those companies that have had success and were clearly one of them, In Germany, we'll have the inside line on rec. You know, the folks that are making that decision are the folks that were involved in medical. And, you know, I think we were a bit pleased with the speed in which that announcement was being made. So it's really hard to pick timing in this, but it doesn't change your strategic sort of approach because everything that you're doing for medical will apply to what we hope is a quick recovery. you know, REC turnaround. And so, you know, you talked a little bit about modeling. Right now, the percentage of the adult population in Germany that's using cannabis is one-tenth that at 0.1% as what we see in Canada. And so I think if you multiply that times the population, I think you can see the possible upside. But I think the thing we're most pleased about is we've had very productive conversation with the regulators And a very conservative, compliant approach, particularly on the production side for Germany, has boded well for us. One just little nuance about Germany that I'll share as to why it's so hard, their deviation provision on potency is only 10%. Most places in the world will allow a 20% deviation to label. And while you might have a 25 potency product, and you say, well, Miguel, that gives you plenty of sort of buffer at 2.5, balanced products are becoming quite popular. In many cases, they'll have a 10% THC number, which only gives you a 1% variation, which is a very difficult challenge for Germany. So we think the leaders in Germany, and as I said, we're one of them, will have the inside line when that goes wreck, and we think it will be substantive. We also would point out that there are a lot of eyes on Germany as the largest economy currently looking at it, and we think if they do go, it's going to have a halo effect on the other markets around that look at them from a regulatory standpoint.
spk05: Thank you.
spk04: The next question we have is from John Zamparo from CIBC World Markets.
spk12: Thanks. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about M&A, especially following the Thrive acquisition. It seems as though companies in the space are generally more capital constrained than in the past and they're seeing valuations compress more. Does that give you more appetite to be active on acquisitions and keeping in mind you're going to look for human capital and brands that have connected, but is there any appetite to maybe accelerate the M&A strategy at this point?
spk08: Yeah, I mean, John, it's a great question. So, you know, there's really been sort of two areas of M&A activity. One is the U.S., and I think we've been on record about our play in the U.S., which is a really clear one, that everything that we're doing around the world is going to have access points to the U.S. with an FDA regulation and with a thoughtful sort of approach. So I think we've been smart about not chasing in the U.S. on those really high valuations around that. Second piece is what you're mentioning is around Canada and, you know, this sort of question about, you know, what type of companies do you go after and with this, you know, credit markets, you know, what do you get there? I've really seen the dynamic nature of the business and renting market share and buying companies just for their market share really is not, I think, a positive approach. And to the point you're making, human capital does make a significant difference. And so, We are interested in finding teams that are really thoughtful, that are margin accretive, and that are focused on sustainably making money. Thrive was one of those teams. And I think different than others, it was my intent to find a great, high-functioning team and then put them in charge of our REC business. The CEO of that company, Jeff Huber, who's a wonderful talent with his team, they're now going to run our Canadian rec business. And not only I think they'll do that at a high level, but also they bring a significant amount of innovation and genetics that we can plug both into our rec business, our international medical business, and our domestic Canadian business. So, you know, as Glenn mentioned, we've got a lot more flexibility on the balance sheet. And I think as things get tighter and access to capital is a key strategic advantage for any company, but particularly a cannabis company. And as things get, you know, more affordable and make more sense, we would be there, particularly, you know, possibly around medical assets. And we really, you know, without being too boastful, consider ourselves to be one of the best, if not the best, international medical cannabis company out there.
spk05: And so, you know, those type of things are of unique interest to us. Thank you, sir. The next question we have is from Andrew Bond from Jefferies.
spk02: Hi, good evening. Andrew Bond on the line for Owen Bennett. Thanks for taking our questions.
spk05: Of course, Andrew.
spk02: So just around Israel, definitely appreciate timing of shipments can be lumpy, but You know, the market still looks like it's going well. Just wanted to see if you could give a little more detail around how you see shipments trending for the rest of the year, if there's been any shipments since the end of the quarter to date. Thank you.
spk08: Yeah, I'd be happy to. I have spent a lot of time in Israel, and I really have the honor of having worked in Israel a lot in my career. And so I was most recently there. A couple months ago, the situation with Israel is an interesting one. First and foremost, I think you have one of the most progressive and thoughtful regulators globally, a very smart and thoughtful gentleman named Yuval Landshaft who runs what's called the IMCA, and they're the regulator of cannabis in Israel. And you're starting to see, you know, a lot of interest, and obviously many of our competitors, you know, are shipping cannabis. Canadian flower into Israel and have done that successfully. But you're also seeing a significant growth of local growers in Israel that are becoming successful growing their own cannabis. And I don't need the name of my competitors, but I was there and I've seen many of those grows and been respectful of that. So what you're seeing is in a country of 9 million people with about 130,000 patients, that there is probably more supply than demand currently of good to great quality cannabis. And so while it is always a challenge to navigate the very sort of high bar of the IMCA to get products into Israel, there is also now the internal pressure of having local grows, you know, putting out high quality flower particularly into that market. We've said to everybody that when we have a shipment to Israel, we will announce it. And so in that statement, we have not had one yet this quarter. But what I will say is that the international market beyond Israel does go hot and cold as these regs are there. When you have a diversified business like we do, and you can offset shipments that didn't happen to Israel with shipping the largest shipment anyone's ever shipped into Poland or in the Czech Republic, or the significant growth that we have in Australia, you're able to balance out that. And I understand, you know, from an analyst standpoint, it's hard not seeing that regular cadence into a market as important as Israel. But we think, you know, that when you have such breadth internationally, overall it's going to smooth out. And we've been pretty good at, you know, guiding towards how we think our national medical business is going to do. And that's without some of the new markets that are coming online. So, you know, that's sort of it on Israel and I have great respect for what's going on there. And I think Israel beyond a place to sell Canadian cannabis will be a leader in genetics, in seed propagation and starting at some point in export. And so, you know, I'm hopeful for that. And obviously there's a long history in Israel with biotech. So we're, We're bullish. We're active in Israel. We just, you know, at this point, don't have a shipment to tell you about.
spk05: Thank you. The next question we have is from Rodrigo Gomez from APB.
spk11: Yeah, good afternoon, Miguel and Glen. Thanks for taking my question. Just, you know, with the asset rationalization that you're doing right now, closing Sky, you know, could you remind us about the facilities that you have left right now You know, what's the capacity there in terms of cultivation? How much of that capacity are you currently utilizing? And then as well, what are your plans for Sky? You know, are you looking for a buyer for this app? You know, does Canada even have a market for selling facility that size given the conditions that we're seeing right now? And also some of your other facilities as well that you plan to close. Thank you.
spk08: Sure, you got it. So I'll go as a top-line overview, and I'll let Glenn correct me if I go astray in terms of the exact numbers on production quantities by facility. So our primary facilities are River and Ridge. They are historical facilities. They produce extremely high-quality cannabis. And as we focus on premium products, both domestically, internationally, rec and medical, they are proven facilities, both with historical cultivars and new cultivars. We also retain the Whistler facility in BC that we all know produces some of the highest quality organic craft cannabis that is always done very well. And then staying in the Canadian market, we also are thrilled with what we get with the Thrive acquisition, both a tremendous indoor grow and a focus on concentrates, as well as a significantly important outdoor grow that has a wonderful cost of goods impact, particularly on fresh rose and four extracts and concentrates. Internationally, we have a facility in Germany that we talked about. We also have our Nordic facility as well as our partnership in the Netherlands. And we feel confident that both in our internal network as well as the partnerships that we have with others that we have more than what we need in terms of current demand with a proper sort of fixed cost. In terms of So overall, when you look at all that in terms of disposition, it's my expectation that that Edmonton market, particularly around that airport authority, that Sky will have a great buyer and will obviously work with our business partners, both at the municipal level, like we have with the Polaris facility. And the same thing would happen. Valley is in a tremendous location from agriculture, and there'll be no issues in terms of finding a great buyer there. And we'll have to see what happens from CROs and others on interest on Amandio. Glenn, you want to talk a little bit about maybe production quantities or clean the rest up for Fred?
spk10: Yeah, yeah, Fred. So, I mean, we have this component before the capacity of like river, ridge, whistler, et cetera. And then they run in the neighborhood sort of like, I guess, capacity at river about 30,000 kilograms a year, ridge about 5,000 kilograms a year, and westward in about the 2,000 kilograms a year range. But more importantly, that's total biomass. What we've been focused on in cultivation and getting more and more expertise is obviously the yield and pass rate that's back. So if you're producing a 25% flower, you want all your batches to be hitting 25% flower, certainly falls in value. So One of the reasons that we're really focusing in River and Ridge is the exceptional pass rates that just hitting high levels of THC on a consistent basis, sometimes 100% of the batches in a particular period will be hitting there. So that's all really important for producing high-quality flour. So it's great to state 30,000 kilograms. Our focus has been getting as much as possible at 30,000 to meet the high-quality specifications. What we're thrilled about with the Thrive team is this is, like, they're one of the best brands in Canada, and that's really obvious when you look at the company and their performance. But what's under the covers is just exceptional expertise in the cultivation side. You know, and the cultivar selection and your growing techniques, a very scientific method, but backed up by decades of legacy growing experience. You get some folks that came over as part of that team that are getting yields sometimes twice what we've been getting of the high-quality stuff. So we're excited to see even more coming out of our river and ridge. We think we've got plenty of capacity there. As far as it goes in Europe, I think you're asking about whether we could use the capacity there. In fact, we're starting to be concerned about capacity constraints in a couple of years, and it's not a problem. We've got expansion capability there, and we certainly can continue to export from Canada. But I'd put it in the other – Don't fall asleep on the European opportunity there. We need everything we can get out of our European facilities, and we're still going to need to supply from Canada over the next couple of years. So no problems with the international facilities at all.
spk05: Thank you, sir.
spk04: The next question we have is from Matthew Bottoming from Catacord Genuity. Please go ahead.
spk01: Good evening. Thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to go back to one of the questions I think Andrew was asking just about the change in the increase in the anticipated savings. Apologies towards just the end there. My line was cutting out, but I think I caught most of it. The guidance on reaching a run rate of positive EBITDA hasn't changed, but you're adding at the midpoint about $90 million of savings. So I understand that from the standpoint of what you previously telegraphed, maybe that sort of break even by sort of the midpoint of adjusted EBITDA, but adding those $90 million of savings in, when you say annualized, is that the last month or the last week of that particular point in time, let's call it midway through fiscal 23, when that will be achieved and then the actual cash part of it will be lagging, or are we expecting some sort of step function increase into the adjusted EBITDA at that point in time, given the significant increase in these initiatives?
spk10: I'll start to unpack that a little bit. When we say annualized run rate, we're making a series of decisions, some of them happening today, some of them happening in June, and then et cetera through the summer. To execute the shutdown facility obviously takes a number of months. What we've we're targeting is that by the time we exit Q2, that all the decisions are done, the facilities are shuttered, that are set to be shuttered, and everything's been executed so that we're running at a rate that is EBIT deposit, and that these savings have been captured by them. So looking forward, I think it's the right way to look at this, and the run rate basis annualizes the savings. How it differs from before is we've resized this to get to positive EBIT, even at current revenue. If we took our Q3 revenues of $50 million, just to be dead certain we can hit this EBITDA target, we said, what do we need to do to the business to make sure that even at a rate like this, which we don't expect to persist, but even at a rate like this, what would it take to be positive? So it's a bigger step than we've taken before. A lot of this shows up in cash savings. Why are we telling you the big numbers? Is that all cash savings? Obviously, when you cut it out of operational savings, Miguel mentioned Sky. you know, at $7 million a quarter. So there's almost $30 million annually of cash savings by shuttering that facility. So that's, I think, you know, if you want to think about sort of the run rate here, we've got a couple quarters here of continuing hard work to execute all these savings, but we've got an exceptionally crisp plan, and we're executing on it. So Yeah, cost of goods, obviously, the margins will start to improve, we would expect, over time. There's definitely headwinds in the market. You know that. Inflation, et cetera, et cetera. But we think we're going to at least cover that, if not more, through these cross-rationalizations. And the SP&A cuts would get us to positive EBITDA in a quarter that looks like Q3.
spk08: Yeah, I guess the other couple points I would make is one is, While you hate to do these things, this is a team that has a bit of experience now doing it. It's also a team with some new leaders in place that come from the background, whether that's our new head of operations who comes from Kraft and P&G or our new head of HR who comes from Holtz and Amex. This is a different management team that's running through this. The second part is we're going to continue to give updates the best we see it. I understand while Some people might say, well, Miguel, geez, I understand these enhanced savings. Why wouldn't you increase or raise your guidance overall? And I'm a bit sensitive to the history of the company saying it's going to do something, particularly around profitability and savings and not getting there. Now, Glenn's right in talking about the structural differences of this based upon the current revenue. So that's why I want to see a little bit of the execution. I want to see a little bit of the timing. It's a bit of a, you know, a wonky time period with inflation and some other aspects going on. If we get closer with greater clarity, of course, we'll be transparent. I think people know that. But we want to be, you know, a bit conservative here in terms of how we provide guidance on this because I am sensitive to how people have looked at historical statements on the company.
spk05: Thank you, Seth.
spk04: Our final question comes from Doug Marham from RBC Capital Markets.
spk09: Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to go back to this so that I'm sure I understand Aurora Sky. So it's operating at 25% capacity today. I'm just curious then, what is it making? And what are the revenues roughly coming out of that site? And is it losing money? you know, $10 to $20 million a year or even more by the sounds of it?
spk08: So, Doug, so let me go, I mean, put up with this little history bit. Sky was originally created, as many people on this call know better than I, to be one of the largest global automated, almost completely automated facilities to grow what I would call mid-tier flowers. And the reason that was okay, because at that time, a 16 or 18 potency product was more than acceptable for the Canadian market and for some other markets. As the consumer evolved very quickly, bug quality, density, moisture, all of those things, and then potency and terps and all these other sort of core character attributes did not lend itself to automation. And we're not the only one that sort of talked about that. So Sky had to be retrofitted very rapidly. And as you might imagine, a facility of that nature has a different sort of profile genetically of cultivars that do well. And so when you couple the rapid sort of expansion of what a consumer wanted, particularly in the rec business, and with the need for new cultivars, scale of that size became a bit of an impediment. And so we pivoted Sky and made massive changes improvements and absolute kudos to the folks that work there in order to find a home for that product, particularly internationally, where you'd have higher margins that would sustain the overall fixed cost of that facility. And as you might imagine, whether it's utility costs, whether it's maintenance, whether it's all of those things that were created under a past sort of scenario, Sky became really untenable. So we took it down to 25%, and yes, it was losing a significant amount of money as we had to allocate the overall cost of that facility against the product that was created there, which was almost entirely flour. And as flour prices, particularly in the rec market, cratered for everybody, it became this ongoing piece. And then when Israel particularly became a little bit more I would say less consistent, you know, it really became untenable. And when overall we took our rec business down to what we think is sustainable in terms of focus on premium, it just didn't make sense. And so that's really how we got to where we got to. And I think, you know, we've been pretty proactive in reducing our footprint, whether that was Sky, whether that was previously with Sun and Valley and others, and we continue to do what I think most would say is the right thing for the business to have the right cost structure overall for the amount of cannabis we need. And lastly is, as you see an expansion into other items, concentrate, infuse, pre-rolls, vapes, ingestibles in the Canadian market, massive facilities just producing flour just don't make sense to the tune of millions and millions of dollars of losses if you keep them open.
spk05: Thank you, Sal.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our question and answer session, and I would like to turn the call back to Miguel Monson for closing remarks. Please go ahead, Sal.
spk08: Well, thank you. I want to thank everybody for taking the time to continue to listen to Aurora's story. We've never been more confident about the targets we have in front of us. Hopefully people understand we continue to make the tough calls based on what we think is right for the shareholders. If you look at the balance sheet, if you look at our core cannabis business, which is International Medical, They've never been stronger. And so we're excited about the quarters they had, and we appreciate all of your coverage and interest in Aurora. Thank you very much.
spk05: Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us.
spk04: You may now disconnect your lines.
Disclaimer