IM Cannabis Corp.

Good day and welcome to the I Am Cannabis Q1 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Maya Lustig, Investor Relations at IAM Cannabis. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Joining me today are IAM Cannabis Chief Executive Officer, Oren Schuster, and Chief Financial Officer, Shai Shemesh. The earnings release that accompanies this call is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at Investors. Today's call will include estimates and other forward-looking information and statements, including statements concerning future revenues, results from operations, financial positions, markets, economic conditions, product releases, partnerships, and any other statements that may be constructed as a prediction of future performance. The information may involve known and unknown risks uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences are described in detail in the company's most recent filings available on CDAR at www.cdar.com and EDGAR at www.sec.gov. Furthermore, certain non-IFRS measures will be referred to during this call. The company believes that the presentation of this non-IFRS information provides useful supplementary data concerning the company's ongoing operation and is provided for informational purposes only. Any estimates or forward-looking information or statements provided are accurate only as of the date of this call and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking information or statements or supply new information regarding the circumstances after the date of this call. Please note that all references on this call reflect currency in Canadian dollars. With that, It is my pleasure to turn the call over to Oren Schuster, CEO of IAM Cannabis. Oren, please go ahead.

Thank you, Maya. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2022 earnings call. The first quarter was highlighted by two key factors. First, with our operational execution, the benefits of integrating our global model have begun to take hold. allowing us to identify various opportunities for margin expansion. The primary relates to centralizing our operations in Israel, where we are transitioning our supply source towards a self-supply model leveraging our Canadian yield. Second, as we progress on the path to profitability, we achieved yet another quarter of record revenues which increased 169% year-over-year and 18% sequentially to $23.6 million. Notably, we exited the quarter at nearly 100 million revenue run rate basis. Taking these two factors into account, we expect 2022 to be a breakout year for Ion Cannabis. which will be particularly evident in the second half of the year given our industry-leading global framework and expected synergies. Taken in tandem with significantly reduced capital expenditure in the coming year and a strong balance sheet, we are strongly positioned for long-term success and shareholder value creation. Before I expand on this recent progress, Allow me to provide a brief overview of the company and our vision for those of you that may be new to our story. I will then touch on each of our market segments that collectively make up our unique global platform, followed by a review of our financial results before opening the call up for questions. I Am Cannabis is a leading provider of premium cannabis for the medical and recreational markets in Israel, Canada and Germany. These countries are the three largest in which cannabis is federally legal, and we are the only multi-country operator with footprint in each of them. This fact is important as it highlights IMC's leadership position and early mover advantage in a large and rapidly growing addressable market. Through a series of strategic acquisitions, we believe we have built a world-class platform of premium cultivation facilities with ample capacity, top-tier brands, extensive distribution capabilities, and direct sales channels. We took a methodical approach to procuring each of these components and focused on alignment with our vision to become one of the world's largest producers focused on cultivating cannabis for premium and ultra-premium market segments. With our infrastructure established, we next turned our focus to the integration of its components within each of our market segments as well as across our broader platform. In Israel, we took several actions to generate operating efficiencies domestically while leveraging our global import-export supply chain. we saw an opportunity to capitalize on fragmentation in the market as well as the evolving consumer preferences towards e-commerce and home delivery. The acquisitions we recently closed in Israel provided IMC with the opportunity to consolidate three leading pharmacies, including Panaxa to their own, the largest online pharmacy business in the country. We are now creating a single customer support center and a centralized distribution hub for the three pharmacies. This has been relatively seamless process that we believe will create significant cost saving going forward while also strengthening our brand presence. We also acquired two GMP certified trade centers, which provide us with the purchasing power from suppliers and the ability to provide a wider product selection. While we have historically relied on domestic cultivation sources for our products sold in Israel, the Canadian businesses we acquired last year provided us with the ability to import premium products to Israel. In the first quarter, we began importing our own products to Israel with the launch of our Wagners brand, which is highly popular in Canada and has received a positive response from Israeli consumers. In addition to the benefits of having global brand recognition, the economics of importing products from our Canadian subsidiaries are highly attractive. In fact, the Canadian products we produce, import, and sell in Israel have a gross margin profile that is nearly double that of the products sourced from other suppliers. As we increase volumes to meet elevated demand, we have a significant margin expansion opportunity by simply becoming our own primary source of supply. In Canada, our leading brands have continued to gain commercial traction with existing and new products. Our Wagners and Highland Grow brands continue to rapidly gain market share in their respective price segments. With each brand receiving a leading rank and leading position in the province of Ontario, Canada's largest cannabis market. While Canada is the most mature and competitive of the markets in which we operate, we are focused on driving growth by launching new products and formats and increasing engagement with new and existing customers. We also expect to expand into new provinces in the near term, namely Quebec, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the Canadian population. In addition to this growth, the Canadian operation also serves as an avenue to provide products to Israeli and German markets, further demonstrating the power of the global model. As we increase internal cultivation towards full capacity, we are also focused on several operational initiatives that we expect to contribute to margin expansion, including yield improvements and reductions of volume-based operating costs. Finally, we continue to lay our foundation in Germany, the largest medical cannabis market in Europe. We have established positive reputation among the German healthcare community through our IMC branded products, which we attribute to our track record, brand reputation, and proprietary data from our experience in the Israeli medical market. We are committed to providing German physicians and patients with the best available strains in the global cannabis market, and we're currently in the process of launching our Wagner's brand in Germany. We believe that Germany has the potential to be the second largest federally legal adult use market in the world. Earlier this month, the country's health minister announced his support of an accelerated legislative process for legalizing adult-use cannabis that is expected to take place in the coming months, including legislative drafts expected before the end of the year. While it appears that the momentum is picking up, the legislative process will undoubtedly take time. Being early in this market is strategic and presents a massive opportunity for IMC. This is why we have made the conscious decision to invest significantly into our German infrastructure over the last few years. And we plan to continue this investment going forward. We are building our foundation in Germany to allow us to be the first mover in the evolving German cannabis market that we believe will prioritize premium cannabis, which is our core focus. We are thrilled to see the benefits of our multi-country strategy begin to take effect. We are ramping up cultivation in Canada to fulfill growing demand domestically and in Israel and Germany, where premium products command the market. By bringing our supply source in-house and optimizing our cost structure through the centralization of operations in Israel, we are taking a calculated and sustainable approach to achieving gross margin expansion. IMC gaining brand recognition on a global level, yet when we evaluate our position relative to the potential opportunities afforded by evolving regulatory landscape, we are still in a very early stage of our growth trajectory. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Shai Shemesh, who will review our first quarter 2022 financial results. Shai?