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spk03: Good afternoon, and thank you for attending today's Vintage Wine Estates Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2022 Results Conference Call. My name is Donyell, and I will be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Deborah Pawlowski of Investor Relations of Wine Estates. Please proceed.
spk00: Thanks, Danielle. And hello, everyone. We certainly appreciate your time today and your interest in vintage wine estates. Joining me on the call are Pat Roney, our founder and CEO, and Terry Wheatley, our president. Also joining us today, we are welcoming Chris Johnston, our new CFO. Pat and Terry are going to provide an overview of our third quarter fiscal year 2022 financial results and discuss our strategy for growth as well as our outlook for the remainder of the year. After that, we will open the call for questions. As you are aware, we may make some forward-looking statements during this formal discussion, as well as during the Q&A session, which are outlined on slide two. These statements apply that future events are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks and uncertainties and other factors are provided in the release as well as with other documents filed with Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents, which are the press release as well as the slides that are accompanying today's conversation, can be found on our website. During today's call, we will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. you should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. So if you will now turn to slide three on the quarter deck, I will turn it over to Terri to begin. Terri?
spk01: Great. Thank you, Deb, and welcome, everyone. Our third quarter results were excellent with net revenue growth of 68% over last year. This strong growth was driven by impressive increases in volume across all segments. Organic growth was 44% while acquisitions contributed $11.4 million in net revenue in a quarter. While our omni-channel market strategy is a key differentiator for us, our direct-to-consumer business is clearly our gem. Our brands continue to outperform with broad market appeal Those that garner headline status include, of course, our Bardog brand that has taken the market by storm, but also Firespeed has a very strong appeal across a broad demographic. Our customer is very pleased with how well the photograph brand is performing for them, and our Clopagos brand is a strong, well-recognized name in many homes. Operating income expanded nearly five times to $900,000 and adjusted EBITDA increased 38% to a record level 14 million. As a percentage of net revenue, adjusted EBITDA was 17.7 compared with 21.6 in the prior year period due to the combination of acquisitions not being fully integrated and higher costs not yet covered by pricing actions. Pat will talk more about expected synergies and timing. On the acquisition front, we continue to execute on our strategy with the acquisition of Meyers Beverage Group in January of this year. On slide four, you will see our omnichannel marketing strategy provide the competitive advantage as we remain fairly evenly balanced among our three business channels. With the delivery of private label programs, our B2B channel had a very strong quarter benefiting from the addition of Meyers. For our wholesale business, off-premise sales were up against tough comparisons with last year's quarter, which was still impacted by COVID restrictions that kept folks more or less at home and ordering online. Nevertheless, depletion volume growth was 2.4% and was 7.6% for our top-tier brands. Our DPC channel is a hallmark of Vintage Wine Estates and continues to validate the success of our omnichannel strategy by reaching the consumer through multiple touch points. One of our latest examples of expanding our reach to the consumer is our partnership with Travel and Leisure Wine. I should mention as well our new product line initiative, Nextdrinks, which is focused on the development, marketing, and sales of alternative beverage products. We believe alternative beverages share many synergies with wine, and this adjacency presents an opportunity for further growth through diversification. We plan to leverage our operational expertise across new categories to build greater value as an enterprise, although our core will always be wine. Nextdrinks creates a product line category exclusively devoted to developing brands in the alternative beverage space that encompasses alternative packaging, flavors and infusions, non-alcohol, low alcohol, and CBD-infused beverages. Tracy Mason has joined us to lead this new operation. Tracy brings a breadth of sales and marketing experience in the beverage alcohol industry. We will anchor the Next Drinks portfolio with our Ace Cider business and plan to launch new alcohol-removed hemp CBD-infused Ace Cider products in the latter half of this year leveraging ACE's product development and production capabilities as well as its channels to market. We also acquired intellectual property rights to the women-focused, low-calorie, botanical, and cannabinoid-infused sparkling beverage brand, Jim & Jane, which we plan to reformulate into a hemp CBD and adaptogen-infused product to allow for national retail distribution. With that, let me turn it over to Pat to talk more about our results, the recent acquisitions, and our outlook. Pat?
spk05: Thank you, Terry, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to slide five, you will see additional segment discussion. As Terry mentioned, we had a very strong growth in our DPC segment, with revenue up 34% in the quarter to $19.6 million. That was the result of strong organic growth of 11%, and 3.3 million of acquired revenue. Tasting room traffic growth of 45% primarily drove our organic expansion. Recovery from COVID restrictions continues to drive on-site customer engagements, which also had a positive impact on club membership gains. Of note, our combined average order value was stable across all DTC channels. Volume for direct consumer was up 67%, reflecting increased tasting room traffic, on-site purchases, and wine club membership gains. Moving on to wholesale, our revenue was up about 16% to $24.6 million. Acquired revenue was $5 million, which helped against the challenging comparison quarter for the off-premise market. Across brands, depletion volume grew 2.4%. Priority brands, which managed a 55% of total depletion volume, saw a depletion growth of 7.6%. Next, Our B2B business demand was quite strong, with revenue increasing 205% to $33.7 million. The acquisition of Meyers at the beginning of the quarter contributed $3.1 million, and our results were also driven by our ability to deliver for our customers' private label programs. Our multi-brand portfolio should help continue to drive strong results. With the strong B2B segment growth of 205% year-on-year, Operating income was also up measurably. The segment benefited from a 33% increase in volume as a result of being able to get customer programs delivered following delays from supply chain issues in the first quarter. B2B margins improved to 31%, reflecting a higher margin mix. If you turn to slide six, I'll touch on our adjusted EBITDA and net income for the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was 14 million, up 38% year-on-year, with EBITDA margin of 17.7%, down 390 basis points from the same period a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was impacted by acquisition integration cost, higher dry goods cost, and public company costs, which were not incurred in the last year's third quarter, yet to be offset by recent pricing actions. As you are all well aware, The challenges of supply chain and labor constraints, as well as inflation, have not at all abated. We are continuously juggling production plans to meet delivery schedules and believe we have been quite executing well given the environment. As to synergies, it can take up to 24 months to fully integrate acquisitions, roll off redundant costs, and capture all of the available opportunities. Combined, the Van Ness, Ace, and Myers acquisitions are expected to contribute on an order of of an additional $2 to $3 million in cost synergies beginning over the next 6 to 18 months. Net income available to VWE common shareholders for the third quarter was $2.8 million, up from a loss of $900,000 in the prior year period. On a per diluted share basis, net income available to VWE common shareholders was $0.05 for the quarter compared with loss of $0.04 per diluted share in the prior year period. We believe adjusted net income presents a more accurate reflection of our normalized performance. On that basis, adjusted non-GAAP cash net income, which excludes the amortization of intangible assets related to acquisitions, was 4.9 million, or eight cents per diluted share. Slide seven demonstrates our financial strength, which provides us the flexibility to execute our growth plans. CapEx in the third quarter was 4.4 million, bringing the year-to-date level at $15.7 million. We are increasing our CapEx forecast for the year to be approximately $19 to $20 million, up from $12 to $14 million. While our operating and maintenance CapEx is a relatively modest $2 to $3 million, we are opportunistic regarding investments to improve productivity and enhance our efficiencies. With the acquisitions, we have identified projects that we expect will provide strong returns and are expanding certain lines as well to meet growing demand. As I have noted before, we will update this for growth and expansion CapEx as we identify opportunities. At the quarter end, the company had approximately $247.9 million in liquidity available for organic investments and acquisitions. This included $70.9 million in unrestricted cash, approximately $77 million available under a revolving line of credit, and $100 billion available under the accordion feature of the lending agreement for acquisitions. On slide eight, you will see that we are increasing our guidance to reflect our outperformance in the quarter. As you know, we do not include any pro forma expectations of prospective acquisitions in our guidance. We expect revenue will be in the range of $290 million to $295 million. At the midpoint of the range, this represents about 32% growth over fiscal year 21. In our EBITDA guidance, we have factored in our estimated risk related to supply chain and labor constraints, as well as the offsets we expect from pricing. As we continue to deal with these challenges, we now expect adjusted EBITDA for the year to be in the $62 million to $64 million range. We expect to begin to realize synergies from our acquisitions and lower our public company costs as we move through to fiscal year 23. Looking into slide 9, We believe we offer compelling investment thesis as we deliver higher growth and top tier EBITDA margins. The industry offers strong tailwinds supported by demographics and consumer behavior. We will remain focused on our growth strategy, which includes acquisitions, to deliver solid performance to our shareholders. As Terry mentioned, we have been outperforming, and I believe it's a direct reflection on the depth and breadth of our leadership team. Finally, To summarize in slide 10, we are very excited about our future, even in these tumultuous times. We continue to innovate while also driving operational efficiencies and expect to continue to outpace the industry in growth. With that, Danielle, we can open the line to call for questions.
spk03: Certainly. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. We will pause here briefly as questions are registered. The first question comes from Vivian Azair of Cowan. Please proceed.
spk02: Great, thanks so much for taking the questions. This is Harrison Vivas on for Vivian. First one, just wanted to ask, so we've seen some headlines around late season frost in both Oregon, the Willamette Valley, as well as parts of California. So just any comment around your expectations for the harvest this year?
spk05: Well, we can speak to Oregon first. There was for sure issues up there. And the crop is probably going to be at 50% to 60% levels of normal years. It's been a little bit light the last couple of years, so that's not necessarily a surprise. And in California, there's been spotty frost in certain areas, but nothing significant at this point. We're still too early to tell where California is going to come out.
spk02: Okay, understood. To turn to your guidance, it looks like the implied EBITDA margin that you're looking for is about 150 bits lighter than previous at 21.5%. I guess you had talked about, Pat, you know, pricing offsetting a lot of those cost increases. I guess what changed most over the course of the quarter that caused you to reduce your EBITDA margin expectations?
spk05: We've just seen significant and continued price increases from a lot of our suppliers. Our expectation is that we're still providing a range of revenue as well as EBITDA. So we may perform a little bit better in terms of the EBITDA, but we're comfortable with the numbers that we provided today.
spk02: Okay, that's all.
spk04: I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.
spk03: The next question comes from Luke Hannon of Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed.
spk06: Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to start with the price increases. Pat, I think you mentioned that Q4 is sort of when we're going to see more material price increases that will flow through and show up in your results. Can you give us an idea? I know that you guys are primarily a price follower, but I want to get a sense of the, I guess, the magnitude of that price increase and whether there's enough headroom for you guys to be able to continue, you know, increasing those prices while maintaining that value proposition with the customer.
spk05: So it's a good question, Luke. I think on an annualized basis, our first round of price increases that we've seen, We'll translate to about an overall 3% annualized increase in pricing and the revenue. And as we look forward and now with the expectation there may be continued increases from our suppliers on dry goods, we haven't ruled out taking prices up again sometime next fiscal year.
spk06: Okay. Okay. Understood. And then switching gears to your acquisition pipeline. I know one of the reasons why you guys stepped into the public markets was because you would be able to take advantage of that private to public arbitrage that you'd be able to leverage by executing on that acquisition pipeline using a public vehicle. I'm curious to know, if there is any slowdown or potential, I guess, inhibitors for you guys being able to consummate on what's in your pipeline with your stock trading at a lower multiple.
spk05: No, we have enough cash to go ahead and do the acquisitions that we're currently contemplating, and we actually have certainly a very solid pipeline of opportunities ahead of us, and we're very optimistic about that and bullish about it, and we'll hopefully be in a position to announce acquisitions in the very near term.
spk06: Okay. Last one for me, and then I'll pass the line here. It's probably too early maybe to be asking this question, but I'm just curious on what your initial expectations are for fiscal 23, just in terms of guidance. Should we be expecting anything that's materially different than the growth rates that you guys have been able to put up in the past?
spk05: Yeah. And Luke, I think you're right. It's probably a little early to talk about guidance for, for next year as we're in the middle of our budget and planning process and finalizing some of our acquisitions. But yeah, We continue to stand behind our growth history and continue to stand behind the plan to make additional acquisitions as well as organic growth. So I think it's, you know, the future looks bright.
spk06: Understood. Appreciate the callers. Thanks. Thank you.
spk03: Thank you. Next question comes from Daniel Bielsi of Hedgeye. Please proceed.
spk07: Hi, Pat. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the very robust store brand growth you had about whether, you know, maybe if you can break out how much of those are new doors or accounts or shelf wins and if that's a seasonal win or a year-round program.
spk05: I think some of it is timing related. Some is timing for things that were delayed from last year and some of it's related to the acquisitions that we did. And then some related to new store growth for sure and new brands and new doors that In particular, the bar dog continues to accelerate its points of distribution, accelerate its velocity. So that's a good mark for us. And then on the direct-to-consumer side, we're having hospitality bookings up, having more people come back to the properties, and that's accelerating a lot of growth. And we're getting some new consumers out of that. So all those are good, solid wins.
spk07: Thanks. And can you maybe elaborate a little more on how you are going to manage the distributors and the other customers from buying ahead of price increases?
spk05: The consumer side of it is relatively, we announce them and they go forward the next day, so there's not really any buy-in opportunity on the consumers. The wholesalers used to buy in ahead of time, but the way that they manage their cash, they really aren't doing anything. much of that with the exception of making sure they have enough inventory on the floor to cover their pricing commitments to their major retailers. But they already have an average of 90 days inventory on the floor before we announce the price increases. So we haven't really seen, nor do we expect to see a lot of buy-in.
spk04: All right. Thanks for that. Thank you.
spk03: And as a reminder, to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad. Next question is from Joe Seidman of Telsey Advisory. Please proceed.
spk08: Hey, good afternoon, guys. It's Joe Feldman from Telsey. You mentioned the CapEx. You took up the budget a bit. Can you talk about some of the new projects that are driving CapEx? that higher and, like, what you're hoping to achieve from those new projects?
spk05: Yeah, and it's not all new projects. Some of it is delayed, things that spilled into this year versus last year. But there are some, for instance, we're putting a new canning line in the Myers facility will allow us to bring canning for Ace Hard Cider into the East Coast, which will then really provide some tremendous opportunities to, have freight savings, which will translate into higher prices for us, and that's a significant capital investment. We've got on the books the new sparkling line for our Letitia facility, which will improve overall operating efficiencies and allow us to get more volume out of that facility as we continue to grow brands like the Paula Cornell sparkling and the Letitia facility. sparkling in some of the new efforts we have behind there. Those are some of the major and significant multi-million dollar kinds of projects.
spk08: Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And then with regard to the increased cost pressure, I guess, relative to what you expected at the start of the quarter, was it more the supply chain side and inflation? Was it more the lack of the acquisition synergies? Or not lack, but the delay of those? Can you break down how much was each of those two big buckets and where you also felt it was a little different than what you thought a quarter ago?
spk05: Well, the supply chain is the primary driver. It is more price increases with shorter notice from our suppliers. I mean, those are things that just happened In fact, some of the largest suppliers of wine capsules, most people probably don't know it, is actually the Ukraine in the world. So we've seen shortages on that side. We've seen continued stockouts and price increases from our glass vendors with that. And the acquisitions are going as expected, but when we provide results without the acquisitions, it's It was always on a pro forma basis, and now it's actually with the actual implementations. It just takes a little while, but we continue. We're optimistic about all of our acquisitions. We just started with Vanessa. Now we're fully producing the wines, and those roll through our cost of goods, so we'll see the benefits of those in the coming months. We transitioned to our own pick-and-pack facilities just last month, and so we'll begin to see the benefits of some of that. So the acquisitions, you know, part of are doing well, and we've also made some minor capex to increase tank capacity at Myers so we can get it ready for the half a million plus cases of hard cider that we're going to move to that facility, plus some other projects.
spk08: Now that's helpful. Thanks, guys, and good luck with this current quarter.
spk03: Thank you. Thank you. There are currently no further questions in the queue, so I will pass it back over to the management team for closing remarks.
spk05: I'd like to thank everybody for taking the time to get on the call today, and we continue to remain very optimistic and excited at Vintage Wine Estates as we continue to drive revenue and continue to improve overall profitability, and we look forward to providing positive results next quarter.
spk04: That concludes the Vintage Wine Estates third quarter fiscal year 2022 results conference call.
spk03: Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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