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3/10/2021
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Acreage Holdings Q420 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Steve West, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Acreage Holdings fourth quarter conference call. Joining me today are Peter Caldini, our chief executive officer, and Glenn Leibowitz, our chief financial officer. This call is being recorded and will be archived on our investor relations website at investors.acreageholdings.com. Today's call contains forward-looking statements subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. Any such information and statements should be taken in conjunction with cautionary statements in our press releases and risk factor discussions in our public filings found on CDAR and EDGAR, as well as our investor website. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's expectations as of today's date, and we assume no obligation to update them other than as may be required by applicable securities laws. Now, for your future scheduling purposes, our first quarter 2021 earnings release is tentatively scheduled to be issued after the market close on May 11, 2021, and subsequent analyst call will be held the morning of May 12, 2021. I will now turn the call over to Peter.
Thank you Steve and good morning everyone. Before I begin discussing the performance and opportunities at Acreage, I want to take a moment to introduce myself. I was excited to join Acreage at the end of last year and that excitement has continued as I've gotten to know the organization and its people. Based on everything I've seen so far, I am encouraged about where we are as a company and believe we are on the right path for sustainable, profitable growth and returning to a leadership position in the cannabis industry. My appointment to the CEO role at Acreage builds upon my past experiences and successes. I have over 30 years of experience building and restructuring multinational organizations around the world with a strong emphasis in consumer healthcare and consumer packaged goods. This experience was gained in heavily regulated industries while at Pfizer, Bayer, and Wyatt. Before coming to Acreage, I was the CEO of a cannabis-focused special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC. In that role, I explored many national and international cannabis companies with a view to making acquisitions and implementing operational restructurings. These experiences will help me to drive Acreage forward in pursuit of its goals. I am confident most of the pieces are in place for ACREDs to succeed. Leveraging my significant experience turning around large organizations, we will continue executing against our strategic plan and begin reporting positive adjusted EBITDA as promised. I would now like to briefly discuss some of our fourth quarter highlights. The execution of our refocused plan continues to move us toward profitability. Our financial fundamentals during the fourth quarter continue to improve both sequentially and year over year despite a very challenging macro environment brought on by one of the worst global pandemics in history and the operational challenges and complexities that came with operating in this environment. Our reported revenue in the fourth quarter was $31.5 million and our adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $3.5 million. a 49% improvement versus our third quarter, and a clear sign we are rapidly approaching profitability. Looking deeper into our operational performance, our fourth quarter reported retail revenue was $25 million, a 58% increase year over year. We ended 2020 with 29 operational dispensaries, including our managed entities. Our company-owned same-store sales growth during the fourth quarter was around 27%, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The continued evolution and development of our key brands helped drive our retail sales performance. During the quarter, we launched several new CBD-derived products under our Innocent brand in Illinois, while our managed entity in Ohio continued their amazing performance with the rollout of new botanist-branded products and form factors. And finally, in New York, we launched several new botanist-branded gel capsule products. In our wholesale business, we reported revenue of $6.5 million, which was a 32% increase year-over-year. On a full-year basis, our wholesale mix was approximately 25%, exceeding our full-year target of at least 20%. Our future expectations for our wholesale business remain high. We believe there are significant growth opportunities through increased order size and velocity as we complete our cultivation and processing expansion projects in Illinois, New Jersey, and our recently completed expansion in Pennsylvania. We expect this continued focus will lead to incremental revenue growth and margin expansion through 2021 and beyond. I would like to now highlight some of our fourth quarter operational achievements. First in Massachusetts, we opened our second dispensary in Shrewsbury, which was approved for adult use sales. On the same day, our Worcester medical dispensary was approved for adult use sales, so we now have two adult use dispensaries open and operational out of the maximum three allowable in Massachusetts. In Illinois, we continued working towards completion of our cultivation and processing expansion. Once completed, the facility will encompass 80,000 square feet of cultivation and drying rooms and a beverage canning line for a canopy developed THC beverage launch. Additionally, the facility will include state-of-the-art extraction capabilities for production of a wide assortment of derivative products and edibles to support both our wholesale and retail sales efforts. We expect expansion completion later this summer. Importantly, in Illinois, we continued to scale and expand our botanist and tweed flower offering through our wholesale efforts and achieved 100% retail distribution in the state. This positions our wholesale business in Illinois for significant growth once our cultivation and processing expansion project is completed. In New Jersey, we continue to report strong revenue and EBITDA growth, even while managing through COVID-related challenges. We expect this momentum to continue as we solidify our position as a leader in New Jersey. We expect to open our third dispensary in Williamstown during the second quarter. We should complete the expansion of our Egg Harbor cultivation facility in early 2022. And importantly, we recently won our zoning appeal and will be applying for construction permits to complete the construction of our Sewell cultivation facility and expect it to be fully operational in early 2022. This was a great win-win for Acreage and the citizens of Montuoc Township. This facility, once up and running, will have a positive economic impact in the area through increased jobs and tax revenues. So within the next year, Acreage will have three operational dispensaries in New Jersey, the maximum allowable by current regulations, one of which is on the iconic Atlantic City Boardwalk and approximately 190,000 square feet of cultivation and processing space in New Jersey. Finally, I would like to touch on Ohio again. Our partners continue to lead the state in terms of retail sales and achieving full vertical integration. The cultivation facility received its operating certificate and first seeds were planted in December. The team is quickly working to increase its extraction capabilities to broaden its product offerings across a broader spectrum under our very popular botanist brand. They continue to quickly expand the botanist-branded offerings with the addition of new vape cartridges and gummy flavors. As the seventh most populated state that we serve with a strong medical program and a leadership position in the market, Ohio is a strong fit in our portfolio with significant growth potential both short and long term. We expect to complete our acquisition of Ohio and begin consolidating their financial results before the end of 2021. Before commenting on our strategy, I will turn the call over to Glen for his financial discussions. But before doing so, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his years of dedication at Acreage and acknowledge the significant contributions he's made to Acreage's success. Glen exhibits exceptional work ethic and professionalism, and he has been critical in getting me quickly up to speed He helped lead Anchorage from an investment vehicle with virtually no revenue to a publicly traded operating company with nearly $180 million in annual revenues, including our managed entities. Glenn, thank you for all your hard work and leadership, and I know that I speak for the entire Anchorage family when I wish you the very best in your future endeavors. I will now turn the call over to Glenn.
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