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3/11/2022
Hello and welcome to the Acreage Holdings fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. My name is Emily and I'll be coordinating the call today. During the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask a question by pressing star and then one on your telephone keypads. I now have the pleasure of handing the call over to our host, Steve Gertz, Chief Financial Officer at Acreage Holdings. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Acreage Holdings fourth quarter conference call. Joining me today is Peter Caldini, our Chief Executive Officer. Today's call will be archived on our investor relations website at investors.acreageholdings.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that 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. I will now turn the call over to Peter.
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. 2021 was a transformational year for acreage. The acreage you see today is a much stronger company than the acreage that existed just 12 months ago. At the beginning of the year, we outlined three strategic priorities for our business. Driving profitability, strengthening our balance sheet, and accelerating growth in our core markets. I am extremely proud to share that as a result of the tireless efforts of our team, We exited the year having made exceptional progress on each of these key priorities. Looking first at our profitability improvements, in the first quarter of 2021, we successfully achieved our first quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA in the company's history and have now delivered four consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. For the full year 2021, our adjusted EBITDA was 24.6 million, which is a significant improvement of $54 million in just one year from the adjusted EBITDA loss of $29.5 million we reported in 2020. These improvements were a result of our continued revenue growth with consolidated revenue up 65% to $188.9 million for 2021 compared to $114 million for 2020. While some of this revenue growth was due to acquisitions that occurred over the past 24 months, Our organic revenue growth from core operations was over 42%. While growing revenue was a key priority for acreage, we were also mindful of responsibly managing our costs throughout 2021. The revenue grew by 65%. Our management of cost of goods sold kept the increase in this area at only 42%, allowing us to improve our gross profit from 43% in 2020 to 51% in 2021. Additionally, we completed a rationalization of our corporate office costs early in the year and continue to manage our corporate costs at a level that is appropriate for the size of our business. Next, strengthening our balance sheet remained an important initiative for Acreage, and we achieved several milestones over the course of the last 12 months. First, we completed the seller of Florida assets generating proceeds of $60 million. We subsequently utilize some of the proceeds from the sale of Florida to reduce our near-term debt obligations with the repayment of 46 million in obligations during the second half of the year. We also made strong progress in strengthening our balance sheet by completing the sale of additional operations that were determined to be non-core and were a drain on financial and management resources. During 2021, we completed the sale of our Maryland operations and finalized agreement for the sale of our Oregon operations, which we're expecting to close in 2022. Most significantly, in the fourth quarter of 2021, we closed on a new $150 million long-term debt agreement. The proceeds of this new debt will be used to extinguish existing debt, fund working capital, and provide us with capital for future projects. In addition to extending our debt maturities out for four years and negotiating more financial flexibility, this new debt provides us with greater optionality as we move forward as there is no restrictions and penalties on early repayment. Lastly, we've made significant progress in accelerating our growth in our core markets. In New Jersey, we opened one new retail location and completed expansion of our cultivation facility in Egg Harbor increase our cultivation capacity at that facility nearly fourfold. This expansion will allow us to support and supply all the retail products required for our own dispensaries, while also enabling us to increase our wholesale market business in this rapidly growing New Jersey market. Although our second cultivation facility in Sewell was significantly damaged by Hurricane Ida, we are developing further plans to increase our cultivation capacity in this important state. We eagerly look forward to New Jersey introducing adult use in 2022, and we believe that with our current footprint and expansion projects, we are well positioned to be a leader in the state as soon as adult sales commence. We also look forward to New York introducing adult use in the future and have been planning in advance for this important change. We have a cultivation expansion project in Syracuse, New York, which we expect to be completed by the end of Q2. and will help position us ahead of adult use sales in that state. We're also currently looking at our network of retail dispensaries in New York to ensure that we're optimized and ready for the anticipated increase in business that will come with the development of this market. In 2021, our expansion projects were not just limited to states that have passed legislation enabling adult use sales in the future. On the cultivation side, we completed additional expansion projects in Pennsylvania and Illinois that will allow us to further access wholesale opportunities in these important markets. The work done to increase our cultivation capabilities across our markets will help ensure we have ample access to premium products for our own retail operations while also laying the groundwork to further expand our wholesale business in 2022 and beyond. On the retail side, in addition to our new dispensary in New Jersey, we acquired and converted two adult use dispensaries in Maine and rebranded two of our medical cannabis dispensaries to the Botanist in Connecticut, where we have market leading position in retail. We also recently completed the construction of our commercial kitchen to produce edibles in Massachusetts. Our growth in our core markets was also achieved through acquisition activities. Early in 2021, we acquired CWG Botanicals on the West Coast, providing us with high quality cultivation of processing assets in California and enabling us to enter the wholesale market in the state. Although we do not currently have plans to significantly increase our presence in that very competitive California market, we do believe it's necessary to participate in California to stay abreast of the developments in both product innovation and industry trends. During the fourth quarter, We expanded our footprint to Ohio through the acquisition of Greenleaf Group of Companies, establishing a leading vertically integrated market position for acreage in this large and important state. Our Ohio operations now consist of a 70,000 square foot cultivation and processing facility, in addition to five operational dispensaries, which have a combined estimated retail market share of approximately 20%. These high quality assets are a strong platform for future growth in the state, and we are excited to recognize the meaningful contributions Ohio will make to our business in our first full year of operations in 2022. Accelerating our growth in our core markets will be aided by further development of our brands and through new product launches. In 2021, we leveraged our top-selling product line of botanist gummies from Ohio and successfully launched them in Maine and Massachusetts. The botanist gummies are pectin-based, all-natural, and come in a variety of flavors and ratios. We also introduced other edible formats in the Ohio market, including botanist-brand fruit chews and cookie bites. In New York, we successfully launched the Botanist 85 live vape cartridges one of the only products of this kind in the market, in addition to RSO capsules. Next, our new premium brand, Superflux, launched in the second quarter of 2021. Superflux is a craft brand that captures the essence of cannabis through the meticulously crafted premium product line consisting of live resin, concentrates, and limited edition strains. The brand includes a diverse strain library and wide range of concentrates and is now available in Illinois, Massachusetts, and Ohio, reaching over 100 dispensaries in just three months. Finally, we announced a partnership between our hemp business and Medterra under their five brand, which allows us to benefit from their innovative pipeline, high-quality CBD, and significant e-commerce platform. This asset-light approach to entering this U.S. CBD market allows us to realize a low risk, high margin revenue stream to further improve profitability. Just recently, we launched the botanist by five CBD rosin gummies in innovative daytime and nighttime formats. As I stated at the beginning of the call, 2021 was a transformational year for acreage. We completed a significant number of deliverables from our refocus strategy while consistently delivering improved financial performance. The footprint we've established across our core markets has positioned Acreage as a leader ahead of potential near-term catalysts, such as pending adult use sales in several states. We believe we have made the necessary changes to our company to continue to improve our financial performance and capitalize on opportunities ahead in 2022 and beyond. We have strengthened our senior management team over the last year, which has continued with recent appointment of Dennis Kern as our new chief operating officer and the appointment of Steve Strom to our board of directors. Dennis is a leader with an impressive track record of implementing operational improvements in consumer-facing businesses, and we are thrilled to have him join us at such an important time in our growth trajectory. Dennis will be replacing Bob Dano, who will be retiring at the end of this month. Steve Strom also brings considerable expertise to our board, with decades-long corporate advisory experience and strong financial acumen. In 2022, we will continue to focus on our three key priorities. We expect to further accelerate our growth with new dispensary openings, cultivation expansion projects, and new product launches, and we'll continue to explore potential creative acquisitions where we see strong opportunity. Before I turn the call over to Steve for a detailed look at our financials for the fourth quarter of 2021, I want to finish as always by thanking our team. This was truly a fantastic year for Acreage and thanks to their hard work and dedication. They're a wonderful team who have worked tirelessly to establish a strong platform we built in 2021 to bring the best experiences possible to our patients and customers. I am incredibly excited for all we will accomplish together in 2022. I will now turn the call over to Steve to discuss the financial results for the quarter in more detail before we open the call to questions.
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