Fluent Corp

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Fluent's first quarter 2025 conference call. Joining us today is the company's CEO, Robert Beasley, and the company's CFO, Patricia Fonseca. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the company's prepared remarks, the management team will conduct a question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay in the investor relations section of the company's website at www.getfluent.com. Please note that certain subjects discussed on this call, including answers the company may provide to questions, may include content that is forward-looking in nature and therefore subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results future results or performance to differ materially from any implied expectations. For additional details on these risks, please consult the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information contained in the company's financial results, press release, MD&A, and annual information form, which are available on CDAR. The company does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements except to the extent required by applicable security laws in Canada. In addition, during this call, the company will refer to supplemental non-IFRS accounting measures, including adjusted EBITDA, which do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS, as a final reminder on today's call, unless otherwise indicated, all dollar amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Beasley, the company's CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Nick, and good afternoon, everyone. In the first quarter of 2025, our revenue was $26.8 million. That's up 5.9% year over year. And this is despite increased price compression and market saturation in the state of Florida, which is our core market. The adjusted EBITDA came in at $3.5 million, reflecting the ongoing startup and ramp-up investments in New York following our recent acquisition of the RIV entity, as well as the continued softening of the Florida market due to competition and price compressions. Our cash position has improved significantly due to the acquisition, rising to $30.7 million, that's from $8.5 million a year ago, providing strong flexibility to support both near-term priorities and long-term growth to include additional acquisitions. Moving to operational highlights, in Florida, the construction of the Rosa Cultivation Facility in Tampa was recently completed. Plants are in place now, and we expect the first harvest to be in August of 2025. We also relocated our North Miami Beach dispensary, one of our worst performers, over to Aventura, expanding storage capacity in that site and enhancing the patient experience and moving closer to the more profitable zone of the market. On the product front, we launched two new whole flower brands, NAC, which offers quality at an affordable price, and BAGO, which is a more value-driven large format option. This reflects progress we've made in refining our quality flower quality standards and continuing to differentiate the various quality brands that we have on offer. Additionally, we offered our first single serve edible, a 10 milligram THC chocolate bite, offering a lower entry price in a smaller format. In New York, the Chestertown facility has witnessed tremendous improvement. We've cut almost 400,000 out of OPEX while nearly doubling the output and increasing quality. The harvests have now started to reach THC values in the 30% consistently, and we're very proud of that team up there for bringing that facility online and around. In New York, also, the Buffalo cultivation facility is complete. The infrastructure to support the grow environment is being installed now with the humidification and fertigation systems going in. Once that occurs, we anticipate having plants in place by mid-June. and hope to have the first inaugural harvest out of there by Q4. We brought the NAC product line to New York. We expanded it now to include the notable flower strains, as mentioned above, but also to include pre-rolls. And we hope to have infused pre-rolls on the market soon, within the next 30 days. In Texas, interesting developments. We continue to monitor House Bill 46 and look forward to expanding the state's medical program. We have been set and ready for expansion in Texas. We needed the regulatory environment to be conducive to grow that business model. We are nearing completion of the construction of the Houston Education and Pickup Center, and we anticipate its opening in Q3 2025. Pennsylvania, we are actively tracking the legislative developments and remain encouraged by the growing momentum towards the adult use legislation. Our three stores remain a flag position planted in that state for future growth. We continue to look for growth opportunities in Pennsylvania. Overall, while the macroeconomic and regulatory uncertainties still persist, we remain focused on strengthening our core markets, managing cost effectively, and positioning this company to adapt and grow as the market conditions evolve. We have found ourselves to be steady and strong, while many of our competition has started to falter and fall aside. we're happy with our position. We feel strong and capable to move forward into the future. I'll now hand it over to Patricia to walk through the financial highlights.

Thank you, Robert, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, please note that all variance commentary is on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. Total revenue for the quarter as Robert mentioned was 26.7 million up from 25.2 million in the same quarter last year. Revenue for Florida was 19.2 million compared to 21.1 million the prior year period. Adjusted gross profit for the quarter was 12.5 million representing 46.8% of revenue versus 12.3 million or 48.6% in Q1 2024. Adjusted EBITDA came in at 3.5 million, reflecting the ongoing startup and ramp-up investments in New York, as mentioned by Robert as part of that brief acquisition, as well as a softening of the Florida market. Cash flow used in operations for the three months ended March 31, 2025, was 1.5 million, compared to 4.1 million in operating cash flow generated in the same period last year. The decrease was mainly driven by the settlement of obligations carried from prior years. As of March 31st, 2025, the company held approximately $3.7 million in cash and cash equivalents. We totaled that of $79.1 million in approximately 700 million shares outstanding. That concludes our financial highlights. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. We will now pause for a moment to assemble our roster. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. Seeing no questions, this will conclude our question and answer session and today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.