Cresco Labs Inc

Good day and welcome to the Cresco Labs fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in 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 the star key, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Megan Kulik, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Cresco Labs. Please go ahead, Megan.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Cresco Labs' fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. On the call today, we have Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Charles Bechtel, Chief Financial Officer Dennis Olis, and Chief Transformation Officer Greg Butler, who will be available for the Q&A. Prior to this call, we issued our fourth quarter earnings press release, which has been filed on SEDAR and is available on our investor relations website. These preliminary results for the fourth quarter and full year 2022 are provided prior to completion of all internal and external reviews and therefore subject to adjustments until the filing of the company's financial statements and MD&A for the quarter and year ending December 31st, 2022 on SEDAR and EDGAR later this week. Certain statements made on today's call may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation, as well as within the meaning of safe harbor provisions of the United States private securities litigation reform act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include estimates, projections, goals, forecasts, or assumptions that are based on current expectations and are not representative of historical facts or information. Such forward-looking statements represent the company's beliefs regarding future events, plans, or objectives which are inherently uncertain and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the company's actual results or performance to materially differ from such forward-looking statements, including economic conditions and changes in applicable regulation. Additional information on the material factors and assumptions forming the basis of our forward-looking statements and risk factors can be found in our earnings press release and in CRESCO Labs filing on SADAR and with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CRESCO Labs does not undertake any duty to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any of its forward-looking statements or to update or supplement any information provided on today's call. Please note that all financial information on today's call is presented in U.S. dollars and all interim financial information is unaudited. In addition, during today's call, Cresco Labs refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross profit, and adjusted gross margin, which do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP. Please refer to our earnings press release for the calculation of these measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered superior to, as a substitute for, or as an alternative to, and should only be considered in conjunction with the GAAP financial measures presented in our financial statements. With that, I'll turn it over to Charlie.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. On today's call, we're going to provide a brief overview of 2022, add some context and perspective that's critical to have during unique times like these, review how we're seeing 2023 take shape, and the strategies we've developed to create the strongest Cresco Labs possible. As you know, 2022 is a tough year. We had inflationary pressures that hadn't been seen in generations, supply chain issues from a global pandemic magnified by geopolitical tension and war, and set all kinds of records that no one likes to see, like the most expensive price per gallon for gasoline in the US ever. From our frontline position in DC, we were reasonably optimistic that some type of federal cannabis reform would be achieved by year end. And that didn't happen. That combined with the headwinds of increased competition, price compression, and stress consumer wallets created a challenging year for cannabis operators and investors. And unfortunately, we think that continues into 2023. But times like these are when objectivity and perspective are very important. Despite the challenges in 2022, Presco's team generated $843 million in sales, our highest total ever, despite rationalizing out low margin revenue from prior years. Our continued relentless focus on providing the highest perceived value to the consumer has led us to being the number one selling portfolio of branded cannabis products in the entire industry for the second year in a row. We produced the number one portfolio of branded flour, number one portfolio of branded concentrates, number three portfolio of branded vapes, and a top five portfolio of branded edibles. We earned shelf space in approximately 1,600 dispensaries across our 10-state wholesale footprint and rang up more than 4.6 million orders at our Sunnyside dispensaries. We drove operating efficiencies that allowed us to maintain margins during a period of price compression. This team also volunteered over 11,000 hours for community organizations over the year and assisted thousands of people through the cannabis conviction expungement process. I want to thank the entire Cresco Labs team for their hard work over the past year. It was not an easy one, but our core values were on display all over the place, and you got everything that this year was willing to give. We all have to realize that the tough year of 2022 does nothing to change the long-term thesis and opportunity that is cannabis. This industry is going to be one of the largest consumer products categories in the United States and in the world, full stop. Nothing about 2022 changes this. Last year, the limited regulated market reached over $25 billion in sales, employed approximately a half a million Americans, produced almost $4 billion in state tax revenue, And the current estimated regulated plus illicit cannabis market in the US already exceeds the size of the US beer industry. We made tremendous progress in educating our federal legislators through our end of year efforts, which is a fundamental step in obtaining common sense reform ahead. None of the current challenges we face change these facts. What periods like this do is they force the separation of the wheat from the chaff. That's a healthy thing and something we welcome. Dynamic and challenging times require operators to be equally dynamic and turn those challenges into opportunities. The great thing is we're built for this. We'll lead through this period by continuing to improve our operations and operating efficiency, strengthen our balance sheet, and prioritizing cash generation. Cresco Labs has the scale and the expertise to succeed. We're executing against the major controllable objectives of our three-year plan, ensuring we have the most strategic footprint, broadening our wholesale brand leadership, and driving retail productivity across a larger base. Again, 2023 is not likely to get any easier, which is why our priorities are clear. We're laser focused on our core, core capabilities, core markets, core products, and core brands. We're leaning into that core, investing wisely, and rationalizing and optimizing everything to improve profitability generate more cash, and strengthen our balance sheet health. Simply put, we understand the assignment. Now to review the three pillars of our strategic plan and how we're executing this year. Number one, we're ensuring we have the most strategic geographic footprint. As we look to optimize our footprint to drive profitability and long-term industry leadership, we're prioritizing having exposure to the growth states of tomorrow along with scale diversification and profitability across our current markets. We believe that the pending ColumbiaCare acquisition acts in furtherance of achieving these goals. We continue to work through our two remaining material divestitures in Ohio and Florida and are making progress with both. The capital market conditions have undoubtedly changed since we originally started this process, but we continue to see interest in these assets and in the cannabis industry from investors that have a longer time horizon and recognize the asymmetrical payoff potential given today's valuation. Between the ongoing divestitures and the operational and balance sheet improvements going on at both companies today, we see the path forward that will position the combined company with a solid capital structure, strong liquidity position, and profitable operations. Across our own organization, we're taking substantial steps to improve our positioning. Rationalizing and optimizing have been at the forefront of our approach since late 21 when we announced our strategic shift away from third-party distribution in California. We continue to evaluate every state and take actions that prioritize the core and de-emphasize underperforming or underutilized areas of our business. Yesterday, we internally announced further steps to eliminate underutilized facilities and unprofitable products in California, focusing on our more advanced and cost competitive Florical facility. In Arizona, where we are underscaled, we've shut down our margin dilutive greenhouse operations. While these two actions will have a modest top line impact this year, We encourage shareholders to gauge our performance this year based on improvements in profitability, which we expect to start in Q2 and grow through the year as the impact from the decisions flow through our P&L. At the same time, we're doubling down on our successful operations. Year-to-date, we've opened eight new stores between Florida and Pennsylvania, two states where we have significant economies of scale and strong margins. All in, since we took control of the Florida operations less than two years ago, we've added 20 new stores in the state and will continue to opportunistically add to this footprint in 2023. In Pennsylvania, where we historically have been under retailed relative to our peers, we'll be opening our remaining four doors through the spring and summer, which has the double benefit of driving retail growth and improving our competitiveness in the wholesale market. While we execute these operational and retail initiatives, we continue to reorganize our teams to re-increase the speed of decision making, reduce redundancies, and drive overall efficiencies. Dennis will discuss it in more detail, but these investments are a good example of our capital deployment strategy for the year. We're focused on wise investments that have fast payback periods and act in furtherance of our goal to drive profitability, cash generation, and enhance competitiveness and lead the industry. Number two, we maintained our position as the number one branded product portfolio per BDSA. In 2023, our plan is to double down on this core portfolio, focusing on the capabilities, the products, and the brands that have made us the market share leader in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Innovation and new products contributed a material amount to our revenue in 2022, and we plan to build on that success this year. We're focused on operationalizing some of the key innovations we started last year. The pipeline includes several higher potency and higher yield strains, manufactured products like lozenges, infused pre-rolls, live rosin premium gummies, and the liquid live rosin carts that have proven so popular in Pennsylvania and Illinois. Consistent with our investment philosophy, the capital needed to support these launches and more markets has a short payback period and a high certainty of success. After two straight years of having the number one house of brands, We've proven that consumers love our products and brands. The steps we're taking this year to bring more of those proven products to market will give us stronger margins and pricing flexibility to continue to take shelf space in new stores as they open and be the preferred compliment to any vertically integrated retailer's house brand. Number three, we're also doubling down on our highly productive retail in the most strategic states. As we open new stores, we continue to achieve operating leverage across our footprint. For example, we recently rolled out our new and improved Sunnyside loyalty program in Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, and Ohio. The loyalty program complements our custom-built e-commerce platform, sunnyside.shop, which we believe is the most customer-friendly retail platform in the industry. The two combined are a rich source of data for understanding and exploring consumer behavior and improving retail efficiency. In 2022, approximately 75% of our Sunnyside sales come through sunnyside.shop. Those sales follow the 80-20 rule, where nearly 80% of sales come from the top 20% of customers, giving us incredible insight into the behavior of our highest value customers. We're using that data, combined with custom emails, text prompts, and offers to drive smarter promotional activity and cement those high-value shoppers to the Sunnyside brand. The feedback loop between our scaled data set and decision-making is accelerating, leading to better store management, more efficient staffing, improved menu curation, and more targeted innovation and product planning on the production side of the business too. As we open new stores and competitors enter our markets, it's imperative that we flex our muscles as a highly skilled, scaled retailer to improve customer experience and four-wall economics to maintain profitability, market share, and out-compete. As 2023 shapes up to be another challenging year, we're confident that our scale and organizational expertise lays a strong foundation. That, combined with our ability and willingness to make the tough decisions, will position Cresco Labs and its shareholders to reap the tremendous rewards in the long-term growth of the cannabis industry. In 2023, we're doubling down on our successful core, and we're setting the stage for a much stronger company going forward. Now I'll turn it over to Dennis to review our financial results.

Thank you, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. I'll be reviewing the financial results from the quarter and full year then highlighting a few items from the balance sheet and discussing our capital position. Overall, we're pleased with the performance of the team both in the quarter and year. While 2022 was a challenging year for the industry, we continue to take the necessary steps to improve cultivation and manufacturing efficiencies to build on our top share position in key markets while remaining maniacally focused on driving profitable growth, preserving cash, and making strategic investments to expand margins going forward. We also took this opportunity to make tough decisions, clean up noise in various parts of the business, and take the appropriate proactive steps this quarter to strengthen our balance sheet through site rationalization, inventory management, and intangible valuation assessments to put us in the strongest position possible going into 2023. Turning to our results, we generated $200 million in revenue in Q4. The decrease year over year was driven by a combination of price compression in the second half of the year across our markets and the strategic decision in late 2021 to exit certain low margin businesses in California. For the full year, we achieved $843 million in total revenue, up 3% year over year. Normalizing for the removal of third party California distribution, adjusted revenue growth was approximately 6% year over year. Retail revenue in Q4 was down 1% year-over-year as new stores opened in the immediate vicinity of some of our stores in Illinois and Pennsylvania. For the full year, retail revenue grew 17% year-over-year. As we discussed on our third quarter call, we expect the initial impact from new doors to be negative, but as additional stores open in markets that expand access, we expect that our proficiencies in the wholesale market will produce more gains than we lose in the retail market. On the wholesale side, we face continued pressure in the quarter, driven by pricing pressure in most markets and increased verticalization on the shelves of our MSO customers. For the full year, wholesale revenues were down 11%, but down 5% after adjusting for the strategic shift in California we've already discussed, and unit sales were up significantly. our branded units sold were up 37% year over year, which according to BDSA, outperformed general market growth. We held the number one share of branded sales in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, and overall for markets tracked by BDSA. We gained or held branded shares sequentially in all of our markets, except California and Maryland, where our share fell modestly in the quarter. Looking ahead to Q1, We expect total revenue to be down slightly from Q4 due to traditional seasonality, the continuation of new competitor store openings near our dispensaries in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and the focus on verticality by MSOs. We currently don't have the benefit of net new market contributors like New Jersey, but we expect adult use catalysts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida over the next two years to generate material growth in some of our strongest states. In combination with our pending acquisition of ColumbiaCare, we will have access to every major adult use market in the country. We expect to see sequential growth in both the wholesale and retail channels after Q1. As Charlie mentioned, we'll have several new store openings in Florida and four more stores opening in Pennsylvania before the end of summer. We also expect an acceleration of the opening of new independent retail doors in our home state of Illinois giving a boost to our wholesale revenues. The velocity of our brands continues to be extraordinarily strong, making products from Cresco, High Supply, and Florical must-haves on existing and new shelves. Gross profit in the quarter, including non-recurring, non-cash charges primarily related to net realizable value adjustments to inventory, decreased 269 basis points sequentially to 45%. Excluding those non-cash, non-recurring items, gross profit margin was 50% in line with our long-term target. We reduced our net inventory by $17 million in the quarter, primarily from our targeted inventory management efforts and partially from the NRV charges I just mentioned. Across our footprint, we're doing a much better job of bringing rooms on and offline to meet our flexible demand planning, limiting aged inventories, reducing operating costs, and lowering the need for promotional activity. We're very comfortable with the current inventory position and expect further improvements as we double down on our core states and operations and optimize our asset base. Adjusted SG&A expense, which excludes share based compensation and non-core items, was essentially flat with third quarter at $68 million. We are proactively managing our operating expenses and taking a critical eye to our cost structure, both at corporate and on a state by state basis. We expect the impact of these initiatives to lead to a meaningful decline in SG&A dollars by the end of Q2 and into Q3. We are intensely focused on finding other ways to improve our long term competitiveness, rationalize our existing footprint, and improve our overall profitability and cash generation in 2023. Adjusted EBITDA, where we include the NRB and other non-cash, non-recurring charges I mentioned earlier, was $31 million in Q4, representing a margin of 15%. If we had adjusted for these changes, our adjusted EBITDA margin would have been approximately 20%. Our near-term goal is for adjusted EBITDA margins in the low to mid-20%. And we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to improve throughout the year as cost saving measures we took in the fourth quarter and the first quarter begin to flow through. As Charlie mentioned in his remarks, we continue to take the necessary actions to optimize our asset base and operate more efficiently. As a result of our actions in California and Arizona, as well as industry-wide changes in valuations, we took a $141 million non-cash impairment charge in the quarter. Again, we took appropriate proactive steps this quarter to strengthen our balance sheet through site rationalization, inventory management, and intangible valuation assessments to put us in the best possible position to excel in 2023. We generated positive operating cash flow of $4 million in the fourth quarter, bringing the full year to $19 million. We spent $13 million on CapEx and Q4, primarily from the addition of new stores in Florida, and the development of our upstate New York cultivation. For the full year, CapEx totaled $83 million. We ended the quarter with $122 million of cash on the balance sheet. As I stated earlier, free cash flow improvement is our number one goal in 2023. With the improvements we're making to our operations, continued cost management, significantly lower capital expenditure requirements, and the strategic financing available to us, we feel good about our cash position. At this time in our emerging industry, leadership, scale, and financial strength matter most. The macroeconomic headwinds, lack of near-term regulatory changes, industry pricing pressures, and tight capital markets require us to make difficult decisions to remain at the top of the industry. But as Charlie said, we're built for this. We are planning our business for the regulatory and competitive environment that exists today. The actions we are taking will set us up to benefit from the unprecedented opportunities for growth we see in the future. Regulatory changes will come eventually, and in the meantime, consumer demand remains strong and we see untapped opportunities for efficiency in production and overhead cost reductions. With the likelihood of new adult markets coming online, we see a bright future for those companies that weather the current storm and come out on the other side stronger than ever. With that, I'll pass it back to Charlie for some closing comments.

Thank you, Dennis. While 2022 was a challenging year for cannabis, the cannabis thesis remains unchanged and Cresco Labs is doing what needs to be done for long-term industry leadership. As we set our plans and goals for 2023 and beyond, we're proactively managing through the unique macro pressures of today with an eye toward the future. In the meantime, we'll continue to focus our efforts on what needs to be done. By prioritizing our profitable core, what you can expect from us is, one, continued leadership in branded cannabis products, two, rationalizing and optimizing our footprint, three, expanding the reach and efficiencies of our retail business, four, generating more cash flow and strength in our balance sheet, and five, continue to lead the efforts on federal reform. With that, I'll open the call for questions.

Thank you.

If you'd like to ask a question today, please do so now by pressing start followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind or you feel like your question has already been asked, please press start followed by two to remove yourself from the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your device or your microphone are unmuted locally. The first question today comes from Aaron Gray with Alliance Global Partners. Aaron, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for the questions. So, first question for me, I just wanted to dig a little bit more in terms of the EBITDA margin. So, 20% on the adjusted basis, if you take out some of the inventory realization measures that you did. So, going forward, you mentioned that you expect EBITDA margins to improve after the first quarter. I just want to know in terms of what types of pricing pressure you have embedded within that, because I know you're going to be exiting Arizona and also closing out in California. So, I want to know what type of pricing pressure you have embedded and just how much EBITDA margin expansion we might be able to expect after the first quarter. Thank you.

Hey, good morning, Aaron. This is Charlie. Thanks for the question. So, you know, when it comes to even the margin profiles, we're taking those actions, significant actions on the SG&A side of the business, gross margin, everywhere that we can from a COG standpoint, et cetera, to... as you've seen in these past couple of quarters, maintain margins. We've increased sort of the approach and the aggressiveness. As you mentioned, the California and the Arizona moves that are coming up are larger in scale to be able to help us not only kind of maintain margins, but also provide the opportunity to increase. And for additional specifics on that, Dennis, you want to add some more color?

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Aaron. So as Charlie noted, the big movers are going to be the actions that we're taking in California and in Arizona. Those actions will be completed somewhere around the end of the first quarter going into the second quarter. So we'll start to see the full benefit of that in Q3 and probably half a quarter in the second quarter for those actions. On top of that, we're expecting some additional growth from the addition of new stores and Florida and Pennsylvania that'll come in the spring and early summer. And again, that will drive higher revenue in the second half of the year. And then just to top it off, we continually are looking for ways to become more efficient and operate in a more productive, cost-efficient manner at a corporate level and at the state level. So overall, if you look at all the actions we're taking to manage our cost structure, and I'll set that a little bit by the pricing pressures, I would expect margins to be in the low 20% for the second half of the year.

Okay, great. Thank you. That's really helpful. And I want to touch a little bit more on Illinois, a key state for you guys. Done really well, especially on the retail side. But with the 185 social equity stores starting to open up, I want to know what your expectations are for, number one, your own retail stores, if there's potentially pressure as it gets a little more saturated in some of the markets. And then what you're targeting in terms of market share for these new third-party stores to be able to offset any potential revenue impacts to your existing stores. Thank you.

Yeah, this is Charlie again. So you're right. As these new stores open, the 185, it does present a great opportunity for us, especially on the branded product side and the wholesale side, which is Again, in line with our long-term thesis here. So the opportunity is there from the additional stores as they open. The initial set of stores as they open, though, are likely to be, and as we're seeing from the first few, are likely to be closer to existing retail stores that we have, and that does put competitive pressure on those stores. But there will be a tipping point in which the wholesale opportunity outweighs the retail risk. Any additional color, Greg?

No, the only thing I'd add to that is we're pretty confident in our product's performance in the market. If you look at our branded product sales, we were up 24% overall across all of our markets, which shows there's a real love and demand for our products. So as more wholesale doors open, we're pretty confident we're going to get in and earn a really strong share of shelf with our products because they not only have a great velocity attached to them, but we think from a profit per square foot, there's a great story there. To your second part of your question about our own retail, we are very pleased with our retail performance. We know that there will be some increased competition as new stores open up around. Usually that does mean some price promo to attract shoppers. But with the launch of our loyalty program and some of the trends we're seeing, we're pretty confident that we've got the right tools in place to really hold on to our high-value shoppers, even as new doors open up.

Okay, great. Thanks very much for the detail. I'll go and drop back in the queue.

Thanks, Aaron.

The next question comes from Andrew Parsimou with CIFL. Please go ahead, Andrew.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

I wanted to discuss the ColumbiaCare transaction and kind of your path to closing that. Could you talk a little bit about the capital raising environment? I'm making the assumption here that this is what is causing some delays. As you previously mentioned, strong interest in the assets that you still need to divest in Florida, Ohio, Maryland. Do you still think that you can get the $300 million of total proceeds and how much of that could be in cash so you could pay down debt?

Andrew, thanks for the question. This is Charlie.

As far as the deal goes, as we mentioned, rationale still holds up. We do see a path to close, but to some of the points in your question, some of the things are within our control, some are not. As it relates to the capital raising environment for potential buyers, the capital raising environment, while it has definitely degraded since the deal announcement, even from the initial strategic approach to the divestitures. We weren't focused on sort of the traditional type of borrower that's dependent on the traditional cannabis capital markets. So right off the bat, it did reduce the buyer pool size. But look, we're working on it. We've got some great advancements there in recent weeks, and we're optimistic that we'll be able to get that across the finish line. When it comes to the total amount of gross proceeds, I think we are seeing pressure there and likely will come in under that initial 300 amount. But we also have opportunities to divest other assets in the portfolios that aren't necessarily required regulatory divestitures, but either redundant or underutilized assets that can help sort of address that delta. I think I hit on everything. Let me know if I missed.

No, you definitely addressed it. Thank you very much for that. I mean, there's the cash component, but I can understand if you're not in a position to talk about that. Just related to that, on timing, when do you have to announce something in terms of the required divestments? to make the new outside date, is it as soon as the end of March or could it be slightly after that? And just trying to understand scenarios here, what happens if you don't close the transaction after this new outside date? Do you need to go back to, do either parties need to go back to shareholders for approvals? Do you need to go back to the boards for approvals? Just trying to understand a little bit more of the process and the different scenarios.

So I think just to kind of answer it in reverse, I think different scenarios may lead to different obligations on the party. So I don't know that I can answer that question perfectly. And as it relates to the outside date, we're still well within the range for hitting that outside date. But, you know, we do, yeah, the outside date is still absolutely reachable, and we've got some runway before that would come into question. From a regulatory approval process, that is a strength of both organizations. But we'll be advising the public as soon as we have additional information on that.

Appreciate the answers. I'll get back in the queue.

Thanks, Andrew.

Our next question comes from Matt McGinley with Needham & Company.

Please go ahead, Matt.

Thank you.

So the inventory impairments in the fourth quarter and then the phasing out of all the production facilities in the third quarter put your back half gross margin rate at 46. I know that those are likely one-time events, but As you think about the goal going forward, is it still realistic to think that you can remain above 50% or is what you're seeing now pricing likely to keep the gross margin rate this year below that 50% target?

Dennis, you want to handle that?

Yeah, thanks, Matt. So, yeah, the charge that we took in the fourth quarter really related to just the cleanup of inventory. I'm actually quite pleased with the fact that we were able to decrease our total inventory balance by, over $17 million sequentially from Q3. Less than half of that was related to these one-time charges for net realizable value charges and some access to inventory. So we took this opportunity to really evaluate our inventory position in every location that we have across the country and took the opportunity to do some cleanup in the quarter. It was at the expense of a short-term hit in non-cash, non-recurring items in Q4. that really took us from a, absent that, we would have been at that 50% level. So, you know, as I noted earlier, we still believe that a 50% margin, you know, give or take, is still the right target, and we still think that that is very achievable. With the pricing pressures we have being offset by some of the actions that were taken to improve our overall efficiencies and operations across all of our cultivation and manufacturing sites, in addition to some of the actions that were taken in California and Arizona, some of our lower margin markets. You combine all that together, and I still feel comfortable that our long-term and even short-term goal this year is still in the 50% range for gross margins.

I agree. And on the EBITDA trend for the year, you know that a lot of the cost savings won't really come through until the second quarter, and then you'll get some ramps from there. Does the first quarter look like the fourth quarter in terms of rate, and should we assume that comes more from gross margin recovery versus G&A, given the store additions that you've already made this quarter?

Yeah, I think that's right. We talked about the top line being down modestly from Q4 to Q1 due to some seasonality and so forth. And then some of the actions that we talked about in California and Arizona are being implemented in Q1, so we really won't see the savings until later in Q2. So I think if you look at the improvements that we're going to see sequentially from Q4 to Q1, it's really going to be related to the gross margin improvements where we won't have these one-time charges in Q1 that we took in Q4. Okay.

Thank you. Thanks, Matt.

The next question comes from Scott Fortune with Roth and KM. Please go ahead, Scott.

Yeah, good morning. Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking questions. Just want to provide a little more color to the California market and kind of discuss kind of right-sizing of the facilities there. Obviously, the pricing is starting to bottom out there. We're seeing a little bit of improvement versus some other states, but kind of um you know there's still challenges from the retailers and getting product and getting paid for that but just kind of step us through kind of like where california and the right sizing there kind of ends up for you and your outlook for it for you know improving through the second half here potentially for you thanks scott uh this is charlie i'll i'll take it the um look at the it is really kind of a right sizing for us in california

you know, internally we're talking about it sort of as that shrink to grow where we're really focusing on the core things we're doing. As we talked about in the prepared remarks, you know, 2023 for us is a year of the core. Core markets, core products, core capabilities, core brands, et cetera. And as we're looking at our overall footprint, it's leaning in and doubling down on the things that drive the most amount of value, that give us the best margin profiles, that allow us to create the most cash flow and uh and profitability and so with california it really the realization there is the environment there is just it's a tough market it's complex we've got opportunities in the footprint that if we apply those resources to can produce more and uh and right now as we talk about in the prepared remarks that is 2022 2023 it is it is doubling down on the things that drive the most amount of value the core and that's why we made the decision to california

Okay, I appreciate that. And then real quick, CapEx kind of outlook, obviously you're guiding our expectations for new stores in Florida and Pennsylvania. Outside of that, how should we look at the CapEx budget compared to last year and moving forward here? Dennis will take this one.

Yeah, thanks, Scott. So the CapEx that we had in 2022 was about $83 million. We expect the CapEx expenditures in 23 to be about half of that. So somewhere in the 40 to $45 million range. You're spot on. A big chunk of that will be attributed to the new store openings in Florida and in Pennsylvania. It'll be another little chunk that's related to completing the build out of our New York facility and then ongoing maintenance. So overall, it will be a substantial decline in CapEx spend year over year. I think we've made a lot of investments over the last two years that are starting to bear, starting to see the benefits of that. But we do expect the CapEx in 2023 to be about half of what we saw this year.

Scott, thanks. I appreciate the cover.

I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you, Scott.

Our next question comes from Gerald Pasquarelli with Whitbush Securities. Gerald, please go ahead.

Hey, team. Thanks very much for the question.

Charlie, I guess this one's for you. It's just regarding New York and the rollout of adult use sales. Broad sentiment around this market and the overall opportunity has not been great. at least over the near term. And so, any updated thoughts you have regarding the adult use rollout and the overall market opportunity, in particular, given how important of a state this will be for you, and even more important once the Columbia Care deal closes? Any incremental color that would be helpful? Thank you.

Gerald, so, you know, as it relates to New York, It's tough to comment on before we know what the regs look like. I think the sentiment that you voiced is real. There's concern there. It's not as smooth of a transition for medical and adult use, or there's not as much clarity as anybody would like. That said, there's been some improvement. There's been some increased engagement on the current illicit market structures there. There's a plan, there's a path. It required some legislative fixes in order to even kind of get to this point. So the opportunity, again, it's almost similar to the way that we talked about the entire cannabis industry. Like 2022 challenging year, 2023 is going to be also. Does that change the long-term thesis for cannabis? Absolutely not. So with New York, you're talking about arguably the second largest cannabis market in the world. If we can work with the regulators to make sure that the structure that gets put in place can provide sufficiently viable opportunities for licensees to really get in there and succeed, it's going to be a great market. And the onus is on us to make sure we work with them to get the regulatory structure that works. So I hope to have more clarity in future updates on calls.

Sounds great. Thanks very much for the caller. I'll hop back into the queue.

Thanks, Joe.

Thank you, everyone, for your questions today. We have no further questions, so this concludes our call. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today.

You may now disconnect your line.