10/15/2020

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the MedMen fourth quarter fiscal 2020 earnings 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 will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, C. Shen Heider, CFO. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

speaker
C. Shen Heider
CFO

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome, everyone. Today, I am joined by our CEO, Tom Lynch, and COO, Tim Bossedy. On today's call, management will provide prepared remarks, and then we will open the call to your questions. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing fourth quarter and fiscal year-end 2020 results. The press release along with our financial statements and MD&A are available on the company's website and filed in CDOT. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that the comments on today's call will include forward-looking statements, which by their nature involve estimates, projections, goals, forecasts, and assumptions, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements and certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast in such statements. Forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, the business and operations of MedMen, our plans for new stores and factories, our financial and operational expectations, and our expectations as to future sources of funding. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the conference call and should not be relied upon as predictions of future events Additional information about the material factors and assumptions forming the basis of the forward-looking statements and risk factors are provided by the company's reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulators, including the company's earnings press release, which was issued earlier today and is available under the company's profile on CDAR. During today's conference call, Medmin will refer to certain non-GAAP measures that do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and corporate SG&A, which are defined in the earnings press release we issued earlier today. Reconciliations to GAAP measures are contained in the press release and RMDNA. Please note, all financial information is provided in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Now with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Tom.

speaker
Tom Lynch
CEO

Thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. On the call today, we'll review our fiscal year of 2021. take a deep dive into the company's turnaround progress, including recent operational initiatives, and then discuss our financial performance for the fourth quarter with a preview into the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Before jumping into our performance for the quarter, we want to address the ongoing pandemic we're facing. We understand this has been a challenging time, and we hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Our priority here at MedMen has been ensuring the safety of our employees, customers, and patients. We continue to follow CDC guidelines and provide a safe retail experience for all those in our stores, as well as a safe environment in our cultivation and production facilities and corporate offices. We are grateful to local and state regulators for allowing us to continue to serve our customers and patients. Now looking at our fiscal 2020 performance, I'm pleased to report that we delivered a record 157.1 million in revenue for fiscal 2020, a 31% increase from the previous year. The growth was driven by a 13% or 12.5 million sales increase in California and a 15 million increase in Illinois. For the fourth quarter, we generated 27.4 million in revenue, which was the first sequential decrease the company has seen, mainly as a result of COVID-19 and damage to our stores as a result of looting, and further employee safety precautions in early June. We'll discuss this in further detail in the financial portion of the call. Looking back at fiscal 2020, this is a transition year for the company across three main areas. First, redefining the company as a best-in-class retailer. Next, reevaluating the markets that have the potential to deliver the highest returns for us in the near term. And third, rebuilding our management team and board of directors with a focus on accountability transparency, and governance. While there is work to be done, we've executed on our turnaround plan and made significant progress on all three fronts during the past fiscal year. In terms of our business focus, we'd like to continue making it clear that we are a cannabis retailer. We believe we have the leading retail brand in the industry, as evidenced by our performance, not only in our legacy markets of California and Nevada, but also in new markets such as Illinois and Florida, where we've outperformed our internal estimates. During fiscal 2020, our loyalty program surpassed 350,000 members, and we recorded over 2 million transactions. Over the past six months, we've rebuilt our corporate infrastructure to better serve our retail stores. And despite the impact COVID-19 and other events had on revenue, we've significantly improved retail profitability while also enhancing our retail experience to better product assortment, customer service, and purchasing options, whether it be in-store, delivery, or curbside. Over the past six months, the company has accelerated its efforts to narrow its geographic footprint to focus on higher ROI markets, such as California, Nevada, Illinois, and Florida, through the termination of M&A deals and divestiture of certain non-core assets. We're taking a deeper look at each license and thoughtfully crafting a strategy on how best to drive value for the business. Tim will get into the specifics around how we view each market. We're excited about the revised growth strategy for the company and the stores that we are planning to open over the next 12 months, many of which are in marquee locations throughout the country. Looking at the third area, management and board of directors, I'm proud to say that we have put together a world-class group of individuals to lead the company through the turnaround and into the next chapter of growth. In terms of day-to-day management, we've brought in new retail-focused leaders and have empowered existing leaders who we've evaluated and believe will be key players in our continued execution of our corporate strategy. Improving company culture and making Midman a destination place to work are fundamentals to the business. That began with establishing core values focused on internal growth opportunities, ensuring that our employees are heard, and having a positive impact on the communities that we participate in. Shortly after I began my time at MedMen, it became apparent to me that we have some exceptional talent already in place. Unfortunately, many of those same people will help lead the company into the future. Over the past six months, we've also significantly enhanced our board of directors and have added the following board members. Mel Elias, the former CEO and president of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Cameron Smith, an early stage investor in food and beverage. Mickey Kristoff, who has a background in policy and government at companies such as Salesforce, Uber, and Google, Errol Schweitzer, who was previously an executive at Whole Foods, and Al Harrington, who has built multiple companies within the cannabis industry. We believe our world-class board will not only add tremendous value to management in the formation of the company's strategy and ongoing basis, but will also be excellent spokespeople for the cannabis industry as a whole, and instrumental in helping lead MedMen's positive social impact in addition to its improved financial performance. Before jumping into the operations and finance portion of the call, I wanted to give a brief update on the turnaround plan that we laid the foundation for in our last earnings call. Tim Bossidy and I were brought on by the board in March of this year to guide the company through a turnaround plan. The goal was to achieve profitability while also continuing to build the MedMen brand and focus our resources on our key growth areas. The first step of the plan was to dig into our retail operational levers and evaluate revenue growth opportunities and cost-cutting initiatives to achieve after-tax pre-cash flow in our retail footprint. Despite the impact internal factors have on our operations this year, since taking over, we've been able to achieve two cash flow positive months, which are the first the company has achieved. The next priority area was rebuilding our corporate infrastructure with a focus on cost efficiency and communications among departments. At its peak, the company's corporate-related SG&A was approximately $160 million, which was significantly higher than its peers and came as a result of the company's trying to be too many things at once. Over the past 12 months, we've made sizable reductions in corporate spend with our corporate SG&A, approximately one-third of that prior number. which we feel is more reasonable based on the expected footprint over the next couple of years. Achieving meaningful retail profitability and reducing corporate spend are two large drivers of improving the company's cash flow profile. However, the third driver was eliminating the cash burn associated with cultivation and manufacturing operations in California and Nevada, which had contributed to approximately $23 million in cash burn from fiscal Q1 through fiscal Q3. We've reduced our spend here to under $4 million in Q4, and have made significant progress on the partnerships we announced we were pursuing with Treehouse REIT's full support in July. Lastly, a big priority for me was to strengthen our relationships with key capital partners. Over the past six months, our large equity and debt partners could not have been more constructive and supportive of our vision for the company and the turnaround plan. In addition to providing support the company capital, our lenders and key landlords came together and executed support agreements to defer $32 million in interest and rent over the next 12 months, while also modifying certain covenants for additional flexibility. Further evidence of the belief our capital partners have in the long-term value of the business. We are pleased with how much we've been able to execute in such a short amount of time. We also understand the urgency in which our shareholders and capital partners expect us to turn the company around. We take this responsibility very seriously and appreciate the patience while we methodically improve the health of the business. Given my years in restructuring, I know these turnarounds can take significant time to execute, and we're doing everything we can as a management team to accelerate that timeline in the face of a constantly evolving cannabis industry with tremendous growth prospects. The last thing I'll say is that we aren't just making the necessary changes to achieve profitability. We have more belief than ever in the strength of the MedMed brand and continue to view this company as a growth story. Some of our best stores around the country have still yet to open. I look forward to continuing to lead this company through the next chapter and will continue to share updates as they develop. With that, I'll hand it over to Tim Bossidy, our Chief Operating Officer, for operational highlights.

Disclaimer

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