Marimed Inc

Good morning. My name is Jen, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Merrimed, Inc. Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. then the number one. Thank you. I will now turn the line over to Mr. Steve West, Vice President of Investor Relations, to begin the conference.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Merrimed's third quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me today are John Labine, our Chief Executive Officer, Tim Shaw, our Chief Operating Officer, and Rennie Gulliver, our Head of Business Development. Most of you know Rennie, having met him on various calls and conference meetings. This call will be archived on our investor relations website and contains forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. A discussion of some of these risks is contained in the risk factors section of our 10-K and our earnings release, which are available on our website. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's expectations as of today, and we assume no obligation to update them unless required by law. Additionally, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures which are reconciled in our earnings release and our supplemental slides located on the investor section of our website. Finally, our fourth quarter 2023 earnings release is tentatively scheduled to be issued after the markets close on March 6, 2024, and our analyst call will be held the morning of March 7, 2024 at 8 a.m. I will now turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Steve. And good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Merrimed had another strong quarter of revenue growth, which was the result of the strong growth in our core wholesale businesses in Maryland and Massachusetts, as well as our new dispensaries ramping towards maturity. We reported positive adjusted EBITDA for the 15th consecutive quarter, and we remain on track to generate positive operating cash flow for the fourth consecutive year. Let me quickly highlight some of the key achievements since our last earnings call. First, we began adult sales in Maryland on July 1st. As expected, sales have been very strong. Our Annapolis dispensary sales are trending more than two times what they were before adult use. In fact, our Annapolis dispensary is on a trajectory of to be our second largest revenue-producing dispensary behind our Metropolis, Illinois location. While wholesale results continue to accelerate, sales are stabilizing due to limited flower supply, which we are aggressively addressing through the expansion of the cultivation facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. I could not be more excited for Maryland's long-term potential. Subsequent to the end of the third quarter, We opened our fifth dispensary in Illinois. Our new Thrive dispensary in Casey is our 12th dispensary across five states that we own or manage. And we still have room to double our dispensary counts in Illinois, which we are actively seeking to do so. Additionally, I'm thrilled to announce that we received the certificate of occupancy for our new processing facility in Mount Vernon, Illinois. We are awaiting approval from the Department of Agriculture to begin manufacturing cannabis products, which we expect receipt of shortly. For more than three years, I have wanted to say to the residents of Illinois, Denny's is finally back. We're quickly ramping operations, and our sales team has already secured early sales commitments from the largest retailers in the state. We expect our products to begin selling through our retail and wholesale chains in time for the holiday season. With that, I turn the call over to Tim for his operational update.