Marimed Inc

Good morning. My name is Lara and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Merrimid Inc. 4th 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 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. 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 Merrimet's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. Joining me today are John Levine, our Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Shaw, our Chief Operating Officer. 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 are 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 in the investor section of our website. Finally, our first quarter 2024 earnings release is tentatively scheduled to be issued after the markets close on May 8th, 2024, and our analyst call is tentatively scheduled to be held on the morning of May 9, 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 Merrimet had another strong year, which was the result of revenue growth in our core wholesale business in Maryland and Massachusetts. as well as our new dispensary ramping towards maturity. Even though we face significant regulatory and construction delays beyond our control, Meramed continues to perform better than the overall industry in terms of top-line growth and financial strength. We reported double-digit revenue growth for the sixth consecutive year, We reported positive adjusted EBITDA for the 16th consecutive quarter and fourth consecutive full year. And we generated positive operating cash flow for the fourth consecutive year. I am not aware of any other cannabis company that has a proven track record of positive results equal to ours. Let me quickly highlight a few of our key achievements during the year. In Massachusetts, we acquired Ermont, a vertical operator in Quincy, and opened a new dispensary in Beverly. We commenced operation in our fifth state with the opening of a dispensary in Tiffin, Ohio. In July, we began adult sales in Maryland, leading to our Annapolis dispensary more than doubling its revenue and significant increase in our wholesale operations. In Illinois, we opened our fifth dispensary in Casey. More importantly, we became vertical with the opening of our new processing facility in Mount Vernon. And finally, we reintroduced Betty's Eddies and launched our other brands into the market. We are looking for a full-year contribution from all of our new assets in 2024 and beyond. Perhaps our most notable achievement in 2023 was securing what is arguably the most favorable financing package in the cannabis industry. We refinanced $59 million in debt at approximately 8% interest with a 10-year maturity. This deal saves us millions of dollars a year in interest expense, which will significantly increase our cash flows. and the transaction resulted in zero share dilution to shareholders. No new equity was issued. Other cannabis companies made headlines recently with financing deals that looked as attractive as ours. However, when you consider the dilution baked into those transactions, the all-in cost of debt significantly exceeded what we achieved. While our biggest year with respect to opening new assets The momentum has continued into 2024. We command wholesale operations at scale in Illinois this past January. Our Betty's Eddies, Bubby's Bakes, and in-house bakes are now widely accessible throughout the state. Vivacious just launched last week, and the remainder of our brands, including in-house gummies, will be launched very soon. And today, we announced the pending acquisition of our second dispensary in Maryland, located in Prince George's County. We also announced receipt of the certificate of occupancy for our permanent dispensary location in Casey, Illinois, and hope to have it open and running in the next few weeks. That concludes our 2023 recap. With that, I will turn the call over to Tim. for our operational update and outlook for 2024.