Verano Hldgs Corp

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Verano Holdings' second quarter 2026 conference 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 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Steve Mazeika. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Verano's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I am joined today by George Archos, founder and chief executive officer, Richard Tarapchak, chief financial officer, and Aaron Miles, chief investment officer. During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable U.S. and Canadian securities laws. which are based on management's current assumptions and expectations. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance, and achievements of the business or developments in the company's industry to differ materially from those implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results could differ considerably due to risks and uncertainties mentioned in our filings on Edgar and Zeder, including our financial statements for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. In addition, throughout today's discussion, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures that do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP. Management believes non-GAAP results are useful to enhance the understanding of the company's ongoing performance, but these are supplemental to and should not be considered an isolation from or the substitute for GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are defined in our earnings press release and available on our website at investors.verona.com. Thank you and good morning everyone.

I'm thrilled to outline our strong second quarter results highlighted by organic growth and the third consecutive quarter of revenue gains that also outperformed the prior year period. We also strengthened the foundation for a U.S. stock exchange listing and opportunities to increase access to capital markets. Over the past few quarters, we've completed key strategic initiatives, including redomiciling Verano Hldgs Corp in the U.S., securing our $195 million credit agreement with favorable terms, repurchasing $2 million of company stock, and advancing Verano's path to listing on a U.S. exchange by executing a one-for-five reverse stock split. Overall, we checked a lot of boxes in the second quarter that drove momentum for the business on multiple levels. Second quarter revenue was $218 million, an increase of $10 million sequentially, and $16 million versus the prior year period. The results reflect the success of the retail, new product innovation, and operational strategy we've been methodically executing, and I couldn't be prouder of our teams for keeping quality, hospitality, and innovation at the center of everything we do. Retail continues to be a significant catalyst driving positive momentum and organic growth in 2026. In the second quarter, we generated $182 million in retail revenue, an increase of $10 million sequentially and $13 million versus the prior year period. Over the last year, we've enhanced retail hospitality, strengthened our loyalty program, introduced new dispensary formats, and implemented technologies to provide a best-in-class experience Ed Zenleaf, and Moog, and I am thrilled to see our efforts are generating positive results. We also improved the revenue performance of our wholesale business in the quarter. Excluding insert segment eliminations, second quarter wholesale revenue was $80 million, an increase of $1 million sequentially and $6 million on an annual basis. The improved wholesale results reflect the success of our new product innovation and our ability to maintain supply levels During the high-demand 4-20 holiday window. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $51 million or 24% of revenue, in line with the expectations we outlined last quarter. On the CPG and operations front, we enhanced cultivation processes throughout the quarter in select markets that improved yields and output, which helped meet increased demand. We plan to scale these best practices across our CPG footprint throughout the year. The success of our product and retail strategy continues to strengthen our portfolio and market share positions across our footprint, and in key categories. At the end of the second quarter, Verano's total house of brands held the number four national share position across all legal cannabis markets. We also leveraged the immediate success of our revolutionary hyphen VAPOD system and SwiftLifts pre-rolls launch by scaling both brands across additional markets, which contributed to our strong performance in the quarter. These efforts led to Verano commanding top five market share positions in a majority of our vertical markets at the end of the second quarter. By the end of the second quarter, Swift Lifts were already the number five ranked free roll brand and Hyphen commanded a number two share position in the specialty vape subcategory. At quarter end, we also held top four share positions in every product category we compete in, including number one in topicals and number two in both edibles and pre-rolls. And from a retail marketing standpoint, we increased online purchases Thank you for joining us today. Elevating our retail footprint to 86 Florida locations and 163 nationwide. Given the ongoing strength of our Florida business, we see tremendous opportunity for continued growth in the current medical market and we plan to further expand our product portfolio and retail operations with new dispensary openings planned for the second half of the year. I will now pass it over to Rich to provide additional detail on our financial results.