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spk04: Welcome to the Well Health Technologies Corp fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results conference call. My name is Michelle and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session later in the call which will be restricted to analysts only. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Pardeep Sangha Vice President, Investor Relations, Mr. Senga, you may begin.
spk01: Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to Wealth Health's annual 2022 and fiscal fourth quarter financial results conference call for the 12- and three-month end of December 31, 2022. Joining me on the call today are Hamed Shabazi, Chairman and CEO, and Eva Fong, the company's CFO. I trust that everyone has received a copy of our financial results press release that was issued earlier today. Portions of today's call, other than historical performance, include statements of forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of those laws. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risk, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors many of which are outside of wealth control that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievement of wealth to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance, or achievements implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are further outlined in today's press release and in our management discussion and analysis. We provide forward-looking statements solely for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. We do not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forelooking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in event, conditions, assumptions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except if it's required by law. We may use terms such as adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin, adjusted EBITDA, shared EBITDA, adjusted net income, and adjusted free cash flow on this conference call, which are all non-GAAP and non-IFRS measures. For more information on how we define these terms, please refer to the definition set out in today's press release and in our management discussion and analysis. The company believes that adjusted EBITDA is a meaningful financial metric as it measures cash generated from operations which the company can use to fund working capital requirements, service future interest and principal debt repayments, and fund future growth initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or loss determined in accordance with IFRS. And with that, let me turn the call over to Mr. Hamed Shabazi, Chairman and CEO. Go ahead, Hamed.
spk08: Thank you, Pardeep, and good day, everyone. We hope that you're all keeping safe and healthy. We appreciate everyone for joining us today. To start, I'd like to provide some historical perspective on Well. We recently celebrated the five-year anniversary of the acquisition of our first six clinics in British Columbia, which took place in February of 2018. That was Well's first acquisition and began our journey into the healthcare market by tech enabling healthcare providers and helping them modernize and digitize their businesses. It's been an amazing journey, during which time Well has grown from zero revenue to completing a record year in 2022, in which we achieved over $625 million on a Q4 annualized revenue run rate basis. More than one out of every four providers in Canada rely on Well in some way to power their businesses. from practice management solutions to revenue cycle management to provider and patient communication tools, such as online patient booking or e-referrals. Over the past five years, we've both grown organically and inorganically into one of the leading digital healthcare companies in North America. I'd like to thank the amazing team as well, including the healthcare providers who helped make all of this possible. During the past five years, we went through an unprecedented global pandemic during which our healthcare providers continue to provide incredible care under difficult conditions. The pandemic also accelerated the adoption of virtual care and digitization in the industry. More recently, we've also had to deal with very challenging circumstances, including worker shortages, supply chain difficulties, and rising costs brought about by high inflation. On all occasions, our management team employees and healthcare providers continue to overcome all these challenges. enabling the company to deliver phenomenal performances quarter after quarter. We are now firmly in the post-pandemic period and witnessing a host of new catalysts that speak to Well's relevance as a company and our role in helping healthcare providers digitize and modernize their practices, and in many cases, help make those practices more economically sustainable. Catalysts that we are watching closely as a team and believe act as tailwinds for the company are as follows. One, The increased likelihood of more public and private partnerships to support our healthcare ecosystem, announced by political and public health leaders, most recently in Ontario. Two, a commitment by federal authorities in Canada to add significant additional funding to help Canada not only improve the sustainability of its healthcare ecosystem, but also digitize and modernize it. Three, the emergence of artificial intelligence, including generative AI, to power tools and tech enablement for healthcare providers. Never even conceived or thought before. By the way, this is an area of intense focus for your management team as well. We'll discuss this more later. The demonstration particularly, four, the demonstration particularly in the United States of how valuable hybrid care networks are to major pharmacies and other institutions. We seem to be in a new golden age of primary care where there is rampant innovation and an opportunity to elevate care and better support providers. Moving on to wealth financial performance, we're thrilled to report another record-breaking year with strong fourth quarter results and significant growth across all key metrics. We'll achieve record annual revenue of $569.1 million for 2022, an increase of 88% over the prior year. I'm proud to report that Well has healthy cash flows, having achieved almost $105 million in operating adjusted EBITDA in 2022, resulting in adjusted free cash flow to shareholders of approximately $49 million. Q4 2022 was also a tremendous quarter for the company. Well achieved revenue of $156.5 million in the fourth quarter, representing 35% year-over-year revenue growth, most of which was organic. The fourth quarter of 2022 also marks our 16th consecutive quarter of record revenue. The company's growth was driven by acquisitions made over the past year, as well as solid year-over-year organic growth, which was 19% for the full year and 20% organic growth in the fourth quarter. While achieved record patient engagements over the past year, with approximately 3.5 million omni-channel patient visits and 4.9 million patient interactions in 2022. Omni-channel patient visits grew 50% in 2022 compared to the prior year, and total patient interactions grew 86% over the same period. This demonstrates our continued leadership position as the preeminent end-to-end healthcare company in Canada, while our U.S. businesses continue to exhibit industry-leading growth metrics. Our record revenue, profitability, and patient visits are a testament to the company's continued focus on delivering accessible and innovative healthcare solutions. Additionally, our US-based virtual services businesses continue to perform exceptionally well, further strengthening our position in the North American digital healthcare market. The company continues to witness healthy growth across all its business segments, including both online and in-person care channels, with minimal impacts due to recession, inflation, supply chain issues, or other macroeconomic effects. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Eva Fong, who will review the annual financials for 2022 and fiscal fourth quarter. I will then come back and provide further commentary on our business units and outlook. Eva.
spk00: Thank you, Hamid. I'm pleased to report that we had very strong results for the three months and year ended December 31st, 2022. Our annual 2022 and fourth quarter results were as follows. Well achieved record annual revenue of $569.1 million in 2022 compared to revenue of $302.3 million generated during 2021, an increase of 88% driven by acquisitions and organic growth. Adjusted gross profit was $303.3 million in 2022, an increase of 97% compared to $153.7 million in 2021. Adjusted EBITDA was $104.6 million in 2022, an increase of 73% compared to $60.4 million in 2021. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to wealth shareholders was $76.6 million in 2022, an increase of 82% compared to $42 million in 2021. Adjusted net income was 53.7 million in 2022, an increase of 228% compared to 16.3 million in 2021. Adjusted free cash flow attributable to wealth shareholders was 48.8 million in 2022 as compared to 34.2 million in 2021. Adjusted free cash flow is defined as adjusted EBITDA attributable to wealth shareholders minus cash taxes, minus cash interest costs, and minus capex. Our fourth quarter results were as follows. Well-achieved record quarterly revenue of $156.5 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 35% as compared to revenue of $115.7 million generated during Q4 2021. This growth was driven by acquisitions and organic growth. Well achieved record adjusted gross profits of $80.2 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 26% as compared to adjusted gross profits of $63.5 million in Q4 2021. Growth in the company's adjusted gross profits is attributable to higher revenue in the period. Adjusted EBITDA was 27.2 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 6% as compared to adjusted EBITDA of 25.7 million in Q4 2021. It is worth noting that we had really strong results in the prior period Q4 2021 with the highest margins in CLH history, which included more than 2 million of pandemic-related government incentives, which resulted in exceptionally strong EBITDA performance in Q4 2021. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to wealth shareholders was 21.1 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 18% as compared to adjusted EBITDA attributable to wealth shareholders of $17.8 million in Q4 2021. Adjusted net income was $12.5 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 24% as compared to adjusted net income of $10.1 million in Q4 2021. I will now review the financial performance of our business segments. First, primary care, which includes our primary care clinics, allied health, and executive health businesses in Canada. Primary care revenues were 70.5 million in 2022, an increase of 36% as compared to 51.7 million in 2021. Annual results were driven by healthy organic growth, clinic acquisitions, and higher government payments for health services. Primary care revenues were erected 21.8 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 55% as compared to 14.1 million in Q4 of last year. The in-lift acquisition completed in the third quarter and three new clinics acquired from CloudND in the fourth quarter positively contributed to strong Q4 results. In addition, primary care revenues in Q4 2022 benefited from a stabilization payment from the BC government. This one-time payment of possibly $1.5 million in the fourth quarter is meant as interim funding to help stabilize family practices until a new payment model was implemented in February 2023. Compared to Q3 2022, primary care revenue was positively impacted by seasonality, as the fourth quarter is a seasonally stronger quarter as compared to Q3, as there tends to be an increase in colds, flus, and other ailments contributing to higher patient volumes. Secondly, My Health. My Health achieved record revenues of 104.2 million in 2022, an increase of 146% as compared to 42.5 million in 2021. My Health was acquired partway through 2021 and hence the larger revenue growth from 2021 to 2022. In Q4 2022, My Health achieved record quarterly revenue of 28.1 million an increase of 21% as compared to $23.2 million in Q4 of last year. My Health benefited in Q4 2022 from management's hard work and continued efforts to alleviate such shortages experienced in the first half of the year, leading to a higher billable time for many of its diagnostic procedures. My Health also benefited in the quarter from the addition of new cardiologists and pain management specialists. And third, I will now talk about CLH's performance. CLH revenues were $202 million in 2022, an increase of 52% as compared to $132.5 million in 2021. As CLH was acquired in April 2021, the increase in revenue is mostly attributable to a four-year contribution of CLH revenue and acquisitions. For Q4 2022, CLH revenues were $52.1 million, an increase of 11% as compared to $47.1 million in Q4 of last year. In addition, revenues also benefited from having a full quarter of contribution from the Grand Canyon anesthesia acquisition, which is one of the largest acquisitions that CLH has completed since well-acquired CLH. Compared to Q3 2022, CLH's Q4 2022 results benefited from seasonality, as Q4 is CLH's strongest quarter. Case volumes were also very strong for CLH in Q4, with a record of 133,654 anesthesia cases completed in Q4, an increase of 11% compared to Q4 of last year. CLH sold 2,138 O'Regan boxes in the fourth quarter. And since each box has 20 Legata units, a total of 42,000 Legata units were sold in the quarter. I would also like to provide an update on CLH's billing service provider. CLH entered into a relationship with a new billing service provider, Change Healthcare, in Q4 2021. Switching to a new provider has benefited the company with a reduction in payment processing fees, resulting in higher margins. However, CLH also experienced a number of one-time transition related issues, which includes the predecessor billing service provider subsequently dissolved and was not able to carry out normal accounts receivable collections, which resulted in bad debt losses related to 2021 revenue. As a result of these events, CLH took this one time off and was also precluded from recognizing certain patient services revenue under IFRS 15, and as such, revenues would have been higher had this billing change not occurred. Altogether, a loss of $3.5 million has been excluded from the calculation of adjusted EBITDA, and these are non-recurrent and not reflective of ongoing operations. Despite these transition issues and related impacts, we remain confident that the long-term savings from switching to a new billing provider will provide, will more than compensate for the losses experienced over the past year, as we will ultimately be able to reduce our effective collection rate cost by more than 50%, reflecting over $5 million savings per year. It is also important to note that our new billing service provider offers better data and business intelligence as well as far superior risk management characteristics, including much better data security. This was a giant undertaking by our CLH team, and I'm very pleased that we are on the other side of this transition, as it substantially de-risked and enabled the company and positioned us for better operating performances and improved data quality. Lastly, virtual services. which includes Wells US-based, Circle Medical, and WIPS, as well as the company's technology-based solutions, including EMR, billing and revenue cycle management, OceanMD, digital apps, and cybersecurity. Virtual services revenues were 192.4 million in 2022, an increase of 154% as compared to 75.6 million in 2021. Virtual services revenue growth was driven by the exceptional growth in the US-based businesses of Circle Medical and WIPS. On a combined basis, these two businesses achieved almost 160 million on a revenue run rate basis at the end of 2022. Virtual services revenues were 54.5 million in Q4 2022, an increase of 74% as compared to 31.3 million in Q4 of last year. Well ended 2022 and Q4 with a solid balance sheet. As of December 31st, 2022, Well had cash and cash equivalents of $48.9 million. Well continues to be in good standing in fully compliance with all components related to with its two credit lines, JP Morgan in the U.S. and Royal Bank in Canada. During the year 2022, we paid down about U.S. $31 million of the JP Morgan line in the U.S. to arrive at a balance of US $131.7 million as of the end of the year. In Canada, we borrowed a total of $2.5 million in the year to arrive at a balance of $75.3 million. The total value of our credit line debt as of December 31st was approximately $253.7 million in Canadian dollars. Keep in mind that USD strengthens from an average of 1.26 in Q4 2021 to 1.36 in Q4 2022, and as such, due to the high exchange rate, our overall debt level would have been lower on a constant currency basis. In terms of our share capitalization, As of March 20th, 2022, well had 253,793,194 fully diluted securities issued and outstanding. That is my financial update, and I turn the call back over to Howard.
spk08: Thank you, Eva. Now I'd like to speak a bit about our outlook for 2023. We're pleased to report that all of our business units are executing very well. as we're expecting to have strong performance in 2023 across all of our units and for the entire company as a whole. Despite the current geopolitical, inflationary, and turbulent economic environment, the company does not see any material influences or challenges that would impair its ability to deliver solid results in 2023. Many of the key variables inherent in the execution of Wells' business are firmly in its own grasp and not dependent on outside factors. The company is poised to achieve significant growth while effectively managing its costs this year. Management is pleased to provide the following guidance for 2023. We expect annual revenues between $665 million and $685 million, representing 17 to 20% annual growth as compared to 2022. Our revenue guidance is above current consensus estimates for 2023. We expect annual adjusted EBITDA to increase by more than 10% over 2022 levels. Our guidance does not include any unannounced acquisitions. As we indicated last quarter, with future acquisitions, we see a clear line of sight to $1 billion in revenues within three years as we continue our organic growth and highly accretive clinical tuck-in program. As you may have seen from the guidance, we're expecting our revenue to increase at a higher rate than our adjusted EBITDA this year. There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, we're aggressively reinvesting in growth in our Circle Medical and WISP businesses. While we expect these two businesses to have higher EBITDA contributions this year overall, they will still be immature compared to our other revenue streams and pull down the average a little bit. We're very comfortable with this approach as we're confident that both Circle Medical and WISP will continue to acquire market share and improve their operating EBITDA margins over time as they become more mature businesses. Secondly, we continue to experience the effects of inflationary cost pressures and wage increases. These cost increases are prevalent in all industries today. Although we've implemented cost-saving initiatives, we're still expecting additional cost and wage increases this year as inflation remains at elevated levels. And lastly, in our CRH business, there are a few factors to be aware of. One, we don't have the benefit of some of the pandemic-related incentives provided by the U.S. government that Eva just spoke about during early 2022 elections. which was equal to more than $2 million USD between Q1 and Q2 last year in 2022. We had some of those incentives in 2021 as well that Eva spoke about. Two, the combined effect of the NSA or No Surprises Act and our continued move to have our entire payment activity in-network will remove some of the elevated billings associated with our out-of-network billings, which we were all anticipating when we bought the company. And three, our most recent large acquisition in the CRH business, Grand Canyon Anesthesia, has a lower margin profile than our historic margins for CRH. Notwithstanding the above, we're still firmly within the Rule of 30 territory as per the company's previous guidance and direction. I'll now provide some commentary on the business units themselves, segmented first with the Canadian Patient Services Group, then U.S. Patient Services, and then SAS and Technologies. First, with the Canadian Patient Services Business Unit. In Canada, WELL owns and operates the largest network of clinics in the country, which includes over 130 clinics being operated in over 80 physical facilities, consisting of primary care, allied health, executive health, and diagnostic clinics. As we've described on our prior calls, WELL strongly believes in the benefits of an integrated healthcare offering and is bringing together a diverse, multidisciplinary offering of its providers in the same setting. This benefits both patients and providers, as many of these physical facilities have multiple clinics operating within the same location. For example, we could have a primary care and allied health clinic operating out of the same location, or a cardiology clinic and a diagnostic clinic operating out of one of our My Health Ontario facilities. That's how we can have more than one clinic in a facility. With over 130 clinics across Canada, we own and operate the largest network. To our knowledge, we deliver more omni-channel patient visits than any other non-governmental entity in Canada. Furthermore, we're one of the top three providers of telehealth services in the country. Wella's objective is to continue to grow its patient services business unit both organically and inorganically and increase its market leadership as the country's first pan-Canadian clinical network with a highly integrated network of tech-enabled outpatient healthcare clinics. Growth in our Canadian patient services business in 2023 will be driven by continuing to focus on organic growth, which includes recruiting more physicians and absorbing or recruiting clinics themselves and executing on highly disciplined capital allocation opportunities to acquire capable new clinics and networks into the business. These would mostly be small acquisitions. I'd love to share with you what we're seeing and why we're so excited about our growth in primary care in Canada. Given recent times where there are challenges with inflation, shortages of healthcare workers, and other issues, well is seeing dramatically increased relevancy, which is translating into significant growth and interest from care providers that want to join its network. As I've mentioned before, in Canada, historically, in many cases, we force healthcare providers to provide care and run a business. except that now it's become a lot more difficult to run these businesses due to the increased complexity brought about by hybrid and complex workflows, IT, data security, and other challenges, making it very difficult for physicians to run even small practices. For this reason, we're seeing more physicians seek well out as a professional partner to help them run their business so they can focus on providing care. This is working, and providers are really... generating benefit from it because they maintain similar per unit economics, but end up seeing a lot more patients, which allows them to elevate care, improve earnings, and better support the healthcare ecosystem. I'd like to now quickly comment on opportunities associated with expanding our My Health Network in Ontario. On January 16th, Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced the Ontario government's new multi-pronged strategy to reduce wait times by partnering with independent service providers for Ontarians, including areas associated with MRI, CT, colonoscopy, and endoscopy services. Wells Ontario-based My Health Partners is the largest single license holder and service provider for specialty clinics providing diagnostics in the province of Ontario, and we believe is very well positioned to support Ontario government's mandate, particularly in the areas of diagnostic imaging. We intend to apply for these new MRI and CT licenses, which will be provided by the province of Ontario. We anticipate the new licenses will be awarded in the second half of 2023. Although we won't know for several months yet if My Health will be ultimately successful in its applications, we would likely incur additional capital costs to purchasing imaging equipment and for leasehold improvements. We anticipate lead times of several months to have these services fully operational in clinics. And as such, we expect minimal revenue generation in 2023. Any such meaningful revenue impact would occur in 24 and beyond. I'll now provide some commentary on our U.S. patient services businesses, including CRH, Circle Medical, and WIST. WELL provides omni-channel healthcare services and solutions across the United States, targeting specialized markets such as the GI market, women's health, primary care, and mental disorders. I'll start with CRH. CRH continues to be a nice cash cow for the company. And as a reminder, under the CRH brand, we are the leading provider of sedation services for colonoscopies in the U.S. in an ambulatory setting. In the U.S., Well continues to expand its clinical presence with anesthesia services now being offered in 126 ambulatory surgery centers and GI clinics across 18 states. In 2022, CRH continued to benefit from post-COVID pent-up demand for endoscopic procedures and our team's excellent execution in being able to support that elevated demand. We continue to see elevated interest and demand in CRH's services and expect another record year of performance by CRH. Given the nature of how health plans and their deductibles work through the year for elective procedures such as colonoscopies, the fourth quarter is CRH's strongest seasonal quarter. We're expecting CRH revenues to decline in Q1 compared to Q4 and then increase again in each subsequent quarter in 2023, with Q4 2023 again being the strongest revenue quarter this year. It should be noted that between Q1 and Q2 2022, CRH received more than $2 million U.S. in pandemic-related government assistance. This grant helped offset labor costs and improved EBITDA, which will not be repeated in 2023. In addition, CRH continues to execute on unlocking the value of its O'Regan hemorrhoid banding device intellectual property by creating a clinical offering called GI Rapid Relief that leverages this technology. As of March 21, we now have 11 banding clinics across the United States and Canada. I'd now like to discuss U.S. virtual patient services businesses, which include Circle Medical and WISP. Under the Circle Medical and WISP brand, we are one of the fastest growing specialty telehealth businesses focusing on areas such as behavioral health and women's health. Our Circle Medical and WISP businesses are expected to continue to experience healthy revenue growth in 2023. However, we're purposely reinvesting any cash flows generated by these businesses back into growth, primarily on marketing costs to gain new patients and drive additional revenues. As you may be aware, ad rates are much lower in the first three months of the year as compared to the last three months of the year. As such, we're taking advantage of this and increasing our marketing spend earlier this year. We will in particular see this effect with WISP as we're targeting a slightly adjusted EBITDA negative performance in Q1, which will more than be made up in the balance of the year. Our current plan for Circle Medical is to continue to scale their telemedicine business, but also now aggressively grow its physical clinic performance or network in 2023, which will improve its hybrid care capabilities and strengthen the company's ability to better support its patients, especially as we see the Biden administration sunset the public health emergency. As of March 1st, Circle Medical already had added three new clinic locations in Illinois, Florida, and New York, in addition to its existing operations in San Francisco. Circle Medical is now in the process of adding additional clinic locations in Washington, D.C., and 10 additional states, including Arizona, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee, and Maryland. We expect to have clinical coverage across all these states in the coming weeks. Finally, SAS and Technology. SAS and technology includes our Well EMR group, billing, revenue cycle management, digital apps, OceanMD, and cybersecurity. Well is a unique company with both patient services and technology capabilities. We own significant intellectual property, which drives our industry-leading solutions and has created compelling and relevant links within healthcare providers all over the country. We have created a best-in-class digital platform with significant IP that we call the Practitioner Enablement Platform. This platform aims to digitize, modernize, and support providers and their clinics. With well over 23,000 medical providers in Canada that are leveraging the platform in some way, what is unique about Well is that we are the biggest users of our own platform, as the vast majority of our revenue is derived by our own patient services businesses. This is because we found that the best way to support providers is to help them run their businesses. When a provider joins well, we provide a fully managed solution. This means we look after all aspects of their business from front office patient management to the management of all staff and back office executions so they can focus on providing care. We are industry leaders in technology and innovation in digital healthcare in Canada. Some of our examples of leadership include one, we're one of the top three practice management service providers in Canada, including EMR or electronic medical records software. Two, we're one of the leading providers of digital patient engagement services, which includes all aspects of connecting patients and doctors digitally. Three, we're one of the largest providers, in fact, the largest provider of revenue cycle management and outsource billing services for doctors in Canada. Five, We are the largest provider of e-referral software services in Canada. And we operate Canada's only app marketplace for integrated EMR apps called Apps.Health. Our outlook looks promising for SAS and technology group. OceanMD in particular is emerging as a leader in patient engagement at e-referral solutions in the country. Already, the e-referral solution provided by Ocean is in place in the province of Ontario. We feel OceanMD has the potential to become the e-referral standard across the country. Ocean's platform is used at over 2,700 clinics in the country by over 25,000 clinicians with more than 1 million monthly patient users. It is emerging as one of the most important digital gateways for healthcare in Canada with connectivity to more than 30 integrated solutions and EMRs and provincial assets. To our knowledge, there is no other software or digital health system in Canada that is as deeply connected and embedded in the Canadian healthcare landscape as Ocean. We have recently updated Ocean's web presence and invite you to spend some time learning about this amazing network. You can visit the site at OceanMD.com. I'm also pleased to report that as a company with deep tech experience and capabilities, we have made artificial intelligence a key priority within the company. and are working on compelling new products and enhancements to roll out to our provider network. Our teams and partners are integrating different forms of AI technology, including generative AI solutions such as Jack GPT. We look forward to unveiling these solutions in the coming weeks and months ahead. In summary, we're very pleased with our financial performance in 2022 and look forward to delivering the strongest results yet as a company. Our outlook for 2023 remains very positive, hence I can confidently provide annual guidance for revenues between $665 million and $685 billion for this year, and a material improvement in our adjusted EBITDA to exceed at least $115 million. Finally, I'd like to thank you all for joining us on this call today and thank our shareholders and investors for their continued support. The capital markets have been very supportive of our vision and have provided us with the funding and patience needed to pursue our goals. I'd also like to thank Wallace's senior management team, our employees and contractors, and in particular, our network and team of healthcare practitioners and other frontline workers who provide unbelievable patient care every single day. They remind us every day why we're here, and we're here to support them. Thank you very much. We're very pleased to take some questions. Operator, could you please assist?
spk04: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Alan Klee of Maxim Group. Please go ahead.
spk13: Good morning. Congratulations. Could you talk a little about how you feel the impact your company can be from the federal government of Canada providing additional funding to provinces over the next 10 years?
spk08: Thanks very much, Alan. As I mentioned in my script, we do see this as a tailwind, particularly because we're so focused on not only serving providers with our tools, but also partnering with them and helping them run their business. Most of our revenue in Canada comes from us sharing revenue with doctors and essentially helping them run those businesses. And we believe a lot of that funding is earmarked for providers. I'll note that Canada's healthcare ecosystem is worth more than $300 billion annually, and close to $40 billion of that has historically been payment for care providers. And we believe a lot of the crisis that we're talking about here in Canada, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, is a shortage of doctors. And so we understand a lot of that potential funding relief will help shore up some of the funding required for care providers. So we do see this as a fantastic tailwind for us.
spk03: Thank you very much. Thank you.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from Rob Guff of Etchneon Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk12: Thank you very much for taking my questions and let me echo the congratulations on a good year, a very good year in fourth quarter as well.
spk08: Thank you, Rob. And congrats to you for the merger with PI.
spk12: We're looking forward to working with a new teammate.
spk08: Thank you.
spk12: And you might be surprised if I didn't ask you about Circle. Could you perhaps go into a bit greater detail about the expansion of Circle, adding physical locations, like where you add a physical location. Is there a ramp-up period before it hits this draw and hits profitability? Are you pursuing partnerships versus build? Just sort of go into some of the details and the cadence there.
spk08: Yeah, so generally speaking, you know, not all the locations will look and operate the same. I think what you'll generally see is Circle is still very committed to scaling the business digitally. A lot of what they're doing physically is to ensure that they have the infrastructure to support their patient load, particularly as the public health emergency sunsets and being able to adequately prescribe and support patients You know, within the context of those rules when public when the public health emergency is over. And so we'll see some, you know, some flagship locations like the ones they have in San Francisco, LA and New York, and then you'll see smaller, much more cost effective locations in other areas. And, you know, so we don't really expect there to be, you know, significant, you know, burden on profitability. You know, there'll obviously be some investments, but, you know, Circle doesn't have any debt. It's got a solid cash position and it's generating very nice cash flow. So I think we're in a very good position to execute on that.
spk12: Very good. And if I may, as a follow-up, could you talk to the ROIs that you are seeing in the U.S. virtual services and how they may have changed year on year?
spk08: Can you expand on what you mean by an ROI? Return on what kind of investment?
spk12: Return on advertising investment, return on marketing.
spk08: Oh, on advertising. Gotcha, yeah. Yeah, no, we continue to see excellent return on advertising investment. you know, a big part of the reason why we've been so successful. I mean, we've been very successful at ramping up our provider network. But, you know, but on the engagement side, I think what's really neat about our LTV, you know, obviously, you know, we have, you know, similar CACs. I would say probably better performing CACs than most companies out there. But the fact that we can, you know, advertise a specific specialty, you know, need or on-ramp, as we call it, to help support a patient through whatever they're going through, depression, anxiety, ADHD. The fact that we can then convert a portion of those patients to being long-term longitudinal care family practice patients, that's a big part of why our returns are as high as they are and why you're seeing these great results and why there's I think a distinct advantage by Circle over some of the other partners and players that you're seeing in the industry.
spk12: Thank you very much.
spk07: Thanks, Rob.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from Doug Taylor of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
spk10: Yeah, thanks. And once again, congratulations on the strong results. You made some changes to the assumptions regarding my health earnouts in the quarter and I believe again since quarter and can you step us through what's happening there as your commentary and the overall financial performance suggests that businesses are executing well and have a bright outlook. So can you talk through that and when we should now expect those payments to flow through?
spk08: Sure. I mean, look, we're always looking at all of our earn-out arrangements on an ongoing basis and assessing them for, you know, what's being paid to date, how much time's left, that kind of thing. And so, you know, that just is a normal course activity for us. And we're, you know, correcting any discrepancies that exist with what we have on the book. So that's what you saw there. But as you can tell, My Health is operating extremely well. and we're very confident in their ability to continue to deliver for the company.
spk10: Thanks for that. I'll follow up with, I guess, a perfunctory question about the M&A kind of backdrop and environment. Since the last quarterly call, we've seen a rebound in sentiment around the digital health space tied to a lot of the catalysts that you've mentioned. Has that worked its way into the M&A landscape in any way in terms of either private company valuations or the quantity of opportunities that you're seeing come across your desk?
spk08: Yeah, that's a great question, Doug. Where we're operating with M&A, I mean, first of all, we've slowed down M&A a lot and focused a lot on organic growth. But where we're focused is, again, those smaller networks because, you know, you've heard me say this before, small is beautiful, right? we're not seeing elevated valuations in those places. We're seeing a lot of need, a lot of, you know, frankly, a lot of duress, you know, because of the challenges that I mentioned, you know, smaller clinics and smaller networks are just not able to optimally perform and they're seeking out folks like us. So, you know, with better run clinics, we're still kind of seeing that four to six times range, but often we are seeing, you know, slightly profitable clinics at much lower valuation ranges. And you're right in that much more scaled and strategically relevant players are seeing much higher valuations, but we're not playing in that market today.
spk10: That's great color. I'll pass the line. Thanks.
spk03: Thanks, Doug.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from Christian Schro of A Capital. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hi, congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking my questions. The first one I'll lead on my health as well. The question I've got is it looks like through 2022, my health performance improved sequentially despite Q2 being the strongest quarter of the year normally. And I think there's some commentary on that being due to staffing with cardiologists and such, but are there any other you know, reasons why my health revenue climbed into the year. And do you see that, you know, trend continuing into 2023 with my health being strong?
spk08: Third question. The first part, I think my line blipped a bit. What did you say on the first part?
spk02: I was just going through the 2022 quarterly build of my health and it looked like it was, you know, a nice lift each quarter, despite some of the seasonal patterns we'd expect. Right.
spk08: Okay. Yeah. So you're right. I mean, there was a, there was definitely, um, you know, changed throughout the year. We started the year, frankly, with much more elevated costs. And we saw the same effect, interestingly, in the United States. Last year, particularly, the first half of the year was very challenging with costs and with worker shortages. We think some of that was brought about, too, by, again, some of it was COVID-related because the hospitals had cleared their COVID backlogs. They were now back to doing diagnostic imaging and wanted to kind of re-welcome those patients that they were not serving before. And so they were then seeking some of the same experienced technicians that we were in order to power those diagnostic facilities. And so that was a real tough thing because we had extremely strong demand for our services, but our ability to support that demand is really, you know, made possible by those experienced professionals and care providers. We saw that, you know, improve a lot in the back half of the year, partially, of course, due to the incredible work of our team. But I think from an industry perspective, we also saw that that, you know, kind of let up a little bit and and the worker shortage kind of relaxed a little bit. We saw that particularly in the U.S. as well with Q3, a lot of the worker shortage issues being alleviated. And this just goes to show you that there was just excellent execution in that business as we were able to take advantage of the better workforce availability and deliver great results.
spk02: Great. That's all helpful. And for my second question, I'll switch over to
spk08: british columbia eva mentioned the new payment model that was introduced this year just wondering if you could comment on the impact you're seeing you know regulatory wise and any impact on wells operations well so so it's a very favorable outcome for us uh we're hoping actually more doctors uh switch to the new model um so far we've had quite a few uh you know switch to it um You know, it's something that, you know, obviously, as we talked about before, you know, doctors can decide to kind of go with the new model or stick with the old free-for-service model. In any event, there's additional funding available. And some of that is requiring us to kind of cut new deals and go through the negotiation process with providers again. But You know, I think we're at the tail end of that, and we think that ultimately this is going to be a nice tail end for us. Perfect.
spk02: Thank you for taking my question, Thomas.
spk07: Thank you, Christian.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from Jason Zandberg of PI Financial Corp. Please go ahead.
spk11: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to ask about your recent venture into Europe. I know it's just an initial sort of toe-tip into the market, but I just wanted to get your outlook in terms of what your long-term plans are for the European market.
spk08: Thanks, Jason. I'm glad you asked that. You know, while our patient services business is very North America centric, it's important to note that Well has a global business in a technology side of things. And we have millions of dollars of revenue from Australia and New Zealand in our EMR business. And we have a technology platform that can really be sold all over the world. And here, I think we found a phenomenal opportunity to access the German market without having to deploy a lot of capital teams and establish a greenfield office there. Through our partnership and our partners at Horizon Ventures, we identified a great opportunity to invest in Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee is a new EMR in Germany and it's very difficult actually for there to be new EMRs at all in that market because regulations it's so difficult. And it's a pretty substantial journey with a lot of regulatory approvals required in order to be able to launch a new EMR. And they've been able to do that. And we believe that their EMR is quite disruptive and could acquire a lot of market share. Our investment not only allowed us to co-invest with Li Ka-Shing's group there with Horizon Ventures. But it actually secured us a five-year exclusive contract to embed our software into the Dr. Li software and provide online patient booking, for example. And we believe other digital patient engagement attributes, but primarily that specific software. And we believe that that will you know, there'll be strong revenue potential there. And it will be a great beachhead for us into that market. And I think from there, we'll watch carefully, but without the need to expend a lot of capital, because, again, you know, we're just really leveraging our intellectual property and incurring the cost of translating our platform into German, which isn't really too bad. We are looking for opportunities to do this elsewhere in the world. But but believe that this will potentially start to impact some of our results in 2024.
spk11: That's great. And if I could ask a second question, I just wanted to drill down on the primary care growth. So you posted $21.8 million during the fourth quarter, which was a very impressive 55% year over year and equally impressive 34% quarter over quarter. Just wanted to get an idea of organic versus acquired growth. Are you able to break that down?
spk08: Sure. Maybe I'll call on Eva to help with this one. I do note that we also had a substantial stabilization payment by the government in Q4, which I think is fairly anomalous. I don't think we're going to see that again. Our margins on those payments are a lot less, so it's not something that contributed greatly to EBITDA, but it would have contributed, you know, quite a bit to organic growth. Eva, is that something organic versus inorganic that you can speak to?
spk00: Yeah, so definitely, of course, right? With all the automation and technology we deployed in its clinics, we continue to really improve the workflow of the clinics. And, you know, so that continues to help the doctors and, you know, improve the automation. And of course, the... Then, yeah, we did have the LFP, longitudinal family practice. I guess, payment from the government in Q4, and then we have some, you know, inorganic growth, M&A, that we described earlier. So in all of that, so the cleaners continue to have, you know, really good results in Q4, and we continue to see that happening in the next few, in 2023.
spk08: So Jason, the way I think to think about this is if you even stripped out those anomalous payments we would have still had elevated double-digit organic growth because our M&A throughout the year was not that extensive. Hopefully that's helpful.
spk11: Yeah, no, that definitely explains things. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for the color.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from Justin Keywood of Stifle. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hi, thanks for taking my call. Just want to circle back on the medium-term goal in the opening remarks of hitting a billion in sales. If that goal is organic, what margins could this business generate at a billion in sales?
spk08: Yeah, thanks, Justin. I think if you just look at the kind of organic growth that we've been exhibiting and you extend that out for two or three years, you could see that it really wouldn't take that much inorganic growth to get us there. So that's what gives us the confidence that we're well positioned for that result, especially because we're also getting a lot more confident with our balance sheet. As Eva noted, we paid down over $30 million of our US line And had USD not dramatically strengthened, we would have reported a significant delevering in Canadian dollars. And so really what you have is a situation where our core cash flow is growing, because our EBITDA is growing, and our commitments and contingent liabilities are decreasing. So we have a lot more capital left to deploy into assets. And we're still finding very cost-effective assets especially in the small acquisition category. And you may have noted that I also spoke to this notion that we're not only recruiting doctors, but we're recruiting clinics. This is a new phenomenon that is very interesting for us because we don't buy very small clinics, like very small, meaning one, two, three practitioners. It's very difficult to do that because there's not really any franchise value in that. What we have started to do is is at times actually absorb those because those doctors need so much support and help in running their businesses. So it's sort of a combined collective group of factors that really encourage us about our ability to continue to grow organically and inorganically to meet that result. Hopefully that's helpful.
spk09: That's very helpful. And then just on the margins, I assume there's some operating leverage in the business for from now and then, is there any indication of what the business could generate at that sales level?
spk08: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. That was your other question. Look, I do think that as this business becomes more mature, it is a minimum 20% EBITDA margin business. I think the reason why we're not generating over 20% operating margins today is really because there's a lot of immature elements to our business that are continuing to grow. And we're okay with that. You know, we hope we always have a fast growth immature business fit in the mix as well. And it's management's goal to make sure that that's always the case. You know, but I think we will near and eventually cross that 20% threshold.
spk03: Understood. Thank you for taking my call.
spk07: Thank you.
spk04: Thank you. The next question comes from David Quan, TD Securities. Please go ahead.
spk06: Good morning. I appreciate the call you guys have provided on the call. I guess my first question relates to cap allocation. You're expected to generate some stronger free cash flow, both from an operational perspective and then also some of these, I guess, historical acquisitions, the deferred acquisition costs and earnouts are expected to moderate this year or next year. I guess, how would you rank the various options that you have as it relates to capital allocation? Obviously, you've talked about M&A and debt reduction, but also, you know, potential share buybacks and also investing for organic growth, which you've talked about too.
spk08: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, David. That's a really good question. You know, I think we really feel confident that clinics are a big area of focus for us. And I'll just characterize it this way. You look at the two biggest DSOs in the country, you know, dental support organizations, you know, Dental Corp and 123, you know, collectively they own about 900 clinics and operate in the country. But we're the largest MSO, you know, medical support organization, and we own and operate 130 clinics in 80 facilities, over 80 facilities. It just gives you, you know, a very stark and real view of how big the potential is and how... immature this market is from a consolidation perspective. We think it's very reasonable to assume that well eventually gets to that sort of, you know, three, four, 500 clinic mark. And, and I think, you know, the real question, and we're, and we're ramping up our growth machine, if you will, you know, our integration teams, our M&A team in order to be able to do that. And I think, you know, between absorbing clinics, recruiting clinics, acquiring clinics, we feel, and, you know, this isn't just primary care. This is, you know, in all aspects of the business, you know, whether it's allied health or, you know, diagnostics or obviously some of the specialist businesses that we're involved with with My Health. We just think there's just a phenomenal opportunity for Well to be the leader across the country and establish that pan-Canadian network. And so I would say that's a primary goal. We've also successfully continued to tuck in in our billing business, you know, and that's another very interesting business where you have, you know, small kind of, you know, informal ma-pa type businesses out there, you know, providing services to doctors. You know, our doctor care team is just being, you know, really skillful at being able to, you know, identify them and acquire them and bring them into the fold and unlock synergy and value from those. And I think we're going to continue to look at doing that. And where possible, you know, I think, you know, strategic alliance relationships and venture investments like we did with Dr. Lee, you know, interest us very much. You know, when we make an investment, we never really do that purely as an investment. We always accompany it with some kind of strategic alliance agreement that improves our margins to resell a product or service. And then finally, I'll just say in our cybersecurity group, That's another area where, you know, we've been very successful at tucking in assets and building a platform. And, you know, we think that there's a lot more out there and that's just a great sector. And it just has the dual benefit for us too. And when we acquire those assets, we can help make, you know, well more safe and also help make the industry more safe and obviously, you know, generate additional revenues.
spk07: Hopefully that's helpful.
spk06: Yeah, so I guess based on your comments, Hamid, it sounds like M&A is kind of top of the priority list.
spk08: Yeah, we're very busy. We're very busy. We have at least half a dozen high-quality LOIs signed. We have a great pipeline. Our teams are firing on all cylinders, and we expect this activity to be sustained at a high level for a while.
spk06: I appreciate that. I guess one last related question. You talked about wanting to get the clinic footprint here in Canada, 3, 4, 500. Can you talk about the timelines to get there? Because obviously you're well below that right now. Like, is this something kind of better part of a decade to get there? Just curious to get your thoughts on that.
spk08: Yeah, yeah. I do think that, you know, in a year like this, you know, we could probably, you know, add another 20 or 30 clinics. But I think our objective is to really ramp up the company's ability to dramatically improve that in future years. And so I do see that number, you know, I'd like to see us to be, you know, at those types of numbers within, you know, sort of four to five years. And I think depending on how quickly we roll out, you know, what our capital base looks like, you know,
spk07: you know, where valuations go, I think we could even potentially do it, you know, sooner than that.
spk03: I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you.
spk04: Thank you. That is all the time we have for questions. I will turn the call back to Mohamed Bashi. Closing remarks.
spk08: Well, I want to thank everyone for attending the call today and for all the support. We are very excited about, you know, everything happening with the business, as you probably heard today. We look forward to being in touch and unveiling some of the exciting product and technology initiatives that we're working on. And, you know, look forward to speaking to you very soon because our Q1 will be out in short order.
spk07: Have a wonderful day, and thanks again for all your support.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
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