Village Farms International, Inc. Price & Performance (VFF)

Including its Form 10 ks MD and A for the year ended December 31, 2024, which will be available on EDGAR and SEDAR plus These forward looking statements are made as of today's date and except as required by applicable applicable securities law. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Michael DeGiglio, Chief Executive Officer of Village Farms International. Please go ahead, Mr. Digilio.

Thank you, Sonia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. With me are Steve Grafini, our Chief Financial Officer and Guillen Lafever, Chief Operating Officer. Today, we have Arvo Bovanchen, President of Canadian Cannabis and Patti Smith, our Corporate Controller as well as Sam Gibbons, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs. Let me begin with a summary of highlights from today's results before I pass the call on to Steve for a more detailed review of the financials. Excluding the inventory impairment disclosed in this morning's press release, we had one of our strongest quarters of performance over the past four years which gives us great confidence that we have good momentum behind us as we are continuing to execute our profitable growth strategy in 2025. As a reminder, all currency figures referenced in today's call are in U. S. Dollars unless otherwise noted. Total fourth quarter revenues of $83,000,000 increased 11% and full year revenues increased 18% year over year to $336,000,000 Total net sales in Canadian cannabis for 2024 grew 31% with all of our growth generated organically without acquisitions. And retail branded sales were up 23 Over the past three years, we have organically grown our Canadian cannabis business into a perennial market share leader in a highly competitive market and one of the only operators with a track record of positive cash flow from operations.

We have been successful in our efforts to achieve a defensive leadership position in Canadian before expanding to other markets. And over the past couple of quarters, we have begun to focus more energy toward our international strategy. Prioritizing profitable sales growth over competing for low margin business to drive volume and market share. Here in Canada. Current dynamics in the value end of the supply chain in Canada and impacts of key account spend to maintain shelf space with retailers are not sustainable for the industry. We have made some conscious decisions recently to move away from lower tier categories that no longer line with a longer term global strategic objectives. And these decisions were reflected in the market share trends in the fourth quarter. However, I would also like to make it clear that the out of stock strain impacts that we discussed on last year's conference call have been resolved as we anticipated they would be And we did begin to recover some share at the end of the year and in the first few months of twenty twenty five. As these strains begin making their way back onto shelves. We have made incremental share gains in dried flower for the past four months in Ontario and since December our national share of the dried flower category has gained 120 basis points.

Even though we are prioritizing profitable sales growth, over low margin volume in Canada, we remain one of the top three producers holding the number three market share position overall in Canada. We were the second fastest growing LP in both Ontario and Quebec. We also further expanded our number one national market share position in dried flower, and moved into the number two national share position in the pre roll category All of this success has been achieved organically. Without M and A activity which is a rarity in Canada. An incredible testament to the hard work and dedication of our team continues to drive our Canadian cannabis business forward with product offerings consumers love. I would like to congratulate our entire Canadian cannabis team on these great achievements. Improvements in market share in the early months of 2025 have coincided with our recent launch of our Super Toast all in one vapes which we launched in December and have quickly become the number six ranked vape offerings nationally and number two in Ontario over the past three months. [indiscernible] This strong market share capture, Ilex equality and consumer trust we have built with our Super Toast brand. As we mentioned last quarter, we are in the process of moving our extraction and vape manufacturing capabilities in house in twenty twenty five.

As we believe there are opportunities for us to capture profitable market share in these categories with new product offerings. I will note that the fourth quarter performance was impacted by our decision to take a $10,500,000 non cash write down of non flower manufactured inventory in the Canadian cannabis. This product was purchased primarily from third parties for vape and manufactured products and they simply did not meet our quality standards. We felt that selling suboptimal vape products and related inventory into market into the market around the same time we are bringing extract and bait manufacturing back in house would have been detrimental to our brands and future product launches. This write down only enables our sales team to focus strictly on quality and profitability with a healthy inventory position in 2025. If we exclude the inventory write down, it was one of our best quarters for both Canadian cannabis and our entire business on a consolidated basis. In several years. As we generated positive adjusted EBITDA in each of our Canadian cannabis and U. S. Cannabis and fresh produce businesses. Excluding this impact, gross margin for our Canadian cannabis business would have moved back into our 30% to 40% target range and adjusted EBITDA net income were the highest in the last four years.

We're also making steady progress on our international cannabis strategy. Which generates higher margins with no excise tax. Q4 ex exports to international medical markets were up 113% year over year. Driven largely by increased sales in Germany, as that market continues to experience exponential growth as well as continued volume increases in both Australia and The UK. Subsequent to the quarter end, we added our fifth international medical market with our first shipments from our BC operations to New Zealand. Our Pink Kush strain the top selling dried flower strain over the past four years in Canada is now available to patients in New Zealand via established distributor Medleaf Therapeutics under its Bloom brand. The New Zealand medical cannabis market is forecasted to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 58% over the next five years. International cannabis sales for the year increased to CAD8.4 million and momentum has continued in 2025 with strong year over year combined with a very strong pipeline of potential new customers and markets we are confident that we will be able to at least triple our international medicinal in 2025. Outside of our medicinal export sales international markets, our other international opportunity, of course, is in the recreational market in The Netherlands.

Where our Lely Holland subsidiary has one of 10 licenses to supply recreational cannabis to coffee shops. A long established culture of cannabis consumption, zero restrictions on vertical integration, and a considerably more favorable pricing environment than Canada. We believe the Dutch market represents one of the most attractive cannabis investments globally and for us. In December, we completed our first harvest at our first facility in Drafton on schedule and commence sales as expected in February. We couldn't be happier with the yields and quality of the product coming out of the new facility. And initial feedback from the coffee shops we are selling is that our product is heading shoulders above expectations. And importantly, pricing and margins are right in line with our forecast. With such a great start at Leily, we are pleased to announce today we have broken ground on Phase two which our Phase two cultivation facility in the town of Groningen that will quadruple our annual production capabilities. Our Phase two facility is expected to be planted out some time in the fourth quarter of this year and will be a brand new state of the art indoor facility. We are very excited about this new location, which already has a six six megawatts of power supply that will more than support our needs and give us a competitive advantage in market as it is our belief that other operators may face power constraints in the future.

Moving on to results from our fresh produce business, continue to benefit from our steady progress implementing new cultivation technologies, including AI and machine automation to drive improvements and efficiencies. Performance in the fresh produce included $3,500,000 of other income in Q4 related to vendor settlements associated with the partial recovery of previous operational losses from the Tomato Brown Burgos virus that we experienced. This impact contributed to adjusted EBITDA of $4,100,000 and net income of approximately $2,000,000 in the fourth quarter. Our U. S. Cannabis business also delivered a quarter positive adjusted EBITDA along with our Clean Energy business which ended the year on pace to deliver approximately $2,000,000 in net income to our consolidated results in 2025. In summary, despite the Q4 inventory impairment, we are pleased with our fourth quarter and full year results and we believe we are well positioned to execute on the many growth opportunities we see in front of us to deliver a successful year of profitable growth growth in 2025 and beyond. In addition to our Phase two expansion of Bailey Holland, we are also in the process of optimizing our Canadian cannabis resources to improve operational efficiencies between our Pure Sunfarms and Rose subsidiaries and align our business with more profitable growth opportunities.

These efforts are nearing completion at the end of Q1. And we expect them to result in lower cost and improved productivity efficiency and profitability moving forward. Before I turn the call over to Steve, I would like to spend a few moments discussing the proposed Canadian and Mexican tariffs. Which for now have been delayed until April 2. Let me provide some perspective on how we plan to manage any tariff impacts and what we think this could mean for the business. As always, we will focus on controlling what is in our control. [indiscernible] were imported either from our own facilities in Canada or our third party growing partners in Mexico and Canada. If tariffs do go in effect, we intend to relocate resources to fulfill as much of our demand as possible from our Texas greenhouse operations. And we do expect significantly increased demand for U. S. Grown produce and higher market pricing in an environment of prolonged tariffs. For any of our demand that needs to be addressed with imports, under the previous free trade agreements means we have no choice but to pass on the 25% tariffs to our customers. I will also note that 2025 sales from our Canadian operations began in early April as those facilities come into their We are also working with our third party supply relations in Mexico regarding the tariffs.

Notwithstanding the short term impact, we remain confident that as one of the largest and longest operating greenhouse produce we have a significant advantage and an integral role to play in the evolution of the ProCins With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve to review the finance before I make some closing remarks. Thanks, Mike. Starting with our consolidated results, as Mike noted, excluding inventory impairment in Canadian cannabis at year end, Q4 was one of our strongest quarters in recent years. Total sales grew 11% year over year to $82,600,000 with strong top line growth in both Canadian cannabis and fresh produce. Net loss improved to $8,600,000 or $0.08 per share from $22,500,000 last year. The $8,600,000 for Q4 this year includes the CAD10.5 million cannabis write down. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was negative $3,500,000 if one were to exclude our fourth quarter inventory write down, we would have reported adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of $7,000,000 Our best results in four years and our full year adjusted EBITDA would have been $12,200,000 I will now turn to the business segments individually starting with fresh produce. Q4 sales increased 17% year over year to $43,300,000 Growth was driven by higher volumes from both our own production and that of our partners.

We can see the positive impact of our success around yield expansion and cost efficiencies in our gross margin for the quarter which improved nearly 60% from Q4 last year. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $4,100,000 compared with negative $600,000 last year. And net income was positive $1,900,000 Both include the $3,500,000 of other income which is the result of the recovery of prior period Brown Re gross losses. Moving to Canadian cannabis, which I will discuss in Canadian dollars, net sales were up 10% year over year driven mainly by non branded sales and international sales. As Mike mentioned, we benefited from the continued momentum in our international medicinal exports which were up 127% from Q4 last year, On a Canadian dollar basis, or 113% on the U. S. Dollar basis. Non branded sales were up 20% year over year to $9,500,000 as we continue to be opportunistic where possible to align supply with demand. Retail branded sales were essentially in line with Q4 of last year at CAD35.1 million. Excluding our inventory impairment, Canadian cannabis gross margin was 33% up from 23% in Q4 last year. Well within our target range of 30% to 40% and demonstrating pod SG and A expense as a percentage of sales for Q4 was 22% compared with 21% in Q4 last year.

Q4 adjusted EBITDA for Canadian Canvas was negative $9,100,000 as a result of the inventory impairment. Excluding the impairment, adjusted EBITDA was positive $5,900,000 which compared to last year was more than double. Finally, as we continue to report quarter after quarter, I will highlight that in Q4, we paid excise tax on retail branded sales of $44,100,000 I mean 44,800,000.0 which includes excise taxes paid for both the third and fourth quarters. This brought the total excise tax we paid in 2024 to just shy of $100,000,000 For perspective, that is more than double our SG and A. [indiscernible] Any forward Canadian excise tax reform would be a welcome change given that Canadian cannabis excise taxes are one of our largest single expenses. Turning to our U. S. Cannabis business, On our Q4 call, I noted that we have stabilized the business within the regulatory headwinds and we're working on a number of initiatives in 2025 to reinvigorate sales of our responsible GMP produced natural hemp products that we continue and we continue to manage our costs. [indiscernible] Although Q4 sales continue to be impacted by the state's attempts to deal with unregulated products by restricting all intoxicating hemp based products we saw a 17% increase sequentially to US4.6 million in revenues with a healthy gross margin of 70% and adjusted EBITDA moved back into positive territory at $300,000 Finally, clean energy generated $400,000 in net income with royalty payments we are now receiving from our energy partner providing a healthy stream of incremental profits for the company.

As Mike mentioned, we believe VF Clean Energy is on track to deliver approximately $2,000,000 in net income to the consolidated company in 2025. Turning to consolidated cash flows and the balance sheet. Total cash flow from operations for the full year was $10,500,000 dollars with $400,000 in Q4, reflecting our third consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow. I should also reiterate that the fourth quarter cash flow from operations in Canadian cannabis was negatively impacted by the timing of the Q3 excise taxes [indiscernible] payments of Canadian $24,100,000 which occurred during the fourth quarter in addition to the Q4 excise taxes of $20,700,000 which were paid at year end. The timing of the Q3 tax payments falling in Q4 was due to a national holiday, which negatively impacted the cash flow from operations during the fourth quarter. We ended Q4 with cash of $24,600,000 and working capital of $53,800,000 Total term debt at the end of Q4 was $41,000,000 split equally between fresh produce debt due May 2027 and Canvas debt, which matures starting in February 2026. We remain very comfortable with our net debt level of $15,900,000 dollars All of our lenders remain very supportive of the company, We are in the final stages of amending our produce which will provide more favorable flexible financial covenants as well as other commercial changes recognized in the company's change in focus from produce to cannabis as this loan originated way back in 2013 long before our move to cannabis.

We are awaiting property appraisal to complete the refinancing of our Pure Sunfarms debt maturing in February 2026. We expect to have the refinancing completed on or before March 31, with a new maturity date of February 2028. And finally, we have begun discussions with two Dutch lenders with respect to placing commercial bank debt on our Lidley Holland operations. We expect to have something in place by the end of Q2 of this year. I'll now turn the call back to Mike. Thanks, Steve. In summary, our fourth quarter and full year results reflected our continued success perennial profitable leadership position in Canada. And demonstrates our prioritization of profitable sales growth as we continue executing our international growth strategy. We are focused on establishing a global leadership position in regulated cannabis We and we're beginning 2025 with meaningful new developments coming. That position us for a transformational year in our pursuit of this objective. We believe we are well positioned to execute on the many growth and to deliver a successful year of profitable growth in 2025 and beyond. Tanya, we're ready for questions now. Thank you.

And our first question will be coming from Aaron Gray of AGP. Your line is open, Aaron.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the questions. And I just first off, I know many would have shipped out that one time impairment for a more appealing adjusted EBITDA. So acknowledge that you guys made the tougher choice not to do so. So. So sticking on that point, the CAD50 million impairment CAD15 million, I believe, for vapes. You called out the gross margin and EBITDA impact. But I am curious, was there also some top line impact that you might be able to quantify due to not having the plant product available to sell into the provinces? Or was the lower branded retail more so just a function of the intentional efforts to exit those lower tier products?

Thanks. [indiscernible] you for the great question. It did not impact our revenue. We made the decision that it wasn't quality enough to put into our revenue. And Steve may want to talk to you about the write off treatment as well. Yes.

So a lot of this, as Mike alluded to, is is vapes, pre rolls manufactured by others that wasn't up to our quality spec. Some of it we were moving at hurt our non branded margins last year. So we made the business decision to write these things down to net realizable value and or destroy some of it rather than continuing to put more cost into it just to move it out the door. For cash flow purposes. Very strong cash flow. Obviously, our cash flow was significantly higher than EBITDA. I don't think too many people in the industry can report that. And at any rate, I think your other question, Aaron, with respect to our branded sales. They were flat because as Mike alluded to, we have moved away started moving away in Q4. To pushing this stuff trying to move away from some of the value offerings. Yes. I would add also if you look at the phenomenal results on the launch of soup Toast in the vape category, we made the right decision. To just do the right thing and get the most excellent product we could and it's resonating in the marketplace. We feel it was the right thing to do for our customers and consumers We're pleased with the Yes.

And certainly seems more onetime in nature. Second question for me, just on some of the commentary on capacity being better allocated potentially to other markets at this time versus Canada that are more profitable. So high level commentary on the implications for your Canadian cannabis market share and your ask aspirations in the near term. Do you feel that you finished exiting some of those lower tier products that you mentioned before? And more so now are you looking to to hold share in Canada or selectively increase where you find profitable categories? But most of that incremental product now will be going to international versus trying to build more share in Canada. Just some high level commentary on how we should think about the allocation product going forward? Thanks.

Well, we're really fortunate to have Orbo here in the office today. So, we're going to let Orville answer that question.

Thank you so much. Another good question. Canada is our foundation. So we believe in having a strong foundation. So it's not every short shipping the boards in Canada. But we're not oblivious to demand that is basically based on the high quality that we're selling. And the quality international is well received as well. So demand is very, very high. And ultimately, the overall demand is very high. But having said that, the demands for domestic we will always feel the demand for domestic for high quality flower.

Okay, great. Appreciate the detail there and I'll go and jump back in the queue.

Thank you. Thanks, Aaron.

And our next question will be coming from Pablo Zuniga Ziauunik and Associates. Your line is open, Pablo.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Look, just my first question is regarding Holland.

So there are 10 licensed producers there. Can you have a sense of are they all up and running? Do you have a head start? Factoring the kind of capacity what share of production do you think you will have? It would help to understand that [indiscernible] And then in terms of the 85 coffee shops that are pilot program, are they being forced to buy only from the licensed producers, starting when and how is that being enforced? Thank you and congratulations again on the Holland venture.

Sure. And I'll touch on and then pass it over to Orbo Well, there's a date right now for the coffee shops to buy 100% of their product from the license holders. And let me just say there are 10 license that were issued, but only seven operations have gotten in production, three have not yet. So that's putting some constraints and the Dutch government allowed in the 85 coffee shops or so to buy product continue to buy product from the illicit trade till April 7. Now that date may be extended again We don't know yet. So that should answer that first part of the question. Barbara, you want to add some color?

I think the April 7 deadline is a very firm deadline for the government. I know the coffee shops are concerned about the supply that's being offered on the market right now, the demand for our product is very high. The quality again supersedes the quality of the other producers in the experiment. But absolutely, there will be a timeline. And for now, it is April 7 that the shops will be forced only to buy from the legal suppliers in to Mike's point, only seven are at the starting line right now. And still ramping up production.

Thank you.

And then just one more on international. I think you're giving guidance to about three times growth, right? You did $6,000,000 U. S. [indiscernible] that's great outlook for 2025. But my question is more about route to market. Are you going to make investments putting more feet on the ground, taking more control of the of the local supply chain in those markets, where it's Australia, or Germany, or is it going to be pretty much shipping from B. C. And letting the distributors there handle those businesses? Thank you.

Well, I could see your crystal balls working this morning for that question, Pablo. So thank [indiscernible] But I think you're on the right track. But rather not elaborate on the call because of competition of what our plans are going forward. But I can tell you our international additional export is front and center. For our 25 and beyond plans.

How's that?

Our next question will be coming from Frederic Gomes of ATB Capital Markets. Frederico, your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First question on the comment about expecting the international sales to triple in 2025. So just curious if how much of that would be coming from The Netherlands and how much would actually come from the other medical markets? Well, The Netherlands is separate. So when we refer to our medicinal to the five countries we've been selling. That tripling of that business internationally solely on the medicinal side does not include The Netherlands. Which as you know is for REC. So it can be no importation in to or out of The Netherlands. So that's sort of a limited license country in a way. And that's totally a separate segment for us. Great. Perfect. Thanks. And then as second question, on the non branded market. Wholesale market in Canada, We've seen some companies announcing that they will be increasing cultivation. So I'm curious how you see that the risk that the market could get into, I guess, a new cycle of oversupply and how do you see that developing in Canada for this year?

I'll start and we can see you want to add to it. I don't really I know there's some expansion going on, but specifically where that expansion, some of it B2B, some probably most likely international. But I think as long as in the remarks we made, when you look at how the structure has developed in Canada, both from what we've said many, many times ridiculous 40% top line excise tax and working with our retailers to keep products on the shelf I think anybody looking at investing capital in Canadian market would have to be looking either at B2B, but more I don't think they would build solely for B2B. It has to be for international But I don't see it nowhere getting to the levels that we saw two, three years ago as far as biomass. Right now, there's it's limited There's limited biomass in the marketplace and I think that's all been cleaned up. You want to add any color to that?

I'm aligned. Orville, do you want to add anything?

No, it's not the trends that we are seeing price wise and volume wise. But again, it's quality driven. High quality flower will always have a steady demand against it. And we're one of the best producers out there when it comes down from a quality perspective. So the demand for our flower remains very, very steady and very high.

Thank you very much.

And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Michael for closing remarks.

Well, thank you for joining us today and we look forward to reporting on our progress in 2025. Thank you, Tanya.

You're welcome. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.