Aleafia Health Inc. Archives - Green Market Report

Aleafia Health Inc. (TSX: AH, OTCQX: ALEAF) is going to be laying off employees as the company looks to save money and stick to its revenue goals. Aleafia said it can save $4.4 million by cutting more heads and becoming more efficient. The company said by implementing these efforts in this quarter, it can reach its previous guidance for revenue between $53 and $63 million for the current fiscal year. Aleafia also said that Adjusted EBITDA breakeven profitability is expected to occur in the second half of 2022.

“Aleafia Health continues to deliver on its forecast and strategy, experiencing record growth in sales, capturing additional adult-use cannabis market share, and now achieving important efficiencies and additional cost reductions,” said Aleafia Health CEO Tricia Symmes. “These organizational realignments helped create a leaner, more nimble workforce optimized to accelerate revenue velocity and maximize margin. It’s just the beginning of creating a new company whose products are focused on the highest revenue-generating branded dried flower, pre-roll, and vape product categories as consumers continue to express strong interest in our Sunday Market House of Brands adult-use cannabis products.”

In February, Aleafia began cutting employees, representing approximately 10% of the workforce and approximately $1.9 million in annualized savings.  The company also reviewed its inventory and fixed assets and identified certain slow-moving assets primarily related to the bulk wholesale sales channel. As a result of the company’s pivot towards focusing on branded cannabis products, the company recorded a $19.6 million inventory provision. The company also recorded a $28.8 million impairment of property, plant & equipment due to changes in market conditions for these assets.

As part of the organizational realignment, Aleafia noted that previously its clinics operated independently from one another. Now it operates a national virtual clinic and several physical clinics serving a base of over 20,000 active patients and receives referrals from third-party providers. Symmes said, “By rightsizing and integrating them, the clinics now form a comprehensive medical cannabis strategy, which is seeing strong, consistent market demand. There is also continued uptake in our newest markets: Quebec, Veterans and third-party patient-acquisition platforms. We are well-positioned to continue to outperform the market where in 2021 we delivered 33% medical cannabis net revenue growth.”

Aleafia Health CFO Matt Sale said, “In the quarter ending December 31, 2021, the company reported reducing its adjusted selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses by 37% to $7.1 million, from $11.2 million in the period ending December 31, 2020. Management continues to build on that momentum with aggressive cost containment. In the quarter ended March 31, 2022, the company identified further headcount reductions, operational efficiencies, redundancies, and nonrecurring costs, which together with those already implemented, total $6.7 million on an annualized basis. This demonstrates the company’s unwavering commitment to drive profitability and achieve a sustainable business model. We foresee continued tailwinds to improve our margin profile and drive towards achieving our target of break-even Adjusted EBITDA profitability later this year.”

Aleafia Health Inc. (OTCQX: ALEAF) reported its financial results for the three ending September 30, 2021 as revenue increased 123% to $9.4 million. Still, Aleafia reported an eye-popping net loss of $82.9 million versus last year’s net loss of $19.8 million. The company attributed the increase in net loss over the prior year’s quarter to non-cash items including a $53.1 million impairment of intangible assets and an $11.3 million impairment of goodwill.

“Our momentum in the adult-use cannabis sector has continued with our strongest quarter to date by a significant margin,” said Aleafia Health CEO Geoffrey Benic. “Consumer demand for our portfolio has been clearly demonstrated as we now begin to capture meaningful market share, entering the top 10 nationally in the pre-roll, edible, and oils categories. Most importantly, we’ve realized a five-fold sequential increase in dried flower market share during the quarter, in a category that is both Canada’s largest and one that leverages our low-cost cultivation advantage.

Net bulk wholesale revenue received from sales to cannabis licensed producers fell to $1.9 million, versus $3.1 million and $2.1 million in the previous and prior year’s quarters, respectively. The negative gross margin in the bulk wholesale segment during the quarter of 169% is attributable to the company recording of an inventory provision for a slow-moving inventory of $2.4 million expensed to cost of sales, and the opportunistic sale of aged CBD distillate, due to a greater focus by the company on THC dominant SKUs.

Medical cannabis net revenue for the quarter fell by 23% sequentially to $2.5 million and a 31% increase over the prior year’s quarter. The sequential decline was due to seasonally lower prescriptions written and filled during the summer months and a decline in international medical cannabis sales during the quarter.

“The outdoor cultivation harvest, our third to date, has yielded a material improvement in potency, providing us with a high-quality THC-dominant dried flower for use in our milled and pre-roll product formats. This is expected to significantly improve our available supply of top-selling SKUs, which consistently sell-out in adult-use markets. In 2020, we undertook capital improvements to the outdoor facility while running a cultivar R&D testing program, which has resulted in new, high-potency strains that will enter our portfolio and provide strong momentum heading into the new year.

Focus On THC 

After the quarter closed, the company completed the harvesting of its 2021 outdoor cannabis facility in Port Perry. Testing and weighing of CBD-dominant and CBD/THC balanced cultivars, which represented the vast majority of the total weight harvested, remains underway. Cannabinoid testing results of THC dominant dried flower indicate a significant improvement in potency and total kilograms harvested that can be made available to sell in the adult-use market in pre-roll and milled formats. A total of 11,600 kgs with an average THC potency of 22% will be allocated for sale in the adult-use market, primarily under Aleafia Health’s everyday cannabis brand Divvy.

By contrast, in 2020, the company harvested 7,200 kgs of THC dried flower, but only 7% of this harvest exceeded THC potency of 20%, a key threshold in the adult-use market. The material improvement in potency and yield is attributed to additional cultivars introduced in 2021, following R&D testing in 2020, along with improvements in site infrastructure.

Aleafia Health Inc. (OTCQX: ALEAF) reported its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2021. Revenue fell 55% from last year’s $13.7 million to this year’s $6.2 million. most of the decline was due to an 84% drop in bulk wholesale cannabis sales. Aleafia also reported that its net losses increased from last year’s $6.1 million to this year’s $11.2 million.

“This quarter saw us achieve important executional breakthroughs as we realized the exponential increase of our cannabis product portfolio. Likewise, as we benefit from greater scale, we are demonstrating substantial improvements in the profitability of our core adult-use and medical cannabis product sales, contrasting with the broader industry trend of price and margin compression,” said Aleafia Health CEO Geoffrey Benic.

“To further leverage product portfolio expansion, we have only just begun the deployment of our highly differentiated medical cannabis ecosystem through the trailblazing exclusive agreement with Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union. The ability to service a captive audience of union members who receive insurance coverage for medical cannabis is an important catalyst. We believe that this sets the table for a strong 2021, driven by repeatable, profitable sales in the medical, adult-use and international markets.”

Revenue Breakdown

The company had warned investors that its wholesale business would decline and while its other cannabis increased, the numbers aren’t quite as large as the wholesale figures.

Medical cannabis net revenue increased 95% to $2.7 million, in line with the previous quarter, and the company’s best Canadian medical cannabis revenue reported to date. Active registered patients increased to 17,637, an increase of 61% over the prior year’s quarter. Medical cannabis adjusted gross margin before FV adjustments improved for the second consecutive quarter to 53%. Revenue per gram equivalent sold improved for the fourth consecutive quarter to $8.46

Adult-use cannabis net revenue rose 22% to $1.7 million and 143% over the previous quarter and prior year’s quarter respectively. Adult-use cannabis adjusted gross margin before FV adjustments improved substantially to 56%, from 31% and 30% in the previous quarter and prior year’s quarter respectively. Adult-use cannabis revenue in the first 41 days of the second has surpassed total adult-use cannabis revenue for the first quarter of 2021.