Corby Spirit and Wine Limited ($CSWA)

Good morning. Welcome to Corby Spirit and Wine's Fiscal Year 2026 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call for the period ended March 31, 2026. Joining me on the call this morning are Florence Tresarrieu, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Juan Alonso, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Hopefully, you have had the opportunity to review the press release, which was issued yesterday. Before we begin, I would like to inform listeners that information provided in today's call may contain forward-looking statements, which can be subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Risks and uncertainties about the company's business are more fully discussed in Corby's materials, including annual and interim MD&A filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada as required. [Operator Instructions] Now I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Florence Tresarrieu. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sam. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review Corby Spirit and Wine's Q3 and fiscal year-to-date March results. For those of you who may be joining us for the first time, my name is Florence Tresarrieu, and it's a pleasure to speak with you again as the CEO. As I continue to spend time across the business, what remains very clear to me is the strength of our fundamentals, the quality of our portfolio and the discipline with which our teams execute in a complex and evolving market. Turning to today's results, message is simple. Corby delivered a strong fiscal year-to-date performance, driven by RTD growth and continued market share gains in spirits. We've achieved record high fiscal year-to-date revenue as of March with a reported growth of 15% and organic growth of 16%. This performance was driven by sustained momentum in our RTD business, continued share gains in spirits and was also amplified by favorable LCBO order phasing in Q3. These results reflect the continued excellence of our sales execution with strong share gains across our total portfolio. Performance also benefited from the ongoing impact of U.S. origin products removed from the shelf. The breadth and depth of our portfolio continued to be a key competitive advantage. In Q3, we delivered again strong shipments and earnings growth. At retail, we outpaced the spirits market in value for the 14th consecutive quarter, not through resilience of any single brand or channel, but definitely through the portfolio-wide execution. A notable feature this quarter is the quality of earnings delivery. Earnings growth outpaced revenue growth, reflecting purposeful investments behind priority brands, and tight cost management. This was achieved despite a more RTD-skewed mix, less favorable spirits and channel dynamics and declining commission income. This very much illustrates the underlying resilience of our business model. RTD now represents approximately 38% of Corby revenue, firmly establishing us as a leading Canada-wide player in a fast-growing category. Our focus remains very much on profitable expansion, leveraging route-to-market modernization in Ontario, while continuing to build scale in Western Canada. From a financial standpoint, we generated solid cash flow, supporting working capital needs this quarter and reinforcing our long-term approach to value creation. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA stood at 1.4x, reflecting our strong balance sheet. The Board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share, consistent with the prior quarter, underscoring confidence in the outlook despite a more normalized market environment. Overall, Corby continued to gain share, strengthened earnings quality, positioning the business to perform across cycle and to adapt to market context. So let me take you through that market context just now. Corby continued to capture incremental market share in Q3. Our team again translated opportunity into performance, notably benefiting from the removal of U.S. origin products on shelves. The rolling 3 months trend ending 31st March highlights the continued strength of Corby's performance relative to the broader market. While the Canadian spirits market declined 4.2% Corby delivered flat value performance, representing a 4.2 points outperformance. In RTD, where the category grew almost 10%, Corby significantly outpaced the market with 22.4% growth or a 12.7 points advantage. Our wine portfolio also performed strongly, growing 12% against a market decline of 0.4%, translating into a 12.4 points outperformance. RTD is indeed a key contributor. Nonetheless, it's the breadth of our portfolio and the consistency of our delivery that continue to define Corby's performance this quarter. Looking now at the rolling 12-month performance, Corby has now outperformed the Canadian market in value, what I said already, 14 consecutive quarters, which is demonstrating the quality of our execution in a softer spirits and wine environment. In spirits, while the market declined 3.6%, Corby delivered 3.1% growth, a 6.7 point outperformance. RTD continued to lead with Corby growing 13.6% versus 12% for the category, representing a circa 20 points outperformance. Our wine portfolio also delivered strong results, growing 16.2% against the market decline of 0.6% or a 16.8 points outperformance. Looking now more closely at spirits by category, Corby continues to outpace the market across most segments on a rolling 12-month basis. We are delivering growth in several categories which are declining, and this includes vodka and rum, benefiting from strong shelf presence following the removal of U.S. origin product. We also continue to lead the Irish whiskey category, while tequila remains a key growth engine, delivering double-digit growth as we expand our footprint in the fast-growing segments. Let me now pivot to discuss our growth strategy. I've stated a few times already that RTD continues to be one of Corby most significant growth engines and a key contributor to our overall performance. Over the last 12 months, our RTD business has delivered strong acceleration with sustained share gains supported by focused innovation and market expansion. Our dedicated RTD route-to-market strategy continued to drive penetration and share gains across Ontario and Western Canada, supported by RTD-focused execution. In a very short period of time, this approach has materially expanded RTD availability, increasing distribution from approximately 1,000 to more than 7,000 points of sales now. In a rolling 12-month basis, Corby RTD portfolio delivered plus 32% value growth, significantly outpacing the category. Over the last 3 months, we gained share in every region, reinforcing the national strength of our RTD portfolio of brands. Our portfolio remains extremely well positioned for continued growth, supported by a strong innovation pipeline and exceptional new listings across major provinces set to launch in the second half of the year. In Ontario, we continue to capitalize on route-to-market modernization, expanding our presence in grocery and emerging channel. We also continue to actively shape the portfolio to support our long-term growth. We increased our ownership of ABG to 95% and exited noncore RTD and beer brands, further streamlining the business and sharpening ABG's growth profile. I'm not going to walk through this page in detail, but because our strategic priorities remain very much unchanged. We remain very focused on gaining share in spirits, accelerating penetration in the fastest-growing category, growing value over volume and investing efficiently behind our brands and innovation, while at the same time, actively managing the portfolio. What's clear this quarter is the breadth of the opportunity across RTD spirits channels and geographies, which continues to expand and that our teams are converting the opportunity into results with increasing discipline and focus. That momentum is reinforcing our confidence in Corby's ability to deliver sustainable long-term value creation. So with that, I will let Juan take us over the financial results.

Thank you, Florence, and good morning, everyone. I'm Juan Alonso, Corby's CFO, and I'm pleased to walk you through our financial results. Very quickly, before we talk about our financial performance, we are going to note that some mentions of adjusted metrics and organic revenue growth. We believe that these non-IFRS financial measures support a better understanding of our underlying business performance and trends. We provided a detailed explanation for each of those elements in our Q3 FY '26 MD&A and I invite you to refer to this document for any questions related to it. So let me start with our Q3 results. I'm pleased to share that Corby closed out another strong quarter in Q3, delivering $58.3 million in revenue, which represents a 21% growth in reported net sales. When we exclude the impact from our disposed brands, organic revenue growth was slightly higher at 22% year-over-year. As Florence said, this performance was supported by the strong momentum in our RTD business expansion and continued market share gains in spirits, while we also benefited in Q3 from favorable ordering phasing from the LCBO ahead of their ERP system upgrade. Adjusted earnings from operations reached $11.6 million, up 52% versus last year, while our reported earnings from operations grew 63%. This outpaced revenue growth, reflecting our disciplined cost management. Looking at our bottom line, adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.27 and reported earnings per share at $0.28, reflecting very robust growth, 67% and 97%, respectively. In order to support the strong revenue growth in Q3 as well as continued growth going forward, a higher usage of cash was needed to bolster our working capital, mainly due to LCBO order anticipation and RTD inventory buildup ahead of summer months. As we see in our cash from operating activities, Corby had a net use of cash of $17.6 million during Q3, which is $11.3 million higher comparing to Q3 last year. Lastly, in line with our Q3 declaration, the Board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share, which is consistent with our declaration for Q2 and a $0.01 or 4% increase versus dividend declared in Q3 last year. This reflects our confidence in our outlook and ongoing commitment to shareholder returns. Now let's go to the next slide and delve deeper into our Q3 revenue growth. So just to reinforce, Corby delivered a strong quarterly revenue of $58.3 million in Q3, that represents 21% increase over Q3 of FY '25, and this growth can be attributed to, firstly, domestic Case Goods, which accounted for 83% of Corby's Q3 net sales performance reached $48.2 million, reflecting a plus 33% reported growth and plus 35% organic growth. This was driven by first ABG brands, growing 51% on a reported basis, with continued expansion in Ontario and Western Canada, but also due to favorable ordering patterns from the LCBO in Q3 and improved shelf prominence of Corby spirits given the removal of U.S. origin products in key provinces. Total commission made up 10% of Q3 net sales and was $6 million, a decline of 11% versus the prior year as the represented wines portfolio lapped a strong comparison basis last year. Lastly, export revenue, which contributed 6% to total net sales landed at $3.3 million, a decrease of 20% versus Q3 FY '25 due to unfavorable shipment phasing after a very strong H1, while also lapping pipeline fill in the U.S. last year due to anticipation of tariffs. Now let's turn our attention to the fiscal year-to-date performance. Coming off another strong quarter in Q3, after a record performance in H1, both in terms of earnings and profitability, fiscal year-to-date March FY '26 marked another company record in top line generation. In the first 9 months of FY '26, Corby generated $200.6 million in revenue, a 15% reported increase over last year with plus 16% organic growth. This is despite operating in a challenging industry backdrop, highlighting the strength of our diversified portfolio and ability to respond with agility to shifting market dynamics. I will further delve into the details in the next slide. Our top line growth was driven by the fast acceleration of our RTD business with RTD currently being the fastest-growing category in the Canadian alcohol market. While this RTD mix and channel shifts put some pressure on margins, strong cost discipline helped offset those impacts. As a result, Corby delivered record year-to-date adjusted earnings from operation at $41.9 million which is plus 16% year-over-year and reported earnings from operation of $42.8 million, up 20% year-over-year. For the bottom line, our adjusted earnings per share was $0.97, with reported earnings per share at $0.95 representing a robust growth of plus 20% and 27%, respectively. Our cash from operating activities totaled $19.4 million, which is $9.8 million lower versus last year due to the working capital addition that I mentioned for Q3. We also strengthened our balance sheet, reducing our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio to 1.4x, down from 1.6 at the end of Q3 FY '25. This reflects our strong solvency and financial discipline. Total dividends declared for the first 3 quarters of FY '26 were $0.71 per share, up 4% from FY '25 reflecting our commitment to providing consistent and predictable shareholder returns. Now let's delve deeper into our year-to-date revenue growth. Let's dive deeper into the 15% revenue growth in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2026 compared to the same period the last year. Firstly, domestic Case Goods, which accounted for 81% of Corby's net sales performance reached $163 million, reflecting an 18% reported growth and 20% organic growth. This is driven by ongoing RTD business acceleration by improved shelf prominence of Corby spirits, capitalizing on the removal of U.S. origin products in key provinces and also favorable LCBO shipment phasing in Q3. Total commission made up 11% of net sales and came in at $22 million, a slight decline of 4% versus last year, with the represented wines portfolio lapping a strong comparison basis last year. Lastly, export revenue, which contributed 6% to total net sales increased to $13 million, up 17% year-over-year, largely driven by strong shipment expansion into Turkey and Eastern Europe as well as a strong value conversion of Lamb's in the U.K. through the value engineering projects. To summarize our P&L results for the first 9 months of FY '26, Corby recorded the highest year-to-date revenue in company history with a strong 15% revenue growth, reflecting the strength of our portfolio, specifically the accelerating RTD portfolio, capturing the new channel expansion in Ontario and Western Canada, and spirits portfolio continuing to capture market share gains in key provinces. Our total operating expenses also increased by 14% to support the continued growth and expansion of our RTD business in addition to strategic investments behind key strategic spirits brands such as the Wiser's NHL partnership and the Wiser's Canada Dry partnership. Through disciplined cost management despite the impacted by the RTD-skewed portfolio, Corby delivered a strong year-to-date adjusted earnings from operations growth of 16% versus last year, while reported earnings from operations grew 20%. On a per share basis, our adjusted net earnings was $0.97 and reported net earnings was $0.95, reflecting growth of 20% and 27%, respectively, versus last year. In the first 9 months of FY '26, Corby generated $19.4 million of cash from operating activities, a decline of $9.8 million from last year due to higher working capital needs to support our strong top line growth, notably due to anticipation for LCBO orders and building up RTD inventory ahead of summer months. Despite the decreased cash flow compared to last year, Corby's cash generation ability remains strong, supported by our underlying earnings growth. This allows Corby to pay robust dividends, increased our stake in ABG to 95% in the beginning of the fiscal year and still reduce debt to $97.8 million, a $1.4 million improvement compared to FY '25 after loan repayments. As a result, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio reduced 1.4x from 1.6 at the end of Q3 FY '25, demonstrating a robust solvency position and reinforces our financial health. Corby has an attractive dividend payout ratio at 80% of earnings on a rolling 12-month basis, highlighting the sustainability of the company's quarterly dividend. Notably, quarterly dividend payments remained consistent since our last increase during the prior quarter, which also marked a 4% increase compared to Q3 last year. These actions have contributed to a high dividend yield over recent years at 6.5% at the end of Q3, marking a consistent level of return for our shareholders. We are very proud of our performance in fiscal year-to-date 2026 and remain focused on delivering long-term value for our stakeholders and shareholders. With a strong diversified portfolio, disciplined execution and a clear strategy, Corby is well positioned to continue driving growth and shareholder returns. Before I hand back to Florence, I want to give you a glimpse at what's ahead for Corby. After all you have heard today, you can see that Corby is well positioned to continue outperforming the market in FY '26, even as the environment remains dynamic. Our RTD portfolio remains a major growth engine, and we see significant potential to expand across Canada, led by strong traction from ABG brands. Our ambition is to continue gaining market share in spirits despite the challenge of a potential market decline. We will remain agile and respond appropriately whenever U.S. products are permitted back on shelves. In Ontario, we will continue to capitalize on route-to-market modernization, meeting evolving consumer preferences with agility and breadth. From a financial perspective, we remain focused on protecting margins, driving profitable growth and generating long-term shareholder value. And finally, after a strong performance in the first 9 months of the fiscal year, Q4 is anticipated to be significantly softer as LCBO ordering patterns normalize and the spirits market decline persists. However, despite this, we remain on track to deliver high single-digit revenue growth for fiscal year 2026, reaching a record revenue level for the company, supported by the continued expansion of our RTD business and the strength in our Canadian portfolio amid ongoing provincial trade measures. Now back to Florence for some closing remarks.

Thank you, Juan. And as we close today's call, I would briefly remind you why Corby is a compelling long-term investment. Corby is Canada's largest publicly listed multi-beverage alcohol company with a highly diversified portfolio that supports resilience and relevance across categories. Our partnership with Pernod Ricard, a global leading spirits company, provides meaningful strategic and operational advantages. We combine a clear strategy with disciplined execution, consistently outpacing the market through innovation, strong brand activations and active portfolio management. This is underpinned by financial consistency, resilient revenue, strong cash flow generation and a solid balance sheet supporting attractive shareholder returns. Thank you once again for joining us today. We are now ready, Juan and I, to take your questions if you have any.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Robert [indiscernible] Private Investor.

Your RTD category enjoyed growth in the most recent quarter, 22%. And the press release mentioned that this is a function of evolving consumer preferences and expanded distribution. Could you talk a little bit more about the evolving consumer preferences, not just for Corby RTD, but just for the category as a whole. I have the impression that it is very much determined by marketing events and crazy names for the products and maybe less so in terms of consumer brand loyalty and repeat purchases. So what are the big picture dynamics that drive the RTD decision for the customer?

Yes. So thanks a lot for your question. So maybe I can start and then Juan, you can complement. I think you're right. The RTD category is enjoying a very strong growth. So we observed that in Canada. I don't think Canada is the only country in North America, starting with that region where the growth is quite strong. I guess the quite a few elements that is explaining why this is such an attractive category at the moment. I think starting with the convenience. This is very much something that we see across, I mean, consumer staples. The consumer more and more is attracted by the convenience and RTD is exactly that. So it's quality cocktail-in-a-can. And I guess this is explaining part of the success of RTD. I guess the other one as well in an environment where the consumer is, I mean, facing inflation and I guess, stretch finances, more stretched finances, I think this is an attractive proposition as well from that standpoint. And I guess it's coming as well with versatility. So we may not comment on the loyalty. But I guess what you see in RTD and it's alluding to your question is the diversity of the offerings and then yes, the options and the choices which are offered to the consumer. So to exactly your question is perfectly right. So we are seeing an evolution in the way the consumer is purchasing. And I guess for RTD specifically, convenience, I guess, the price points and the versatility or the diversity of the offering is very much something which comes to mind first.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now transfer the conference over to Ms. Florence Tresarrieu. Please go ahead.

There is a question in the Q&A box. Can you read? Cannot read? Okay. I can read. There is a question in the Q&A box asking about the split of the domestic Case Goods revenue that was up by 35% in Q3. And if we can break down how much of the revenue growth it comes from RTD and from spirits, respectively? And if it's volume or pricing? And second, your outlook for Q4 was quite larger than in this primarily because of order patterns. Okay. So I will answer first to the first question on the Q3. So the 35% that we have as revenue growth on domestic Case Goods is mainly driven by RTD growing 56% in the quarter, but we also have spirits with a very strong growth, the domestic spirits growing 21%. And there are different drivers here. We are not only gaining market share, leveraging as well the absence of U.S. products on shelves, but there is an important phasing impact that contributes to this revenue growth in Q3 as well on the 21%. On a year-to-date basis, our growth is basically 39%. It's still RTD growing 39%, but the domestic case goods, excluding RTD, growth 8%, which as well very significant growth in a spirit market that is declining today, as Florence presented, the spirit market year-to-date is declining minus 2%. We are growing 8% on a year-to-date basis, thanks to market share gains, leveraging the absence of U.S. products on shelves, but also impacted by the phasing on LCBO orders. Going more specifically on this topic because that led to the last question on the impact of Q4. So that created a favorable impact in Q3 because LCBO anticipated a lot of orders before the change of their ERP system. And then we are expecting a softer Q4 because of that, because orders were anticipated by -- in Q3. And then hence, that is going to lead to a softer Q4. But it is still on a full year basis, as I mentioned in my final remarks, we are still considering to close the fiscal year with a high single-digit revenue growth. Today, we are growing on a year-to-date basis, 16%, and we are estimating to close the year with a high single-digit growth.

So maybe, Juan, I can take the last question with the expectations from the FIFA World Cup. So I mean it is coming at the right season as well. So which is the summer season, which is always quite a strong season for us. But if we look back of the impact of -- on the spirits and then the RTD business on past sporting events and then the FIFA World Cup in particular, it doesn't have a meaningful impact. So we're not expecting a meaningful impact of that event specifically. I mean, the precedence doesn't show that. So this is something that we're going to be ready for if the demand is increasing, but it is usually by standards, and this is not our expectation that it's going to be representing something specifically meaningful for us this quarter in Q4. I don't know if there are any other questions. I don't think there is any left on the chat. I don't know, operator, if you have other questions on the line.

Right now, there are no further questions.

Okay. I mean this gives me the opportunity to thank you all for listening to us today ahead of a long weekend. So we hope you can enjoy the long weekend and then consume our products responsibly. Goodbye for now.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.