Jamieson Wellness Inc. ($JWEL)

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Jamieson Wellness conference call to discuss the financial results for the first quarter of 2026. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that the reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization from the company. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. On the call today from management are Mike Pilato, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Snowden, Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Pilato, please note that a press release covering the company's first quarter financial results was issued this afternoon, and a copy of that press release can be found in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Please note that the prepared remarks, which will follow, contain forward-looking statements, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer you to all risk factors contained in Jamieson's press release issued this afternoon and in filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators for a more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projections and any forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly correct or update the forward-looking statements made during the presentation to reflect future events or circumstances, except as it may be required under applicable securities laws. Finally, we would like to remind listeners that the company may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures during this teleconference. Our reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures was included with the company's press release issued earlier today. Also, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures discussed today are in Canadian dollars and are occasionally rounded to the nearest million. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Pilato to get started. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sergio, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining the call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. I'll begin with some comments on our Q1 performance, our key markets and our strategic growth initiatives. Then Chris will provide a detailed review of the financials and outlook before we open the call for questions. Q1 was another impressive quarter for Jamieson Wellness with branded revenue growth of almost 16%, reflecting continued momentum across each of our key markets. Consolidated revenue also grew just over 16% and adjusted EBITDA grew by nearly 18%. The team delivered a strong start to the year. We drove growth across every business unit. The consumer continued to engage with our brands and in-market innovation is performing in line with our expectations. The momentum we've created is poised to carry into the balance of the year. And just as important, we're continuing to balance that growth with disciplined investment, consistent with the margin and cash flow framework we've laid out. Let me touch on how we performed across each of our markets. In China, revenue grew more than 55% on a constant currency basis in the quarter, reflecting increased consumer demand and disciplined execution by the team. We continue to see our baseline brand health improve and conversion to repeat purchasers increase. Locally, relevant innovation and performance marketing, including a strong Women's Day promotional campaign, supported growth in what is typically a lower promotional quarter between our major June and 11/11 events. Overall, the flywheel we've been building from awareness to trial and trial to regular buyer continues to increase as intended. Moving to the U.S. As expected, we grew revenue almost 9% on a constant currency basis in the quarter, reflecting continued strength in e-commerce, and we're pleased with what we're seeing in our traditional channels as well, where we're continuing to see demand for our core hero products. Our e-commerce partnership continues to deliver to plan with consistent quarter-over-quarter double-digit consumption gains, exactly as we laid out a year ago. We're excited about the trajectory of our U.S. business and youtheory's position in the market as the underlying positive trends continue. In Canada, revenue increased 4% in the quarter, lapping a very strong year ago Q1 of double-digit growth in our home market, driven by the continued success of our quality-focused marketing campaign and strong innovation, including our new magnesium product. Our international business grew just over 20% in the quarter, led by continued strong consumption and solid execution across our priority markets. Underlying consumer demand remains healthy and what continues to work for us internationally is locally relevant innovation paired with continued distribution gains, a scalable model as we lean further into the markets where our brand is most resonating. As we move through Q2, we're reaffirming our full year 2026 outlook, which Chris will walk you through in a moment. The drivers we've built our plan around are working. Our brands are gaining momentum across every major market, and the team is executing well. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris to walk through the financials in more detail.

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. In the first quarter, consolidated revenue increased 16.3% to $169.8 million, driven by strong growth in both Jamieson Brands and strategic partners. Jamieson Brands revenue increased by 15.6% to almost $152 million with growth across each of our key markets. China revenue increased 55% on a constant currency basis, driven by performance marketing, innovation and expanding brand loyalty across our major digital platforms. Our U.S. business increased 3.7% as expected or almost 9% on a constant currency basis, reflecting strong consumption across both our e-commerce and traditional retail channels as well as the timing of innovation shipments. Canada revenue increased by 4%, driven by continued consumer consumption, supported by our quality-focused marketing campaign and innovation. International revenue increased almost 21%, led by strong performance in our core markets and continued distribution gains. Strategic Partner revenue increased over 22% to almost $18 million, reflecting consumer order patterns and the shipment of new business and programs secured in fiscal 2025. In the quarter, consolidated gross profit increased by almost $14 million to $69 million, driven by higher revenue and margin growth across both Jamieson Brands and strategic partners segments. Consolidated gross profit margin increased by 290 basis points, reflecting a higher proportion of growth in Jamieson Brands and a favorable geographic mix as our China business continued to scale. Within Jamieson Brands, normalized gross margin increased by 220 basis points to almost 44%, driven primarily by geographic mix. In Strategic Partners, normalized gross margin increased by 240 basis points, reflecting customer and product mix as well as higher facility utilization. SG&A expenses increased by 6% in the quarter, reflecting investments in performance marketing, particularly in China, variable compensation and ongoing investments to support our global infrastructure. Specified costs were $900,000 in the quarter and were primarily related to IT project and other nonoperating items. As noted on the last call, we expect specified costs to be significantly lower in 2026 than in 2025 as we have cycled against our primary SAP implementation costs in Canada. On a normalized basis, earnings from operations increased by 23% to $15 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 17.6% or $3.4 million to over $22 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 13.2%, relatively consistent with the prior year. While we continue to see margin progress within each of our segments, this was offset at the consolidated level by the proportion of strategic partner growth. Net earnings were almost $10 million for the quarter and adjusted net earnings increased to $7.4 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.17, up over a year. In the quarter, cash flow used in operating activities was $5.8 million compared to $31.6 million generated in the prior year. Cash from operating activities before working capital consideration was nearly $8 million higher year-over-year, reflecting strong underlying earnings. Cash invested in working capital of $45.3 million. We made a deliberate decision to invest in inventory to support improved service levels, drive operational efficiency and mitigate tariff and supply chain risks. We expect inventory and working capital to normalize throughout our second and third quarters. At the quarter end, we had almost $94 million in cash and available operating facilities. During the quarter, 188,762 shares that were purchased in 2025 under our automatic share repurchase plan were settled. and we also purchased and canceled an additional 11,744 shares under our NCIB. Today, we announced a quarterly dividend of $0.23 per common share, totaling approximately $9.5 million, payable on June 15, 2026, to shareholders of record as of June 1, 2026. Turning to our outlook. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 consolidated guidance. This includes consolidated revenues of $895 million to $935 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $174 million to $181 million and adjusted earnings -- adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.08 to $2.21. We're updating revenue guidance for our Jamieson Brands and Strategic Partners segments to reflect the increasing momentum in China and the full year impact of new programs, new customers and order timing from existing Strategic Partner customers. In Jamieson Brands, we now expect revenue to increase between 9.4% and 13.6% to approximately $795 million to $825 million, updated from our previous range of 8.7% to 12.9% growth. In Strategic Partners, we now expect growth of between 5% and 15%, updated from our previous range of 10% to 20% growth. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect consolidated revenue to range between approximately $220 million and $228 million. Jamieson Brands revenue is expected to increase between 13% and 17%, and Strategic Partners revenue is expected to decline by up to 10% due to timing of our customer programs. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter is expected to range between $36 million and $38.5 million. Overall, our outlook remains consistent with the framework we outlined previously. A more complete discussion of our outlook for the second quarter and the full year 2026 is included in the outlook section of our MD&A filed this afternoon. With that, I'll turn the call back to Mike for comments.

Thanks, Chris. When we wrapped up 2025, I spoke about consistency of execution being essential for another successful year, and Q1 is a prime example of that. We delivered growth across all key markets, invested behind our strategic priorities and maintained discipline on margins and capital, positioning us well for the balance of the year and beyond. The drivers beyond this category are as strong as ever. Older consumers are engaging more deeply, younger consumers are coming in earlier and people are taking a proactive approach to their health globally. These are long-term durable trends, and the category has proven its resilience across a wide range of macro environments. We remain confident in our ability to deliver consistent branded revenue growth, margin expansion and strong cash generation over the long term. None of this, of course, happens without our people. Their commitment to our purpose of inspiring better lives every day is what drives this business forward. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued support of Jamieson Wellness. With that, we will open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Cheryl Zhang from TD Cowen.

Congrats on a great quarter. So my first question is on China, a very strong performance there. I'm curious if you can elaborate on the performance by different channels and if there's any metrics that you can share around improvements in repeat purchase and trial conversion?

Yes. We did last quarter share some trial conversion numbers. We continue to see increases there. We're not going to share it every quarter, but we'll share it from time to time. We did see, though, across both e-commerce channels and brick-and-mortar channels, strong double-digit growth. We did see some really good brick-and-mortar growth from a consumption perspective in the quarter as we did in Q4. We saw it again in Q1. But of course, e-commerce continues to grow double digits as well, and it was pretty broad-based across many platforms, not just one or two, pretty much all of them.

Okay. That's great to hear. And then just on Canada, can you comment on the POS sales and volume trends and if there's any changes in consumption behavior that you may call out?

Yes. We outpaced market growth with 4% growth. The category was a little bit below that. Units and dollars were growing kind of in sync, not much variance between them. We saw really no change in consumer behavior. The one thing we did see was just a little bit of a softer immunity season in Q4. The way immunity season -- cold and flu season split this year was a little different. Last year, we had a cold and flu season that was not as broad-based, but was more severe. This year, it was very broad-based, but not as severe. So we saw a stronger Q4 and a little bit of softening in cold and flu in Q1 than prior year. But over the balance of both quarters, they came in within 1% of each other. So got a little bit of timing on immunity.

Your next question comes from Nevan Yochim from BMO Capital Markets.

Hoping we can start on the U.S., a solid quarter for growth there. Are you able to touch on the strength of your U.S. consumer? Are you noticing any change in their consumption patterns given some of the geopolitical noise that we've been hearing on the news? And then if you're able to discuss just how consumptions trended throughout the quarter and into Q2?

Yes. We're not seeing any major shifts at this point, Nevan. We continue to monitor it. We continue to see strong growth on e-commerce as we referred to over the last few quarters. We've gotten deeper into e-commerce as we see that as a big opportunity for us. We continue to see demand from our core products across all channels. So no major shifts. We're not going to get into Q2 today, but no major shifts that we've seen so far in the year. We feel very confident in our guide for the year and very optimistic about what's happening in the U.S., both in general in terms of following global consumer health trends with consumers continuing to look for proactive health options, but also for our business and where it's going from an innovation, distribution and e-com perspective.

And then just switching gears to China with revenue growth tracking well above prior expectations. Can you just provide an update on where margins are tracking relative to the plan you set out at the investor day? Could you achieve your margin goals earlier than previously anticipated?

Yes. So we did adjust our full year guidance on revenue for China a little bit exiting the quarter, recognizing the performance in Q1. From a margin perspective, if you reconcile that back to our investor day and our investor day margin expansion plans, we're actually about a year ahead of those plans today. We're into double-digit margin -- EBITDA margin in China and are very happy with the progress the team has made.

Your next question comes from Ty Collin from CIBC.

Maybe just to start, I appreciate the comments you made around the consumer and it sounds like trends were mostly stable in Q1, but we have heard some companies talking about some trade down behavior. So I am curious whether you've seen any of that within your category to start Q2. But also curious how you think about the impact of consumers migrating to more discount retail channels and how your presence there compares to maybe some more mainstream channels.

Yes. We have not seen any major trade-down on the year. We've outpaced market in all of our key markets. So we haven't even seen share declines. We're growing share in all the major markets. So -- that was good to see. We've talked about this in various quarters, like the consumer in times like this in our category might shift channels looking for value and we continue to see consumers searching for value. For us though, we play strong in the discount channels. We've actually led the growth in the discount channels across Canada. But we are kind of margin agnostic. We build our pricing and our trade models to make significant -- or I should say, similar margin across the board, across all channels. Really, when you get into conventional and discount banners in that side of the business, that's really the pricing strategy of the retailer and how they leverage trade that we invest behind the business. whether they invest it for a high low pricing scenario or they invest it for an everyday low price scenario. So we have strong position in discount. We'll continue to expand as discount grows, and we continue to focus on selling our products where the consumer is and where they're looking to buy our products.

That's helpful. And shifting gears just to M&A. Just want to get a bit of an update around that process, how you're thinking about valuation. And I'm curious how you would say valuation expectations in the U.S. have evolved since you acquired youtheory back in 2022. Is that sort of multiple a good starting point to think about for your next acquisition?

So we continue to be very focused on opportunities as they come to market. There are a number of founder-led organizations that came to market in 2025 that did not transact because multiple expectations were higher with lower multiples in our industry this year. I think some of those expectations have tempered, and we'll see when those companies come back to the market. We certainly are continuing to be interested in transacting with the U.S. being our primary geography of focus. And from a multiple perspective, we always want to buy something that is below our trading multiple. So that would be the upper limit. If it's a scaled asset, obviously, if there's something smaller, there's opportunity to go a little bit higher, but we would typically not buy anything beyond where we're trading at.

The one thing I would just add to that, Ty, we talked about M&A, I put this in there. We're in a great position in that we're not desperate to do an acquisition. We would like to do an acquisition to accelerate our growth, but we have a lot of organic growth in front of us. We're investing behind the business. It's strengthening every month and every quarter and every year. We feel really good about our organic growth opportunities. We would like to do an acquisition. We'll do it if it's the right brand at the right price, the right multiple. It meets all of our needs and hits all of our hurdles. We'll walk through that door. But we're not desperate for it. And it's a really nice position to be in, and I don't -- we don't take that for granted.

And if I could just sneak one more in. I'm curious what sort of impact you're seeing, if any, at this point from the Iran war either on the cost side of your business or in some of your Middle Eastern markets at this point?

We're not really seeing any impact right now. Our Middle Eastern business delivered in Q1. Our partners there continue to drive the business forward. From a cost perspective, logistics and resin and the things that you would think would impact the business is a very small part of our business. We ship very small bottles, light bottles around the world. Any impact at this point that we see throughout the year is already built into the guide. It's within our guidance range, and we feel pretty comfortable with where we are right now.

Your next question comes from Nathan Po of National Bank Financial.

Congrats on the quarter. You had a larger working capital investment this quarter to secure supply. Could you elaborate on whether customers are also restocking ahead of tariffs or supply chain disruptions?

No, this is primarily just about ensuring that we have the right safety stock to ensure customer fill rates remain at tier 1 levels. It's also about level loading our facilities to make sure that we maximize our capacity opportunity as well as avoid certain tariff and supply chain risks. So those are the key reasons. So this will be a trend that continues. So every Q1, you'll see that seasonal acceleration of inventory we brought in earlier in the year. So you won't see as significant inventory growth in Q2 or a significant inventory growth in Q3. So we just accelerated a little bit, but full year, we expect to be in exactly the same position as we did at the beginning of the year.

Great color. And with the increase in brand loyalty that you have in China, how is that changing the way you approach marketing? And how has it changed perhaps the payback period on that spend?

Well, I mean, as we talked about from day one, we've paid back immediately since day one. We've been profitable on our spend from day one. Now we're just driving up the margin on the business. So the payback gets quicker on every spend or stronger, not quicker, it's stronger in that we have a stronger baseline of consumers. We have a stronger consumer base to sell to. We can just leverage it across a larger base, and we can drive more efficiency off of every marketing dollar off of every promo, off of everything we do in market. We can just drive scale off of the investment. But we've never had a year where we put a big fixed investment in there and waited for it to pay back. It pays back immediately. We've been profitable from day one. We've been cash flow positive in China, and we'll continue to drive that forward. And I think that gets lost a little bit in the results sometimes. I don't think -- I don't think the market fully understands that to drive profitability in China from day one and now get it into double digits, as Chris referred to, at the speed of which we have, it's really abnormal. Like it's really abnormal. And our team in China is doing an amazing job balancing top line growth, margin and profit payback and margin expansion now year after year and getting to the targets that we put into market. So we're really proud of the work they're doing. They've been extremely disciplined, and they've really been following the consumer and driving those dollars for greater and greater return for us.

That's very encouraging to hear. And since China has been firing on all cylinders and you did move up revenue growth guidance, at what point do you start to reevaluate your outlook?

I think, listen, China is a great market. It has some seasonality to it. You have two big promos. You've got the June 18 promo, the 11/11 promo. We're always sensitive to those coming up and then sensitive coming out of them. We never want to get too far ahead of ourselves in China based on that seasonality, and we want to continue to put responsible guides in the marketplace. We'll reassess in Q2, we'll reassess after Q3, and we'll determine where we think that's pacing on the [year].

Got it. And just one last one. Recently in Canada, we saw the approval of generic semaglutide injection from a large pharmaceutical company. How has the team been preparing for the inevitable launch as consumers gain access to that more affordable version of GLP-1s?

I mean I don't think there's any over preparation we need to do, as I talked about for a couple of years now. GLP-1 continues to be and will be for the long term, a tailwind to the category. The more consumers that get into a GLP-1 product, the more consumers out there that step change their health, the more consumers that have traditionally not been engaged in VMS become engaged in VMS. So with an announcement like that, we would never expect an immediate spike in our business. We just know that those consumers or a percentage of those consumers will get healthier over time, which will have a long-term tailwind to our business. So we love to see it. We will see that tailwind. It will just happen over time and not immediate.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Tania Armstrong from Canaccord Genuity.

Congrats on the strong quarter. Just a couple more for me here. On China, just given that margin outperformance, could you maybe go into detail a little bit like why is that happening? Is it the channel mix? Is it gross margin outperformance? What is -- or operating leverage, whatever it is? And are there any borrowings that you can take from that market into other markets to maybe accelerate margin expansion there?

It's really about disciplined investment, Tania. It's about our performance marketing. It's about the real-time measure and the continued drive to improve the ROI on all of those activations. We see halo now resulting from a lot of that social e-com, KOL and performance marketing activity. And I think when you combine those factors, that's what's really driving -- you have the acceleration of volume, volume as a part in it, but it's really about their discipline and constant drive to improve ROI on that performance marketing activity.

Okay. And then secondly, you've done a great job mitigating U.S. tariffs so far through supply chain flexibility. As that trade policy continues to evolve and new tariff measures are being proposed through different channels, where do you see potential areas of risk for the business?

Yes. I mean tariffs, because of our flexible supply chain, we've actually been able to handle it quite well in an immaterial way, as we said all through last year, and you saw in our year-end results. We don't anticipate and have plan for any major changes in this year. If anything, based on where we buy raw materials and some of the announcements that we've seen lately, our tariff risk has actually reduced. We'll continue to track every announcement that comes out. We'll continue to see where it all goes. But right now, we feel like risk beyond what we already have in our business is minimal. I'd just remind you that we manufacture almost everything we sell in Canada in Canada and almost everything we sell in the United States in the United States. So we have been able to flex our supply chain to mitigate the announcements to date. We see reduced risk based on recent announcements, and we'll continue to monitor.

Your next question comes from Ryan Conrad from RBC Capital Markets.

I guess just to start off, Mike, I know you've previously spoken about younger demographics engaging with VMS for the first time. So to the extent possible, I'm curious if you could maybe share a bit more around that? Like what's driving these younger consumers to enter the category? And once they do enter, how does their repeat purchase rate or adoption of multiple products compared to maybe a broader customer base?

Yes. I think I would say, yes, we continue to see that trend. But the one thing to think about in how we presented this data in the past is we base this on a segmentation model, which is behavior-based, not age-based. So what we're seeing is the young demographic entering and following behaviors, which would align to our key segmentations, which would be a quality seeker or a routine user, and they're really getting embedded into the category. I mean they're spending a higher percentage of their discretionary income on health and wellness in general than any other generation today. So you're seeing them enter through various apertures. You're seeing it continue to build and you're seeing them build a loyalty like anyone that is within those consumer segments regardless of their age demographic. So we feel quite good about it. We feel like it's here for the long term. You continue to see the younger demographic celebrating healthier living through social commerce -- social media. You continue to see them be very engaged in the communities that are setting trends. And you see them really interested in quality. They're not looking for value brands or the lower-end brands. They're looking for quality brands that are transparent, that tell a good message that they know they can trust. This younger generation is into transparency and into brands that they just know what they buy and what we say is in the bottle is in the bottle. And I think our quality messaging at this time is really resonating with that demographic as well as the older demographic.

That's good. Appreciate that color. And then just shifting to the U.S. I know a big focus, obviously, is increasing digital penetration. So I was curious if there's maybe an opportunity to take some learnings from what you're doing with social commerce in China and leveraging that playbook on platforms such as TikTok Shop in the U.S.

We 100% are doing that, Ryland. For sure, our China team actually was with our U.S. team just last week and talking about how we can take some of the learnings from Douyin, for example, in China into TikTok Shop. And we're starting to see some good content in TikTok Shop. We're starting to see some growth in that new channel, and we're continuing to see strong consumption across all of our digital channels in the United States as we focus there.

That's awesome. And then just last for me, Chris, maybe on Strategic Partners. Could you just unpack the dynamics that you're seeing there in the first half with strong growth in Q1, but then now guiding to a revenue decline in Q2? And just how much visibility do you have on a return to growth there in the back half?

Yes. Q1, Q2 is primarily timing because when you look at net Q1 or H1, we're close to where we expected to be. We just had a customer called down their forecast that we built our long-term plan, our year plan around. So it just really reflects that anticipation where they were a little exuberant in terms of what they expected to be taking in fiscal '26.

Your next question comes from Max [indiscernible] from [Stifel]

This is Max on for Justin Keywood this afternoon. Nice quarter. Just a couple of questions. Maybe in understanding free cash flow conversion and tying back into the working capital conversation, should we expect potentially a more negative free cash flow profile in Q1 seasonally, where maybe Q1 of last year was a bit of an aberration in terms of that working capital dynamic?

Yes. I think that's the key difference. I don't think you'll see -- I think last year, you probably had the complete opposite effect where we had a higher-than-expected inventory position coming into Q1 because of the SAP implementation and a plant shutdown that coincided with that implementation. going 180 degrees the other way where we had a lower inventory value coming into Q1 with a strong back half of 2025. And with that level loading from a facility utilization perspective, resulting in a pretty material increase in inventory. So not expected to be quite as severe in Q1 going forward, but this is what we had planned for fiscal 2026 and Q1 in particular. So working capital in totality is on track.

And maybe just a broader question on capital allocation. If M&A -- if the approach to M&A remains more opportunistic in nature, can you give some color on what the balance might be between buybacks and deleveraging and even reinvestment in the business just to get some detail on the rest of the year?

Yes. So we -- just I guess, going back to the beginning, we always are investing in the business to maximize our organic growth and our margin growth. So there is no choices being made in terms of timing or what to invest, driving profitability and driving volume. When we look at allocation following that, we're still active from an M&A perspective. We will take a look at all the businesses that come to market as they come to market. And when we see those opportunities come -- or when we see those opportunities being further out, then we'll be active on the NCIB. So it all kind of goes hand in hand.

There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect, ladies and gentlemen.