Knight Therapeutics Inc. (GUD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome. You are joining Knight Therapeutics Annual General Meeting. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn today's meeting over to Jonathan Goodman, Chairman of the meeting. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome to Knight Therapeutics Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Once again, this year, we have chosen to hold the meeting via live audio webcast. My name is Jonathan Goodman, Executive Chairman of Knight Therapeutics, and I will chair today's meeting. Also with me on the call is Samira Sakhia, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bryan Kujawski, our External Counsel. Samira will act as Secretary of today's meeting. Steve Gilbert and Claire Girard of Computershare Investor Services will be acting as scrutineers for this meeting. Our agenda today is straightforward. First, we will conduct the formal part of the meeting. Following the formal part of the meeting, Samira will make a few remarks. Finally, we will do our best to answer any questions you may have. Questions, objections, proposals and comments may be provided by the registered shareholders or their duly appointed proxy holders through the question box identified by the message icon on the top-right portion of your screen. To respond, our External Counsel will read the question aloud, and either I or Samira will respond. Please note that we will only be taking questions today from shareholders of Knight. I now call the meeting to order and ask the secretary to confirm delivery of notice of this meeting and to report the number of shares presented by webcast or by proxy.

Mr. Chair, notice of this meeting was mailed to the shareholders on or before April 12, 2023. The scrutineers have advised me that we have at least 2 shareholders [ represented ] at this meeting either via the webcast or by proxy, representing 60,305,491 shares. The shares represented at this meeting carry, in aggregate, 54.13% of the total outstanding shares eligible to vote at this meeting.

Thank you, Samira. Therefore, I declare that in accordance with Knight's bylaws, sufficient shareholders are present, either via webcast or by proxy, to constitute a duly convened Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Knight Therapeutics Inc. We will conduct the voting on all matters to be considered at this meeting by ballot through the facilities of this webcast. The ballot will be open for voting on all resolutions at the same time. This will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until conclusion of discussion on each resolution prior to casting your vote. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on each resolution in turn. In addition, due to the nature of this forum, I will call each motion and the secretary will second the motions. The voting is now open. All registered holders and duly appointed proxy holders may cast your vote now through the webcast platform by clicking your desired selection. In order to vote on all matters coming before this meeting, please use the Vote button on the right side of the screen on the webcast platform. Once discussion on all items of business has concluded, I will give you time to enter your votes and then declare voting closed on all resolutions. The results of the votes will be published following the meeting in accordance with the rules of the TSX. I will now table the minutes of the meeting -- of the Annual Shareholders Meeting of Knight Therapeutics held on May 11, 2022. I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move the secretary to be dispensed from reading the minutes of the May 11, 2022 Annual Shareholders Meeting.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. The motion is hereby passed. I will now table the consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, and report therein of Ernst & Young auditors of the corporation. I'm a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move that the secretary will be dispensed from reading the auditor's report.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, Inc., and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. The motion is passed. I will now introduce the directors of Knight Therapeutics proposed for reelection for the ensuing year. The directors of Knight Therapeutics proposed for election are: Jonathan Goodman, Jim Gale, Samira Sakhia, Robert Lande, Michael Tremblay, Nicolás Sujoy and Janice Murray. As I mentioned earlier, to facilitate the logistics of the meeting, I will present the motions for the items of business proposed by management, and Samira will second. I'm a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move that the following persons be nominated directors of Knight Therapeutics for the issuing year. Robert -- Jonathan Goodman, Jim Gale, Samira Sakhia, Robert Lande, Michael Tremblay, Nicolás Sujoy and Janice Murray. I want to ask Samira to second the motion.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics Inc., and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. Are there any comments, questions or additional nominations? [Operator Instructions]

Mr. Chair, we don't seem to have any questions or comments on this item of business.

Receiving none, please proceed to cast your votes if you have not already done so. We will move on to the next item of business. [Voting]

I will now present a motion to appoint auditors for ensuing year and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. I move that Ernst & Young be appointed as auditors of the 2023 fiscal year and that the Board of Directors be authorized to fix the remuneration. I want to ask Samira to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira, and you're so repetitive. Are there any comments or questions? [Operator Instructions]

Mr. Chair, we don't have any questions or comments on this item of business.

This being the last item on the formal business portion of the meeting, I will pause now to allow any registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder who has not already done so to cast their votes on this resolution and are any items of business brought before the meeting through the webcast platform by clicking the desired selection. [Voting]

Thank you. The voting has now closed. Based on the proxies received and the votes cast at the meeting, I declare each nominee for election as director -- elected as directors of Knight Therapeutics to hold the office until the next annual election of directors or until their successors are elected or appointed. Auditors for the ensuing year appointed, the directors authorized to fix remuneration of the auditors and I declare each other motion carried. We will now move to the next portion of our meeting, where Samira will provide more information on the events of 2022.

Thank you, Jonathan. In 2022, we continue to execute on our strategy of building our pan-American ex-U.S. platform, focusing on our people and expanding our product portfolio while delivering record performance. We achieved another record-setting year with revenues of over $290 million and adjusted EBITDA of $54 million, an increase of 21% and 42%, respectively, over the previous year. I'll now take over on the presentation. So as you know, Knight is a multinational specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring or in-licensing innovative pharmaceutical products for Canada and Latin America. As many of you know, Knight is a spin-off of Paladin Labs, where we found -- that company was founded in the mid-90s and went from a valuation of nearly 0 to almost over $3 billion when it was sold, going from $1.50 per share to $151. Since founding at Knight, we have raised over $685 million, all at increasing valuations, going from $3.50 to $10. In that time -- since that time, we've deployed or committed to deploy over $925 million of capital. As I said earlier, we achieved record results with over $293 million of revenues, a growth of 21% versus the prior year; adjusted EBITDA of $54 million, a growth of 42% over the prior year; and we had great cash flow from operations of $40 million compared to $44 million in the prior year. As many of our shareholders know, this is coming from our transformational acquisition of Grupo Biotoscana, which was a 2-step transaction started in 2019 and completed in 2020; and then another major acquisition which was the acquisition of Exelon in 2021, which was USD 180 million. Kind of going through the evolution of how our 2 companies come together, Biotoscana is actually an amalgamation of 4 different companies. There is Biotoscana, which was a Colombian organization, focused on some of the Spanish-speaking countries in South America. Then United Medical as Brazilian distributor was added to the mix. And then over -- between '15 and '17, LKM and DOSA are 2 branded generics companies based in Argentina were added. And then we came in, in 2019 and really created the platform that is pan-American ex-U.S. We are now in 11 countries. We have distributors in Central America and Caribbean. We have over 700 employees, over 100 products, over 20 partners. We have 3 manufacturing plants and R&D center in Argentina, and a regional distribution center based in Uruguay. When you look at our revenues the majority -- nearly half of our revenues come from Brazil with Colombia and Argentina as close [indiscernible] second. Our headcount is highest in Argentina, but just really behind our manufacturing facility. As we've always said, our growth strategies are really about in-licensing late-stage prescription pharmaceuticals, acquiring mature underpromoted products from big pharma, developing near-term low-risk, low expense products. In Canada, that would be maybe adding some intellectual property around some of our products. In the case of Latin America, that's really our branded generics portfolio. And in the last couple of years, we've actually executed on each one of these strategies, and you'll see that as I talk through our pipeline. The last, we've actually growing is bolt-on acquisitions of portfolios or companies that complement to the existing business. If you look at our market now as opposed to being in just in Canada, which is less than 2% of the global market, LATAM represents a significant portion. And with this footprint, we are now at 6% of the global market. Each of these markets is continuing to grow, grow rapidly and want to be there to be able to take advantage of that. Today, our portfolio is focused on oncology and hematology as well as infectious disease, mostly that complex infectious disease with antifungals -- hospital-based antifungals with AmBisome and Cresemba. And we are developing our CNS and GI portfolio. When you look at kind of what is really driving our business, it is our promoted brands and our new launches. When you look at therapeutic area, you see over the last couple of years, we've actually also been able to balance the portfolio within those 3 different categories. Now turning to our pipeline. We have done a lot of work in the last couple of years, advancing the pipeline, both on the innovative side as well as the branded generic side. Because our manufacturing facilities are not approved in Brazil and Colombia, we've been actually expanding time to in-license and broaden access to branded generics for Brazil, Mexico and even Colombia so that we can continue to grow rapidly. As I said earlier, we have over 20 partners and we partner with the biggest of the pharmaceutical companies, regional biotech companies or pharma companies, mid-tier pharma as well as biotech. And we want to be the partner of choice for pan-LATAM. As a partner, we have -- we want to make sure that we get the best agreement and be a partner of choice. Sometimes that would mean that we get some territories and not others, but we want to make sure that we get a transaction that works for both sides. In our -- at the start of the company, one of the things that we were doing is lending money in order to access products or fund investments in venture capital funds to be able to generate more portfolio. What we have seen is unfortunately, from a portfolio standpoint, these strategies have not worked out as well as we had hoped, while on a financial standpoint, they have done extremely well. We will no longer be doing any fund investments. But when it comes to loans, we may consider if there is a portfolio or a geography that makes sense that we would want to invest in. When I look at the funds today, they are actually cash flow generating as opposed to a use of cash, and we will continue to just wind them down as they close up. As I said earlier, we -- this was a transformative acquisition for Knight. And from that point forward, what we've seen is continued growth in our portfolio, in our revenues and we recorded record revenues last year. Going to the EBITDA and cash flow, what I'm really proud to show is that even during -- while we did have a bumpy year in the first year of COVID, we've been able to turn this business around, generating really great EBITDA, really great cash flow. The slight decline in cash flow turnover from EBITDA in '22 was behind the acquisition of Exelon as well as the in-licensing of AKYNZEO, where we had some investment in working cap, and we expect that to turn around. What I'm really proud of is the fact that not only are we growing the EBITDA and cash flow, we are actually -- the EBITDA per share is actually increasing at a more rapid rate. And that's because we have been investing in our shares. And over the last year, we have returned almost $200 million to shareholders through our NCIB, and we have reduced our shares outstanding by 23%, while investing almost $600 million in products and M&A. Going to our financial highlights. We have over $150 million of cash, over $175 million of financial assets. Our total assets are over $1 billion, and our net asset value is $825 million or $7.36 per share. Our market cap, however, sits at, and this is at the end of March, just under $500 million. And when you look at adjusted enterprise value, that's just under -- that's around $300 million. And what we have today is we have insider holding on 21%, and that continues -- has increased over the last year. What we have is a great management team. There is 4 of us in this team of 7 that are actually former Paladin Labs: myself, Amal Khouri, Susan Emblem and Arvind, all pass through Paladin for a significant part of our career. And also, one of the things that we've made sure is that we have executives, not just in Canada, but executives in Latin America. Arvind, our CFO recently moved to Uruguay. Monica comes with great amount of experience in Latin America and is based in Brazil. Leo had 30-year career in manufacturing in Latin America in pharmaceuticals and is based in Argentina, where our facilities are. We have a great board with Jonathan and myself as well as Jim Gale and Robert Lande, all of us have been obviously through the Paladin group. Michael Tremblay, who is former Head of Astellas, Canada, and has a significant amount of experience on the infectious disease side as well as high specialty products. Janice Murray, who's former Head of Novartis, Canada, and was previously CFO of Canada and Latin America for Novartis. And Nicolás Sujoy, who runs a PE group based in Argentina, but was with Advent when they built the strategy of acquiring Grupo Biotoscana as well as LKM and then combining the companies and was a Board member of Biotoscana. The -- we, as I said, 2022 was an amazing year on the product side, where we in-license and launched AKYNZEO. We did all of the MA trans -- completed a lot of -- the majority of the MA transfers on Exelon. We in-licensed 3 different branded generics. We in-licensed fostamatinib. We submitted Minjuvi or tafasitamab. We submitted 2 branded generics. We've got some branded generics approved in Argentina as well as in Colombia. On the processes side, bringing together these 5 companies, there was a lot of work on systems, whether ERP, quality management, pharmacovigilance. On the people side, we continue to strengthen our teams with the addition of Leopoldo as well as creating regional and global teams. And we had an amazing year of performance, as I said, with record EBITDA, record results and a great balance sheet. Why Knight? We have a great and unique platform, a growing organization, both on revenue as well as EBITDA. We have a great pipeline and we have a great management team who knows how to execute. I'm really proud to say that our team has been successfully executing on our pan-American ex-U.S. strategy and has built a profitable business with a unique platform and a strong foundation from which to continue growing over the long term. Looking ahead, while we face headwinds with the entrance of new competitors on certain of our branded generics as well as incur investments related products, Knight is expected to continue to generate strong cash flows from operations. And with over $150 million of cash and $175 million of financial assets, we remain well positioned to execute on our mission to acquire, in-license, develop and commercialize pharmaceutical products in Canada and in Latin America. I especially want to thank our entire team in Canada, in Latin America, the team of executives, the team of directors, our managers in all of our countries for all of the work in the last couple of years to get us to where we are. We are a strong platform to continue to grow from. That concludes my comments for today. Thank you for joining our AGM.

We will now be pleased to answer your questions from shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders. [Operator Instructions]

Let's just give a moment. I don't see any questions yet. All right. Mr. Chair, there appear to be no questions or comments.

As there are no questions -- further questions at this time, I will now ask Samira Sakhia for a motion to terminate the meeting.

I move that the meeting be terminated.

Thank you, Samira. I will second the motion. Unless there are any objections, we will consider the motion carried. Are there any objections?

No, Mr. Chair. There are no objections.

I declare the motion carried and the meeting terminated. As there are no further questions, thank you again for your interest and ongoing support and for taking the time to join us today.

Thank you. This concludes the meeting. Everyone may disconnect. Everyone, enjoy the rest of your day.