Medifast, Inc. (MED) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you. At this time, all participants are in a listen only. This call is being webcast and a replay will also be available on the company's website. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that today's prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. The words believe, expect, anticipate, and other similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. not guarantee future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed on them. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. All of the forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this call. MediFast assumes no obligation to update any... ...reaching executive director rank, as our field embraces our strategic transition to metabolic health. We anticipate that these positive trends will continue through the remainder of the year, supported by the launch of our new consumer brand, Trilivi. Trilogy is the first step in our 3.0 strategy, which is the biggest shift for MetaFast since we launched Optivea in 2017. The strategy is defined by a 10-year roadmap that will allow us to expand our offer to coaches and clients in the context of a comprehensive metabolic health system, while also broadening our geographic and demographic footprints. We have made substantial progress this year, launching a new brand, a new scientific institute, and enhanced coach compensation structures, and a standardized training system for our coaches. Each is a significant step forward, and together they help form a foundation for us to win in the metabolic health category. The way we are running the 3.0 organization centers around four core defining characteristics, namely speed, simplicity, scale, and stewardship. We have to move quickly to take advantage of the opportunity that exists in metabolic health, while also returning the business to profitability. This speed imperative is reflected in the launch of a series of new initiatives that we will share more about on this call, but also in setting and maintaining a sustainable pace to our work and finding ways to do more with less. Simplicity is part of the narrative that underpins our business model and the ease with which we empower coaches to build their businesses. The less complexity our coaches face, the more they can focus on what actually grows their businesses. to eliminate what doesn't serve our coaches and clients and optimize the things that do. scale matters because everything we are building is designed to compound. Each new coach and client fuels our flywheel, while stewardship underlines our commitment to building a business that is consistently profitable and that delivers for years to come. A key source of fuel for our flywheel is our new consumer brand, Trilivi, which succeeds Optivia as our primary consumer brand. For years, the OptiBrand was known primarily for one outcome, weight loss, which was just a single element of its effectiveness in helping people live a healthier lifestyle. Trilivi reflects the holistic health benefits our system is intended to deliver, a metabolic reset that helps the body work better over time, through three distinct phases, reset, refine, and renew. Our science supports clients from end to end in a clear and compelling way that better aligns the brand with the daily realities of our coaches and clients, today and into the future. The opportunity is large. More than 90% of US adults and 1.5 billion adults worldwide are metabolically unhealthy. Our study of more than 1,000 adults found nearly 94% are concerned about at least one aspect of their metabolic health. 85% believe metabolic dysfunction can be reversed, and 84% see it as central to overall well-being. but 80% say they do not really understand what metabolic health means. So there is high public concern, a belief that change is possible, but low understanding of how to do that. Our science-backed coach-guided system closes that understanding gap. Attention on body composition, lean mass, and muscle preservation has never been higher, as GLP-1 adoption and awareness continues to grow. Our comprehensive metabolic health system offers holistic lifestyle change and behavioral modification through the coaching and structured nutrition. that is central to all of our plans. We continue to engage the GLP-1 market and beyond, supporting people throughout their health journey, whether they're using medication, coming off it, or pursuing metabolic health through non-medication pathways. Our coach-led program builds on more than 45 years of clinical and scientific heritage and is a great way to help people is built around metabolic synchronization, our proprietary science that reverses metabolic dysfunction. Our clinically proven plans activate targeted fat burn while preserving lean mass. Our most popular plan reduces visceral fat by 14% while retaining 98% of lean mass over 16 weeks. And in a clinical study, clients working with a coach lost up to 10 times more weight and 17 times more fat than those trying on their own. That is the structural advantage at the heart of our model, and it sets us apart in a crowded market. In July, we launched the MetaFast Metabolic Health Institute with a mission to advance metabolic health through rigorous research and credible evidence-based education. Led by recognized experts, including a dedicated scientific advisory board, and backed by teams with more than 390 years of collective professional experience, the Institute organizes our work across research, product development, scientific communications, and education. It serves a clear commercial purpose, to strengthen the evidence base behind our programs, continue to substantiate an expanding set of health claims, and establish Medifast as a trusted authority in a field that most of the market is only beginning to understand. We expect that this is how we turn our scientific heritage into a durable, competitive advantage. We continue to build on our clinically proven science, utilizing our Medivantage technology platform with the upcoming launch of our new Reset Fuelings. Each fueling, like those in our previous fuelings line, is nutrient dense and pre-portioned, with high quality protein, fiber, probiotics, and more than two dozen vitamins and minerals. Added to the new product line are three key ingredients intended to make our products even more effective. This proprietary Medivantage Technology Reset formula is designed to unlock key metabolic pathways to help support normal fat metabolism, healthy insulin function, and reduced waist circumference. The new fuelings anchor our clinically proven Reset 5-in-1 Plan, which activates a targeted fat burn to improve body composition, reducing visceral fat while retaining lean mass. This is our first product line designed to fully utilize our Medivantage technology, and it strengthens our overall market differentiation. We ran a pilot this spring with certain employees, coaches, and clients, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We look forward to putting these products into the hands of all clients and coaches later this month. In the field, engagement is high, and that's showing in the metrics. Although the number of coaches continues to decline, active earning coach productivity was positive for the third straight quarter, with year-over-year productivity up 41% and sequentially up 20% versus our first quarter. Revenue per active earning coach is now the highest it has been since the second quarter of 2022, and we expect the trend to continue through 2026. On August 1st, we launched an enhanced compensation plan that significantly sharpens our focus on developing and duplicating executive directors. As high-producing coaches, executive directors are the single greatest driver of sustainable growth for our business. The design of our new compensation plan was heavily informed by the success of our EDGE program, which confirmed our belief that focusing our field on building executive directors empowers stronger leadership development and healthier field performance. The momentum we are seeing today reflects those edge results, with the percentage of active earning coaches at the executive director rank or above continuing to climb, remaining over our 10% benchmark for a healthy, scalable field organization. This is a big area of focus for us as we move forward, and we believe our enhanced compensation plan builds on this proven foundation and will further accelerate growth over time. Our client referral program continues to exceed expectations, which is important as we launch the new product line and seek to capitalize on the enthusiasm and energy of the coach. The renewed energy and excitement from the coach base was on display at our sold-out coach attention on key initiatives, including Trilovy's new products, the simplified compensation plan, and our new coach-developed Trilovy Coach Hub training platform. Simplifying the fundamentals of our products and programs, but also the way we talk about them, is a critical component of our collective commitment to bringing the company back to profitability and improving the scalability of our business. The energy at the conference was remarkable, and it's encouraging to see a new generation of coaches engaging with the new brand and the enhanced approach to metabolic health as we seek to reset, refine, and renew lives. Before I turn it over to Jim for a detailed look at the financials, I want to touch on a few key data points. We met expectations for the quarter on both revenue and earnings. Second quarter revenue was $76 million, in line with the guidance we provided in May. The results reflect higher coach productivity and improved client retention trends, and is consistent with a business whose operating indicators are starting to turn more positive. The balance sheet remains a source of strength. We ended the quarter with more than $169 million in cash and investments and no debt. The enterprise value today sits below the value of our cash and investments. The restructuring actions of the past two years reduced our cost base significantly, while preserving the capabilities we need to grow. During Q2, we launched our Catalyst program with the majority of the execution expected to take place in Q3. The Catalyst program is designed to drive additional cost savings through facility rationalization, AI-related efficiencies, and other means. while being certain we do not negatively impact our ability to grow. By intensifying our focus on improving profitability, we believe we will be in a stronger financial position to execute our 10-year growth strategy successfully. Our near-term focus is straightforward. We aim to return to profitability by the fourth quarter of 2026. We are executing on both sides of the equation. enhancing initiatives to grow revenue and eliminating cost across the business, and we believe we are on track to deliver it. All of this comes back to my earlier comments about running this organization on the key tenets of speed, simplicity, scale, and stewardship. We are moving fast without overreaching, simplifying how our coaches build their businesses, and building a model designed to strengthen as the field grows. We have a clear long-term plan built around helping clients achieve optimal metabolic health. It is backed by breakthrough science and delivered through a coach-led model that we believe is a real structural advantage. We are already seeing progress in key areas of our business ahead of the impact of the new brand, products, and training. We have the science, the brand, the products, and and the coaches to compete and win in metabolic health, and we have the financial strength to create a platform for growth. There is more to be done, but we have entered the second half of the year with a clear focus on fulfilling both our short- and long-term business objectives.

With that, I'll hand over to Jim to run through the financials. Thank you, Nick. Good afternoon, everyone. Second quarter 2026 revenue was within our guidance range, and second quarter EPS exceeded our guidance range, supported by a third consecutive quarter of year-over-year coach productivity growth. Revenue for the second quarter was $76.4 million, a decrease of 27.6% versus the year earlier period. primarily due to a decrease in the number of active earning coaches. We ended the quarter with approximately 11,700 active earning coaches, a decrease of 48.7% from the second quarter of 2025. The company continues to see an impact from the rapid growth that resulted in average revenue per active earning coach for the second quarter of $6,529, a year-over-year increase of 41.0%. We now have a clear trend of increasing coach productivity both year-over-year and sequentially. We continue to believe that increases in revenue per active earning coach are an early indicator for future coach growth, which we believe will in turn lead to revenue growth. Gross profit for Q2 2026 decreased 30.3% year-over-year to $53.4 million, driven by lower sales volumes. Gross profit margin for the current quarter was 69.9% compared to 72.6% for the second quarter of 2025, primarily driven by the loss of leverage on fixed costs. SG&A expense was down 25.7% year-over-year to $57.7 million, primarily due to a $12.6 million decrease in coach compensation on lower volume and fewer active earning coaches, a $2.3 million decrease in employment, and a $1.5 million decrease in income. employee salary and benefit expenses, and a $2 million decrease in company-led marketing costs. SG&A as a percentage of revenue increased 200 basis points, primarily due to approximately 290 basis points associated to loss of leverage on fixed costs and 60 basis points associated with the launch of the company's new Trilogy Reset product line. partially offset by a 190 basis point reduction related to company-led marketing costs. As Nick mentioned earlier, we launched our Catalyst program during Q2, and we'll have more to share about these cost savings and streamlining initiatives as they ramp up in Q3. We continue to include in our guidance the belief that improvements to get back to profitability will start in Q4 2026 and the Catalyst program will be a large part of how we accomplish that objective. Loss from operations was $4.3 million in the second quarter of 2026, an increase in losses of $3.3 million versus the year earlier period. as the decline in gross profit was largely offset by lower SG&A. As a percentage of revenue, loss from operations was 5.7% in the second quarter, a 470 basis points change from 1.0% in the year-earlier comparable period. Other income decreased $2.6 million year-over-year to $1.3 million, primarily due to gains on our investment in LifeMD common stock in the year-earlier period. As a reminder, we sold our common stock investment in LifeMD during the second quarter of 2025. The income tax expense for the period was $0.1 million, an effective rate of negative 3.6%, as compared to $0.4 million for the second quarter of 2025, an effective rate of 13.7%. Due to the existence of a full valuation allowance against its deferred tax assets recorded as of December 31, 2025, the company calculated income tax expense for the current period based on actual results for the quarter. decrease in the effective tax rate was primarily driven by the increased loss incurred in the June 30, 2026 period and the valuation allowance on the net deferred tax assets. Net loss in the second quarter of 2026 was $3.1 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared to a net income of $2.5 million, or $0.22 per share, in the year earlier period. With respect to our balance sheet, we ended the year with $169.8 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments, and no debt as of June 30, 2026. Additionally, our working capital, defined as current assets less current liabilities, was $160.5 million as of December 31, 2025. Now I'll turn to guidance. We are expecting third quarter revenue to range from $60 to $80 million and loss per share for the quarter to range from 15 cents to 65 cents. This excludes any one-time costs associated with the execution of our Catalyst initiatives. While we expect to continue to see the active earning coach count to decline in the short term, we expect to see continued coach productivity growth during the quarter, up both year-over-year and sequentially. For the full year 2026, we expect revenue to range from $270 million to $300 million, and loss per share between 25 cents and $1.75. Also, we continue to include in our guidance the belief that improvements to get back to profitability will start in Q4 2026, following the launch of our new product line, and we we will be targeting improvements in earnings to continue into 2027 and beyond. Finally, we believe that our working capital will be more than $145 million at December 31, 2026. With that, let me turn the call back to the operator for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Jim Solera with Stevens, Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our question. We're going to start out with some questions around the Catalyst Program. I think investors will be encouraged to hear visibility towards profitability in 4Q of 26. We'd love some more detail around, I guess, the initial implementation costs of the Catalyst Program, the expected savings, and maybe kind of the cadence of when we should start to see the costs flow through the P&L versus the realization of the savings.

Yes, so Jim, we were very intentional in our prepared remarks. to say that there's going to be more to come on the Catalyst program and its savings. What we can say now is we believe there's millions of savings, millions of dollars of savings, but we're not able to quantify it because we're actually working through what we plan to reduce. The focus of Catalyst is to... take and simplify the business, but not take costs out that will impact top line revenues. So we're still continuing to do certain investments within the top line. that we believe will help that. And we're continuing to, focus on executive directors, but we're not able to give the exact quantifications at this point. We are going to be doing that in our Q3 earnings call.

the at the profitability or return to profitability in 4Q Is the Catalyst program the only lever there, or are there some other incremental contributors, whether it be, you know, Topline Recovery, the new product launch, you know, I don't know if there's any sort of margin change there, but anything that you could help give us kind of the building blocks for that 4Q.

Yes, I mean, we kept our guidance on the top line. the same versus last quarter. So you are... you know, you're seeing that the last three quarters, so you Q4 of 2025, was approximately 75 million in revenue. Q1 and Q2 was also approximately 75 million revenue and you know were to be with to be at the midpoint of the range. So that gives you a feel of the top line and we didn't we didn't change the top line at all. I and we're feeling more and more confident in that top line. The EPS range that we're providing has actually gotten better. So when you look at the full year range of what we provided last quarter versus this quarter even though we are excluding certain one-time charges which will call out in our q3 earnings call what those were, Q4, when you do the math, well, actually, you'll see how it gets better.

Okay. Maybe one more for me. With the launch of the revamped product offering in Trilivi, can you just walk us through – to coach receptivity to that, how the transition moves moving people over from the old Opti-Via system to the new system is going and any hiccups or bumps we should think about there. And then I guess once we're kind of fully switched over, yes. maybe some of the incremental opportunities that provides versus the old platform.