Organigram Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:OGI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Beena Goldenberg: No. I think, the answer is the reverse. As I said earlier, we really want to make sure we have a sustainable, profitable leadership position in the Canadian marketplace. And so, over the course of last year, we prioritized our domestic market and continue to supply not only the value flower, but we supplied our Edison brand that has close to a 2% market share. So, we continue to have a brand playing in the premium segment. We are building capacity at our Laurentian facility and Lac-Supérieur to really participate in the craft flowers. So, it will have a complete portfolio of products for the Canadian market, and we’ll explore excess opportunities with international markets because we have great quality flower, now we have the capacity to do it. So, I think the priority will still be to make sure we’re strong at home and then build from there on opportunities internationally.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Partheniou from Stifel. Your line is open.

Andrew Partheniou: Maybe first, just to expand on the previous question on gross margin, correct me if I’m wrong, but if I understand, the better international sales, higher margin international sales were kind of offset by more rec value flower sales. Just thinking going forward here, understanding that expansion is going to benefit with operating leverage and the word production cost going forward. Just kind of want to understand what the uplift potential to gross margin is? As mentioned this quarter, it seems value kind of offset international, but is that something that we’re going to see less of starting in Q1 of fiscal ’23? And again, what kind of pickup on gross margin could we see from the expansion here, assuming that a lot of your future demand is going to be value focused?

Derrick West: Well, 75% of our revenues are in the flower categories. And yes, there is a delta between the margins on international versus domestic as a consequence of the excise tax, which is fairly high on the flower categories for all LPs. And we are selling a large portion of our products in the value brand; however, we currently are profitable in that sector in Canada. And that is really without the benefit of getting to scale, while we left our leading fiscal ’22 with this higher annual capacity from the month of sale at 85,000 kilos, and at the beginning of the year, we were at 45,000 and the construction was only completed at the beginning of Q4 and then we were planting in rooms on a staggered basis. So, while we had some benefits to our cost structure through efficiencies and some automation, we didn’t really have the benefit to our income statement yet for just the lower cost of production.

And — but we did indicate that our cost on a year-over-year basis for cost of cultivation has decreased 33% and that amount will ultimately lower our cost of flower, and I’m sorry, 23%, I apologize. And that will start to benefit our margins across all flower categories in fiscal 23. And again, we didn’t see really much of that benefit lift on our income statement for fiscal ’22. So, I won’t give guidance on the exact margins that can come from this, but our main offerings are in the flower categories and the main cost of the cost of cultivation kind of seemly significant decrease on the cost of cultivation as we leave fiscal 2022 just based on getting to scale.

Andrew Partheniou: And then, thinking about cash and the guidance that you put out there, positive cash flow in fiscal ’23 and positive free cash flow and calendar ’23. First, could you just confirm — is this positive guidance more specifically to the entire fiscal ’23 as a whole and the entire calendar ’23 as a whole? Or is this achieving positive in any one of those quarters through the fiscal and calendar year? And secondly, just to understand kind of the cadence of what we should expect, especially given the working capital increase this quarter. Should we expect a big step change? Is this going to be a little bit more gradual to get to positive, and just kind of managing expectations here would be helpful. Thank you.