Peter Holt
Analyst · B. Riley. Your line is open
Thank you, David. And I welcome everybody to the call. During the third quarter, we continue to execute our long standing strategy to build a joint brand by opening franchised and corporate owned or managed clinics and retail setting. Additionally, we looked to opportunistically acquire creative franchise clinics and build new greenfield clinics that complement our corporate portfolio. As a result, we've advanced our revenue growth momentum. We continue to be on track with our goal of 1000 clinics in operation by the end of 2023. And we'll position our business for longer term expansion well into the future. Recently, we received a great deal of interest from new investors. I'd like to welcome them and summaries our investments rationale. The Joint is revolutionizing access to chiropractic care. Located in convenient retail settings, our clinics provide concerto style, membership based services. Patients benefit from attractive pricing and convenient hours without the need of insurance or appointments. Our growth strategies to build our brand, increase awareness of the efficacy of chiropractic care, deliver on exceptional patient experience and open more clinics. We're already the largest and most recognizable provider of chiropractic care in the country and yet we only account for approximately 2% of this highly fragmented nearly $18 billion chiropractic care market. As such, we have a significant opportunity to continue increasing our market share as we further refine and expand the market itself. Turning to Slide 4, I'll review a few highlights of our third quarter 2021 results. Later, Jake will discuss our financial results in detail. In Q3 2021, compared to Q3 2020, system wide sales grew to $93.4 million increasing 37%. Our comp sales for clinics have been open for at least 13 full months grew to 27%. Revenue grew 36%. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $3.3 million up 25%. And at September 30, 2021, our unrestricted cash was $19.5 million, compared to $20.6 million at December 31, 2020. Turning to Slide 5. Let's review our portfolio. Regarding clinic expansion, during Q3, we opened 33 clinics, 28 franchised and five greenfield up from a total of 21 opened and one closed in Q3 2020. This brings our nine-month totaled to 87 clinics opened, compared to 52 in the same period of 2020. Our clinic expansion strategy remains unchanged. We're accelerating our openings of new franchise clinics. And we're significantly increasing our corporate portfolio by strategically building greenfield clinics where we can open up new markets or enhance existing corporate clinic clusters and finally, by purchasing franchise clinics in strategic locations, there'll be a creative. During Q3, we opened five greenfield that extend our reach in Virginia, Southern California and Arizona. Virginia also increases our footholds in the new established corporate clinic presence in the southeast region. That said, it's important to remember that when Greenfields first open, they're expected to compress margins. As corporate clinics that contribute 100% of the top and bottom-lines and therefore when mature, they have a greater financial economic benefit compared to franchise clinics for the company. We continue to have exceptionally low clinic closure rates of less than 1% annually. This quarter, once again, we did not have any clinics close compared to only one closure in Q3 2020. In summary on September 30, 2021 we had 666 clinics in operation, consisting of 583 clinics franchise and 83 company owner managed clinics. Our portfolio mix remained at 12% corporate clinics and 88% franchise. At quarter end, we also had 295 franchise licenses in active development. Reflecting the increased interest in the franchise system, this figure continues to grow and compares to $282 million at the end of June 30, 2021. After the quarter closed in October, we opened an additional Greenfield in Arizona, bringing our total Greenfield count to 12 for the year. On November 1, we acquired four previously franchised and strong performing clinics in northern North Carolina, bringing our total corporate portfolio to 88 as of today. The acquisition was immediately created to the strengths of our corporate presence in the southwest region. The ability to create a formidable cluster to a new territory reinforces our decision to repurchase the regional developer territory at the beginning of the year. Turning to Slide 6. In Q3 2021, we sold 44 franchise licenses compared to 30 in Q3 2020. This brings our nine months sales total to 232 compared to 65 franchise license sales in the same period in 2020. Our franchise concept continues to attract sophisticated well capitalized franchisees. One such investment group in which a board member holds a minority interest owns three clinics, which is less than 1% of our total clinic count. Please note that all franchisees follow the same rules and the same fee schedules, and as independently owned and operated businesses keep their finances completely separate from that of the joint Corp. During Q3, 82% of the franchise licenses were sold by our regional developers who continue to accelerate our growth. As noted previously, all franchisees with a source by an RD or a corporate sales rep must meet our high criteria to be selected and must participate in a thorough due diligence process prior to approval. To understand the health and viability of our franchise system, an important measurement to track of the number of franchise licenses sold to franchisees new to the concept compared to existing franchisees. Each year from 2018 through today, over 50% of our franchise license sales have been to existing franchisees reinvest investing in the brand. This very healthy mix demonstrates the strength of our business model, and provides positive validation for new candidates interested in the franchise. At September 30, 2021 our 21 RD supported 70% of our clinics and their territories covered 59% of the metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs. Our aggregate 10-year minimum development schedule for new RD territories established since 2017 is 693 clinics. Keep in mind that a portion of this clinic counts already opened, but this still provides a large foundation to feel our continued clinic expansion and sales growth. Turning to Slide 7, let's review our marketing efforts. In Q3, we launched a new educational campaign promoting the benefits of chiropractic care for kids during back to school season. Our efforts relied heavily on our PR and social media content to reach parents and school aged children with our message. We're pleased to sit here over 230 million media impressions from that campaign. In Q4, our focus will be on our holiday promotions starting with our November Black Friday package sale, and then moving to our December year-end membership promotion. These direct marketing campaigns offer our patients a limited time opportunity to save on their chiropractic care. Finally, I'd like to congratulate Jason Greenwood whom we just promoted to Chief Marketing Officer. Jason joined us almost four years ago and has been instrumental driver of growth during his tenure. As a talented strategist. He's leveraged our unique market position and skills to build successful marketing programs and elevate our performance. Jason's efforts continue to enhance branding, build culture, attract key talent, generate leads and increased our new patient conversion. I look forward to his ongoing contribution as we begin to unleash the power of this new IT platform, particularly from a marketing perspective. Speaking of which, I'll turn to Slide 8 to review our initiative to improve our technology infrastructure. Axis 1.0 the first innovation of our new IT platform was formally launched in July. Our goal was to migrate from our homegrown legacy system to a licensed scalable platform, which we accomplished successfully without major disruptions. Like any implementation of a system of this complexity and magnitude, we're currently addressing bugs and process improvements. As we plan for the next phases of our technology roadmap. I want to pause and thank our franchisees and our clinic users for their enormous effort to help us through this transition and their patients through this process. We look forward to introducing new innovations that will build on this platform and create increased value for our business. And with that, Jake, I'll turn it over to you.