Michael MacDonald
Analyst · Sidoti. Please go ahead
Thank you, Katie. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today I will share an overview of our start to 2016 along with an update on the progress we have made on our key initiatives. Tim will then review the first quarter financial results and guidance for the second quarter and the full year for 2016. Finally, we will open up the call to take your questions. We have kicked off the year on a very positive note. Momentum continue to build throughout the first quarter in Take Shape for Life, our largest business segment. Take Shape for Life improved 9% compared to the first quarter last year and this represented a fifth consecutive quarter of improvement in revenue for this business unit. These segment results combined with gross margin expansion of 201 basis points and our team’s consistent efforts to efficiently operate the business fueled our financial performance. On a consolidated basis, net revenue from continuing operations was $72.3 million and adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $0.42. We are pleased that both revenue and profitability were above our guidance for the first quarter. As a result of this positive momentum we are raising our 2016 annual guidance which Tim will review in detail. Our team continues to believe that we are poised to return to growth in 2016. Going forward, we remain intensely focused on taking steps to optimize each of our business segments, Take Shape for Life, Medifast Direct, Franchise, Medifast Weight Control centers and Medifast Wholesale by continuing our plans to differentiate products, programs and service offerings. I would now like to provide you with an update on our key business initiatives for 2016. Across our entire organization, we are on a mission to bring health, happiness well-being and empowerment to our client customer base. We are very pleased with our start to the year and the momentum across our Take Shape for Life business unit. As we’ve shared in the past, new client and health coach growth and productivity are key metrics for determining performance within this business. The total number of active earning health coaches in the first quarter increased up to 12,600, up from 11,900 in the fourth quarter of 2015, and 12,100 in the first quarter last year. We continue to experience meaningful increases in health coach sponsorship year-over-year. New coach sponsorship grew close to 20% in quarter one, as it did in the last two quarters prior. Average revenue per coach for the first quarter of 2016 was $4490 compared to $4316 in quarter one last year. We continue to generate increased coach productivity as a result of higher new client acquisitions. Higher new client health coach sponsorship and a higher average order value year-over-year. This increase in the rate of sponsorship combined with productivity growth is a strong indication of the health of our network. We believe these continued positive improvements reflect the success of the initiatives we put in place to simplify and improve health coach journey from the initial signup to new standardized and unified trainings on the business path to sustainable leadership development. A great example of how we are further developing the tools and resources to support our health coaches in the field is the development of a new service center to provide business building support for our health coaches. Field First is a coach-focused call center operated by highly specialized team of trained corporate resources dedicated to answer questions related to coach career path progression. It’s incredibly important that health coaches feel that the right level of support every step of the way. Mona and the team continue to work to bring our top few of the corporate leaders together for planning and strategy sessions. We believe the connection between the field and corporate teams, it’s as stronger that’s been in the history of Take Shape for Life. Key actions we have taken over the last 12 to 18 months include the creation of a team to collaborate on key initiatives and to address any issues across the health coach network to ensure both the field and corporate teams are closely aligned. We have taken steps from both the product and pricing perspectives to minimize conflict across our novel business units as we work to increase diversification and emphasize the individual strengths and growth opportunities of each business segment. A strategically planned first quarter has delivered strong start to the year with positive field momentum. In the first quarter, we have virtual live Take Shape for Life events in 43 states with 8000 attendees. This is a dramatic increase and attendance for prior years including last year we hosted approximately 2500 attendees. The increase in the number of virtual events also allowed our field leadership to remain closer to home and focused on their businesses, coaches and clients. Additionally, we hold our annual Go Global leadership event in Baltimore in February. The event was completely sold out and provided a great opportunity for coaches and our objective is director and above ranks to come together and further develop their business and leadership skills. It was also a chance for many coaches to visit Take Shape for Life headquarters and get even more acquainted with our people and products. Most recently in March, we celebrated the success of our top performers who earned and incentive trip to San Diego by achieving key business building goals between July last year and January this year. We are now well underway and are planning for the Take Shape for Life annual convention in July and we look forward to sharing many exciting new announcements with you in the coming months. We are making meaningful progress on the execution of our key Take Shape for Life initiatives to simplify the business, provide effective training and further differentiate the value proposition. Our health coaches are highly engaged sponsoring new coaches and acquiring new clients. For these reasons, we are optimistic about the future growth of this important business unit. While we are now seeing the benefits and the changes we have made to our Take Shape for Life business last year, our Medifast Direct business, which is 15% of our sales did not performed to our expectations this quarter. Our focus over the last several months and year, has been returning our largest and most important business Take Shape for Life to growth. This has included making strategic business decisions that negatively impacted the Medifast Direct Response business near-term. Stabilizing the Medifast Direct Response business remains a key focus for us as we build upon our efforts from last year. While we have made progress in the key areas of conversion and retention, this business unit continues to experience challenges and cost-effective new customer acquisitions. We also see opportunities to improve customer reactivation including process automation and driving re-entry into our Medifast Advantage program. This business segment is an important profit contributor and we are taking steps to fix the business performance with a sense of urgency. Last year, we launched our Medifast Achieve plan, which is aimed at addressing customer acquisition and improving retention and while revenue is down for the quarter, we are seeing some positive results in the areas of average order value and customer acceptance of our Medifast Achieve plan kit offerings. We believe these kit offerings are an effective approach for the self-directed customer. We also increased promotion of two week and four week kits in an effort to deemphasize a la carte ordering habits. We believe the kits offer the best solutions and value for our customers while they also contribute a higher life time value. And in vision to the focus around the kits near-term, we are working on number initiatives to help improve the revenue trajectory of Medifast Direct response in 2016. These include an expanded tool set for analytics and attribution to improve acquisition and retention strategies, a new summer promotional campaign that has just kicked off that features our newest summer shape up kit, the implementation of new e-commerce technology capabilities, new promotional offers including email reactivation and direct mail acquisition campaigns. We are evaluating some creative marketing strategies that help us build better awareness to the Medifast brand and drive consumers to Medifast Direct. While this business is not performing to expectations, we are attacking the issues, driving the underperformance and look forward to stabilizing the business in the quarters ahead. Additionally, our team continues to work closely with our franchise MEDFAST weight control center partners. We are very fortunate that the strong franchise business operators who know the industry, their markets, and their customers, both current, prospective very well. Together, we are working with our franchise partners to evolve the offerings in the centers, initiate new pilot programs to test future concepts while continuing to develop a strong value to center members. As we think about the long-term growth opportunities, some of you had a chance to try our recently launched Dual Fuel sports nutrition products. This product launch reflects our innovation in manufacturing expertise as well as our ability to build unique business partnerships. We expect these initial efforts along with our recent engagement with Play By Play Sports, a Sports marketing company to get us off to a good start in the sports nutrition area. As we have previously shared, please keep in mind that this is not expected to have a meaningful impact on our financial performance in 2016. From an organizational perspective, as we previously communicated last quarter, quarter one marked a period of transition for Medifast. Our senior leadership team was streamlined to reflect the changing needs of the business and to provide even greater emphasis on our key initiatives and future growth. We continue to take steps forward to accelerate the activities required to return the company to sustainable revenue and profitability growth. Our consistent improvement across key areas of our business over the last 18 months and importantly our first quarter financial and operational performance truly demonstrates the momentum we are building and the positive future direction for Medifast. Finally, our team remains committed to returning value to shareholders. Our strong and consistent cash flow generation enables us to be in a position to continue enhancing shareholder value. As of March 31, 2016, we have approximately 850,000 shares of common stock available to buyback under our existing repurchase program and our second quarterly dividend will be paid on May 10. It is an exciting time for all of us at Medifast and we believe the company is well positioned for future success with a strong balance sheet, progress on our strategic operational initiatives and a team laser-focused on delivering sustainable top and bottom-line growth. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to our CFO, Tim Robinson who will discuss our financial results in more detail and our outlook for 2016.