Dan Chard
Analyst · Lane Research. Please go ahead
Thank you, Reed, and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. On the call with me today is Jim Maloney, our Chief Financial Officer. I’m going to provide a brief overview of our first quarter, and then Jim will run through our financial results in more detail. Following our prepared remarks, we will open up the call to take your questions. We are proud to report a strong start to 2021, with revenue growth of 91% to nearly $341 million, reflecting continued momentum in independent OPTAVIA Coach growth as well as solid gains in coach productivity. The number of active earning OPTAVIA Coaches exceeded 52,000 in the first quarter, an increase of 61% over last year and up 19% sequentially. Revenue per active earning OPTAVIA Coach hit a new record of $6,454 in the first quarter, an increase of 21% over last year and up 9% sequentially. The accelerating growth we’re seeing in new coaches and in per coach productivity is a demonstration of the strength and differentiation of our coach-based model. And the residents, of a new field-led coach training approach that is being rolled across all geographies. This new approach better leverages social media and communication technology platforms to engage prospective clients, support new clients and support new coaches. Moving forward, our continued investment in digital tools and in our new fully integrated mobile apps for use in the field will enable deeper connections between coaches and clients while also creating efficiencies that allow OPTAVIA Coaches to support a greater number of clients. We remain confident in our ability to drive long-term sustainable growth and deliver on our mission to offer the world Lifelong Transformation, One Healthy Habit at a Time. Demand for health and wellness products and services is clearly strong right now with a particularly high addressable market for approaches that leverage healthy habit building over dieting or other weight loss approaches. Our unique coach-based model continues to provide a clinically proven solution, especially to those for whom diets have failed and for those who desire a holistic approach to optimizing their overall health and wellbeing. Our client-centric approach frees up coaches to focus on finding and supporting new clients and creates a more relentless focus on helping people achieve their health goals rather than recruiting salespeople or managing cash and inventory. Operationally, we continue to focus on enhancing the scalability of our infrastructure as well as optimizing its performance. We are executing on a series of initiatives that support our repeatable business rhythm as an engine for consistent long-term growth. From a supply chain perspective, we continue to optimize and expand capacity by increasing our network of co-manufacturers. We anticipate our work in this space will enable us to manage demand throughout 2021 and expect it to give us $2 billion of manufacturing capacity, with most of this increased capacity in place in the second quarter. Similarly, we’re scaling our distribution network through expansion within our current facilities and building on existing 3PL relationships and partnerships to establish a distribution capacity that tracks with our manufacturing capacity, with most of the distribution capacity increase in place by the end of the third quarter. Technology is another key area of focus as we build on our investment over the past five years and drive innovation through the development of a digital ecosystem of products designed to help OPTAVIA Coaches leverage their time and talent efficiently to serve clients. Our innovation lab in Utah has been instrumental in advancing our use of technology to drive growth and efficiency using agile processes to quickly build, modify and improve digital products that make a real difference. By getting coaches more tools to help manage and engage with clients as well as giving clients easy-to-access mill planning tools as they embark on the optimal way to 5 & 1 plan, we are helping create better outcomes for all. During the first quarter, we offered limited promotions and did not repeat the incremental promotions and programs from last year. Similarly, in the second quarter, we do not plan to offer any of the incremental promotions we executed last year. This decision has been driven by the continued strength of new field-led training programs and the resulting high levels of coach client engagement and new client acquisition. This is yet another demonstration of the clear delineation between OPTAVIA and traditional direct sales or direct-to-consumer businesses. Our business is built on the foundation of empowering coaches to serve clients by teaching them healthy habits through our Habits of Health system. We are empowering the community focused on health and wellness, not a distribution-centric recruitment network or an advertising or promotion-centric online selling model. And that community focuses on healthy transformation of individual clients, above all else. Growth is driven by the effectiveness of the approach, and that’s a testament to the work of OPTAVIA Coaches and the wider OPTAVIA team. One of the key moments for our in-person education with our OPTAVIA Coaches is our annual convention. The in-person gathering was canceled in 2020 due to the global pandemic, but our virtual OPTAVIA Together Live was extremely successful in bringing together the community in a meaningful way. We’ve decided to move forward with our in-person convention in 2021. And we are confident in our ability to manage health and safety protocols in compliance with CDC guidelines. Tickets went on sale in the second quarter and quickly sold out. And as a result, we anticipate having just over 12,000 attendees at the event, which will take place at the end of July. The speed at which the convention sold out is another clear indicator of the importance of health and wellness to people right now, especially in light of the pandemic. We recently announced the result of a consumer study designed to understand nutritional priorities and challenges. The study surveyed over 1,400 adults in the United States and found that although 84% of people are prioritizing healthy eating is much more or more important than they did last time. Many are facing challenges in doing so, despite recognizing its importance. Nearly 9 out of 10 survey respondents report that nutrition is important to them. However, 56% say it’s difficult to eat healthy, especially at home. In fact, over half of all respondents agree that being at home more often during the pandemic has enabled them to snack more and/or eat less healthy foods and report the top factor preventing them from healthy -- eating healthy more often is often their inability to resist cravings. Education also plays a vital role in overcoming difficulty around eating healthy, with nearly half of all U.S. adults saying that learning how to establish healthy habits and/or learning more about healthy nutrition would allow them to make healthier food choices. Our business trends continue to show strength and we have a high degree of confidence in the outlook, including our ability to drive consistent and sustainable growth. The investment highlights for Medifast remain the same. First, we are targeting a large and growing market. In the U.S., weight loss is over a $20 billion business, growing at approximately 6% a year. Over 70% of the U.S. population is overweight or obese, growing at 2% a year. Moreover, the pandemic has amplified consumers’ focus on health and wellness. The second area, we have a proven solution. Clinical studies clearly demonstrate the efficacy of a coach-supported approach for weight loss success. Our OPTAVIA Coaches take a holistic view of health and wellness and are supported by proprietary field-led training programs and tools that help them optimize outcomes for each individual client. Third, we have built a strong platform with a team that is flexible and agile, providing significant capacity for growth. We’ve been investing in our infrastructure to support a $2 billion-plus business. Finally, we have a strong financial position and a demonstrated commitment to stockholder value. During the first quarter, we announced a more than 25% increase in our quarterly dividend, repurchased shares and ended the period with over $200 million in cash and no interest-bearing debt. Before I turn the call over to Jim, I want to share some comments on our corporate social responsibility. Over the past year, urgent social and environmental challenges have required companies to reimagine their corporate social responsibility strategy and prioritize the impact they will have on future generations. Medifast commitment to lifelong transformation is not just a result of the work our OPTAVIA Coaches do, but a result of our active support of the communities in which we live and work. Medifast philanthropic program, Healthy Habits For All, empowers generations through education and access to healthy habits. In 2021, we will continue to work with our nonprofit partner, No Kid Hungry, to provide access to healthy nutrition as 1 in 4 children faced hunger this year because of COVID-19 pandemic. At the business -- at our Baltimore business headquarters, we’re collaborating with the Living Classrooms Foundation to renovate their kitchen to create space where students receive hands on education about healthy nutrition and create critical healthy habits that can last a lifetime. Although we are just in the early stages of the project, our team is also developing a care friendly curriculum based on the Habits of Health. The goal is to provide students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will assist them in making informed decisions and creating healthy habits. We are dedicated to bring what our independent OPTAVIA Coaches do every day to underserved communities. Let me now turn the call over to Jim Maloney, who will walk you through the financial results. Jim?