Carl Merton
Analyst · Clarus Securities
Q1 2019 represented a key inflection point for Aphria. For the past 4 years, Aphria has operated as a medical-only cannabis company in Canada, but with the aspiration to participate in Canada's legal adult-use market when available. But that does not represent everything that Aphria has come to represent. For the past year, Aphria has had an equally intense focus on building itself as a global cannabis leader. So while during that period, our Canadian teams plan for the who, what and where, but without knowing the when associated with this market. Our international teams continue their march to build Aphria as a global brand. These international activities included advancing towards EU compliant GMP certification in Canada, preparing for the German tender due on November 5, including advancing the tender documents and the final design and approval of the cultivation and GMP certified processing facility in country. Announcing our entry into LatAm, with the purchase of LATAM Holdings providing operations in Colombia, Argentina, Jamaica, and an option/right of first refusal on Brazil, which closed subsequent to quarter-end. Advancing opportunities in Australia, including participating in the equity financing of Althea, one of Australia's newest public companies. Progressing on our CBD strategy in the European Union and receiving the first cannabis license in Malta.
The building out of our international footprint is an investment in the future of Aphria. Just like the hard work done by our early employees in Canada, which established Aphria as a premier cannabis brand, the early work in international markets will continue to build the global brand equity in the Aphria name. During the quarter, our clinical drug trial partners continue to progress their efforts towards securing drug identification numbers, including Tetra Bio-Pharma with PPP001 moving to Phase III and beginning a head-to-head trial against fentanyl. We're also advancing PPP005. Medlab, with its NanaBis product, securing advancement from both the EMA, and most recently, the FDA. These early relationships and investments do not pay immediate dividends to Aphria, but represent a key component of our DNA, and our continual focus on the medical market. Once these trials reach drug certification status, we will enjoy the rewards of these long-term investments. On June 20, we learned the date for legalization of adult use, October 17, a seminal day in Canadian history. With this date, the end goal of what we were building in beautiful Leamington, Ontario, became figuratively the light at the end of the tunnel. Construction activities continued at a furious pace with over 200 construction workers on site at Aphria One daily. Their efforts will see the finishing details on the Aphria One Part IV and Part V expansion projects completed before adult-use legalization. The amendments necessary for this have been filed with Health Canada, and we await their inspections. The construction activities at the Aphria Diamond greenhouse also progressed and will be completed by the end of the month, with the license application already filed and under review with Health Canada. However, a portion of the infrastructure associated with the project was delayed several months due to a necessary approval from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, as the infrastructure fronted onto a provincial highway. That approval has been received, and despite the delay, we anticipate the infrastructure being complete in advance of the first harvest from Aphria Diamond when that infrastructure would be necessary. Aphria's extraction center of excellence also experienced a minor delay in permitting, and we announced in today's MD&A that we anticipate the center being available in May 2019. Q1 was highlighted by multiple important key performance indicators, including our continued revenue growth; continued growth of gram equivalent sold; increased net income from both the prior quarter and the prior year; continued additions to our senior leadership team; sign supply agreements with every province in the Yukon Territory; ensure that our brands will be available in locations reaching 99.8% of the Canadian population; closing of our lifetime holdings transaction; the launch of our adult-use brand portfolio, including Solei, Broken Coast, RIFF, Good Supply and Goodfields. The closing of our [ bought ] deal financing with net proceeds of approximately $45 million, and subsequent to quarter-end, successfully divesting our remaining U.S. cannabis assets. As I portrayed in our last analyst call, Q1 was not without its challenges. Ramping up production in the quarter, implementing significant levels of automation and significant increases in headcount, all stressed tested our processes and procedures. This led to increased cost in the quarter, again, as we highlighted and forewarned during our last call.
For the quarter, we realized a 10% increase in sales, growing sales from $12 million to $13.3 million, the majority of the increase related to wholesale orders and orders from patients registering in the quarter. 2/3 of our wholesale orders related to an inventory rebouncing of cannabis trims related to specific strains not to be sold to Provincial Control Boards. The remaining 1/3 of our wholesale orders is related to deliveries to our partners conducting clinical drug trials. We also experienced an increase in cannabis oil sales from just under 30% to almost 40%. The majority of this increase was a function of a change we made in our equivalency factor, converting dry cannabis to oil. The impact of additional wholesale orders and the change in equivalency factor resulted in a minor decrease in our average selling price from $9.25 a gram last quarter to $8.99 a gram this quarter.
Moving to the cost side of our business. As forewarned in our last call, our all-in cost per gram increased in the quarter, increasing from $1.60 last quarter to $1.83 this quarter, a $0.23 increase. During the quarter and in anticipation of our Part IV expansion project being completed, we allocated additional production space to mother plants at the expense of flowering plants. This resulted in overall lower production volume in the quarter without a corresponding decrease in our overall costs. As a result, this increased our all-in cost per gram by $0.20. We also experienced a $0.22 increase in our all-in cost, associated with lower yields in the greenhouse due to the temperature control equipment and automation not being fully operational in the quarter. The production space allocation will continue in future quarters until we receive Health Canada approval of our Part IV and V expansions, while we expect the automation to be fully operational by the end of Q2. In addition to these costs, the company disposed of almost 14,000 plants in the early part of the quarter prior to their harvest. During this period, we were unable to fill all the open greenhouse positions due to a lack of qualified local labor, which left us with insufficient staff to harvest the level of production produced in the Aphria One greenhouse. As a result of the lower staff levels, 1 weeks' crop rotation outgrew its optimal harvest period. In an effort to maintain the highest quality for our patients, the company chose to dispose of the plants associated with the 1 week of production to ensure the next week's harvest was grown in optimal condition. The cost of the disposed plants was $979,000. After the quarter ends, we doubled the size of the greenhouse staff at Aphria One. The introduction of the automation for our Part III, Part IV and Part V expansions are expected to be fully operational by the end of Q2, ensuring we preserve and enhance our industry-leading, low-cost production standards. As a result of these increases, our industry-leading adjusted gross margin levels decreased to 63.6%. While we expect our adjusted gross margin level to increase next quarter, as identified in previous analyst calls. Adjusted gross margin levels will only return to previous levels once the expansion projects are completed, Health Canada approved, operational and in full crop rotation. We continue to invest in the bench strength, headcount and marketing initiatives related to the new adult use and international markets, all with the goal to operate profitably over the mid- to long term. In the current quarter, cash, selling, general and administrative costs increased by almost $2 million from the prior quarter, with majority related to bench strength additions and ramping up for the adult-use markets, including the continued development of our 5 adult-use brands. In the current quarter, our nonoperating items provided a significant contribution to earnings to the tune of $35.5 million. This was made up of several items, including approximately $33 million in gains on our investment portfolio, primarily related to our investments in Liberty Health Sciences and Hiku Brands, and approximately $2 million in gains as a result of the dilution of our ownership interest in Althea, an equity investee, tied to their recent financing going public. These gains were offset by minor decreases in our derivative liability, part of our LHS investment and the loss in the quarter by Althea. For the quarter, we reported net income of $22.2 million. On a per share basis, we reported basic and fully diluted earnings per share of $0.09. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, we reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of almost $4 million, consistent with our comments in our last analyst call. The adjusted EBITDA loss is broken down as $3.1 million related to Aphria International operations and $0.8 million related to our ACMPR operations. As discussed last quarter, we committed to invest in additional sales and marketing activities in the lead up to adult use, something that will continue next quarter and have invested heavily in bench strength and headcount for adult use in advance of earning the revenues associated with those expenses. We closed the quarter with almost $314 million of cash and marketable securities. While a portion of these funds are dedicated to our Part IV and Part V expansion projects at Aphria One, the retrofit of Aphria Diamond, the extraction center of excellence and the necessary working capitals work harvest yields of 255,000 kilos a year. A significant portion remains available for strategic investments internationally and in Canada.
Vic and I will now answer your questions.