Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Colabor's first quarter 2019 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session open to analysts only. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded today, May 2nd, 2019. I will now turn the conference over to Louis Frenette, President and CEO.
Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Colabor Group's 2019 first quarter results conference call. This is Louis Frenette, President and Chief Executive Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings press release. It can be found along with our financial statements and MD&A on our website and on SEDAR. Please note that the presentation is also available on our website at www.colabor.com in the Investor section under Events and Presentation. Our first quarter consolidated revenues were down 4.4%, resulting mainly from the loss of volume in Ontario, coming from the historical loss of the supply agreement for Montana's BBQ & Bar, effective April 1st of last year. This was mitigated by continued growth of our distribution activities in Quebec. Despite the decrease of sales year-over-year, our gross margin in dollars of sales improved by 2.5%. This come from improvement in the mix of clients and products sold.
Our Q1 EBITDA grew by CAD 1.5 million to reach CAD 0.3 million. This come from the cost rationalization plan, optimization of operation, and from the increase in gross margins. Colabor ended the first quarter of 2019 with a net loss of CAD 2.8 million, an improvement from a net loss of CAD 4.5 million in the equivalent quarter of 2018. Compared with the equivalent quarter of last year, cash flow from operating activities remained stable, and we reduced our total debt by CAD 5.5 million to CAD 109.4 million. Our total debt to trailing adjusted EBITDA ratio now stand at 5.5 times, which is down sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2018, when the ratio stood at 5.8 times. By removing the debentures, this ratio stand at 3 time versus 3.1 time at the end of 2018.
2018 was a year of transition. 2019 is a year of transformation. We implemented several initiatives to reverse the trend of the previous years. We remain focused on three pillars. These are to expand our broadline activities, integrate and optimize our business units, and reduce our level of debt. Our team is motivated and dedicated to pursue this direction and is working actively to create value for our shareholders. We are focusing more on our core business, made important organizational changes, and are managing our bottom line and cash flow very closely. Also, we're happy to welcome Pierre Gagné, who will join us on May 27th as our new CFO. This conclude my review of our financial results. Operator, I would now like to open the call for questions.
Certainly. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Derek Lessard from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everybody. Louis, I was just wondering if you could maybe talk to what was behind your gross margin improvement in the quarter. You pointed to favorable customer and product mix. Just wondering if you could maybe give me a little bit more details on that.
Yeah. As I told you during the previous quarters, many initiatives were about optimization of our operation, which mean more discipline the way we operate and also more discipline on the go-to-market. I think that we are very focused about delivering a high level of service to our customers. In the meantime, we were efficient to make sure that we have the relevant density on our trucks. We are respecting the right numbers of drop for our customers. All that kind of discipline allowed us to be more effective regarding operations.
Where do you think, if you're looking at your timeline and where do you think you are? Are you still in the early, I guess, days of the transformation? I guess, when do you expect that you're going to get to a level that's acceptable to yourself?
Okay. Well, to be honest, let's say that for me, 2018, the main objective was to get back to stability. Okay, to stabilize things because we were facing some issues. Stabilization was the first step. I need to have solid bases to bring back some growth. At the moment, it's just the first quarter of 2019.
Yep.
To be completely transparent, I'm not happy with results. Okay. Just the beginning. Let's say that it's positive for the first quarter, and I'm expecting to get more improvement to bring back Colabor on track of success.
Okay. You talked about the stabilization of the business in 2018. Do you think you achieved that?
Yes, it has been done in both Ontario and Quebec.
Okay. Maybe one final question from me. I'm just wondering about, you just announced the new CFO. I was wondering if you were able to provide what his background is and maybe what you think he brings to the table?
Okay. The name of the CFO is Pierre Gagné. He has an extensive experience in public company, in M&A. Let's say that I have an amazing fit with the individual regarding the fact that he's very close to operation, which is fit with the type of leadership we want to have at Colabor now. I think that his experience, more than 30 years in companies just like FLS Transport or GDI or Cogeco, is going to be a huge added value for us regarding optimization of our financing, any type of M&A activities. More than that, if you want to take the right decision regarding operation, you need to get the right information.
Yeah. He's coming from an operational background?
Exactly.
Okay. All right. That's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you, Derek.
There are no further questions at this time. Louis Frenette , I turn the call back over to you for closing remarks.
Yeah. Thank you, operator. Thanks, Derek, for your questions. It has been a little over one year since I joined Colabor. After a year of transition, we are now starting to transform our business. I would like to reiterate that our team is dedicated to improve shareholder value by focusing on our three pillars, broadline distribution, sales and operational activities, integration and optimization of our business units, reduce our debt. This concludes our call for the first quarter of 2019. Thank you for joining us, and I look forward to meeting some of you at our annual general meeting of shareholders, which we are holding shortly after this call at our Boucherville Distribution Center and head office. For those who cannot attend, I look forward to discussing our progress at our next conference call to discuss our 2019 second quarter results in July. Have a nice day.
Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.