Right at the top, of course. There you go. Okay.
Do you want to see your place of consciousness?
I just need to do this. I've had lots of help as well. We've got an error showing. Okay, hold on. Stop Chrome. I don't know about that. I do have the guy that helps me. Hold on. Reload. I've got to reload. I got a reload sign here.
I just want to let you know.
It says to reload. Failed to.
Oh.
What does that mean?
You have to call Bobby or someone else.
Oh, okay. It's going to take me.
Is this your presentation?
She just needs a tech person to help, so it's going to be a moment.
Okay.
I'm good.
I'm good.
All right.
Yeah. Make sure to talk into this mic. We have to be better.
All right. I'll use the mic then. Thank you everybody for being here. I'll start with the usual. When we ask how the tech's going, how the cutters are going, and everybody says it's working amazing today, we show up and it goes sideways on us. It happens. It's all good. They're going to work in the background to get it cranking. I am going to lean on our presentation a little bit as we kick off. I met several of you in the room over time. It's great to see people back out with an interest in us at Andrew Peller . I was saying to somebody earlier, there was a period of probably five years where we weren't out there as publicly. We've been a public company for over 40 years. A lot of people knew our story in the past.
Like everybody else, time passes, COVID hits, chaos happens, and everybody has to right-size their business. We certainly took a lot of actions, but we're on a great path. We're here today to talk about our story, talk about where we are, where we're going. Renee is going to touch on some of that later. By way of introduction for those that don't know me, Paul Dubkowski, I'm the CEO at Peller . Very brief history on me. I spent 13, 14 years at Fairmont Hotels when we acquired Swissôtel and Raffles and then got acquired by Accor. I stayed on as the CFO in North America and helped land the transaction.
After that, I went to Sunwing, spent a couple of years at Indigo Books and Music, and then joined Peller as CFO for a few years prior to John stepping back and retiring and us running a process. Through the process, they really looked at my background, my experience, the type of companies I was involved with, my knowledge of wine, my knowledge of brands, and really the way I focus on driving value and my connection to our employees and asked me to step into the role. That was coming up on a year and a half ago. It was a pleasure to join as CEO. I'm joined today by Renée Cauchi. Renee is our CFO. She has been with the organization for about 10 years. Thank you. I lean on her heavily.
I would say this, PwC background, but more than anything, a really deep understanding of the wine industry, where our company has been, what we've done to get to where we are, and what we need to do to drive forward, and a great understanding of the public markets as well. Really, my key person within the organization, and I lean on her heavily. If you ever need to talk to me and you can't get me, she can answer all those questions as well. We have Craig Armitage in the room, who's from Loderock and supports us from an investor relations standpoint as Renee and I take the lead on the majority of our activities. In terms of us, for those that don't know us, we are built on '64, might be '65 now. We're right around that time where we got to update this slide.
We are one of the originators in the industry. I'll give you a quick background on us in a minute, but we are one of the pioneers within the wine industry in Canada. It really is a great story. That gives us some advantages. Being a pioneer, we've built our business over a long time. We are one of the market leaders. While we have the top varietals in different markets, we are the number two player as a domestic player nationally. The largest is Arterra, the second largest is us as Andrew Peller Limited. The other thing this history has allowed us to do, and we'll touch on it through, is we have built our business over a long time.
To get in today and to acquire the assets you need today and to build the facilities you need and to get the reach you need would be very difficult. Because we've done this over time, we almost have a strategic market advantage. In addition to that, we've built a significant real estate portfolio that underpins our business. We've talked about it publicly. It's not news. We have north of $300 million, getting close to $400 million when you look at our vineyards and our facilities and some of our development lands. That represents an opportunity to us as we move forward. That does not even include our brands or other assets we have in our portfolio, like inventory. As a business, we're a committed dividend payer. We'll touch on that. We believe in being transactional. Our growth has been driven, historically 50/50 through M&A and organic.
I would say in the last several years, candidly, it's been more organic on the back end of COVID and stabilizing the business and getting ready for our future. We'll talk a bit more about what our path is going to be. The other highlights are that as we kick into it, it is a bit of a unique time in the business. There is unprecedented support for domestic businesses, domestic growth, the domestic story. Alcohol is regulated across the country. We're seeing that momentum in the consumer, and we're seeing that momentum in the provinces and federally to drive our domestic businesses forward. There is a huge opportunity in front of us as we look at kind of what our path is. In terms of who we are, we've got about 1,600 employees across the country. I always say we're national, and Renee says, not quite national.
We have salespeople in Quebec, but we do not actually have a production facility there and as big of a presence. We are across the country in terms of our presence. One of our superpowers, which we'll touch on, are our brands. We have over 50 brands that fall under our portfolio. Why that's important, it's everything from ultra value to ultra premium. Wherever that consumer is, we can meet them. It makes us really resilient when there's pressure in the market. We'll touch on that later. Broad distribution over 11,000 points across 10 channels. Channels like LCBO, it could be one of our estates, could be grocery. There are all different channels across the country. We touch all of them. I talked about our real estate. We'll dig into that a little more.
It is a little bit unique class to us in terms of how we've built up that portfolio, and it's something we're looking to leverage going forward. Lastly, as a domestic player, we have good size and scale, approximately $400 million approaching it in revenue, and 46 years of paying dividends and candidly increasing dividends when we can. As we look forward and why we think it's really compelling in time is we are back into growth mode. If you look at our results over the last five years, and Renee's going to touch on them, they were a bit bumpy. Coming out of COVID, everybody had supply chain pressure. The actions we took quickly pivoted us back to revenue growth, margin growth, EBITDA growth, increasing more cash, and driving down our debt. We are in a position where we're thinking, how do we grow going forward?
How do we take advantage of kind of where we've gotten ourselves to? Our strategy is really on the screen here. Obviously, it's much deeper than this, and I'll kind of dig into a couple. There are a few areas in wine, and I'm the first one to sit here and say wine is not growing universally. We all know people are drinking different. People are drinking less. People are drinking a little smarter. They're worrying about their health a little more. Wine can be part of that, but the consumer is shifting. We are aware of that, and we are pivoting. Where you see that is where we are innovating. I always use it. Many of you have heard me say it. Bud, Bud Light, Bud Zero. Nobody thought Bud Light was coming originally.
Bud Light became the largest brand, and now Bud Zero has a meaningful presence for the company. Wine is not there yet, but wine is in that Bud to Bud Light model or Peller to Peller Light. Eventually, you are seeing Zero start to show up. It will take time. Our innovation is primarily focused in that better-for-you space. I cannot announce anything today. I cannot share it. We have things coming out over the next 3, 6, 12 months that are going to have investment behind them around low ABV, around low cal, around low sugar, because that is where the consumer is already and where they are going to continue to navigate. We are also going to, I am going to dive into them here in a minute, a couple other areas.
In the evolving markets, Ontario basically went from all LCBO to a wide open market with gas and convenience. I will touch on that. Growth in core wine, while innovation is important, as innovation ramps up, it is still a small piece of your portfolio. We still need to focus on the core, what drives the majority of our profitability, and we will continue to do that. Productivity and asset optimization, you see that in our margins today. You see them up over 42% again. You see our EBITDA percentage growing. While revenue will grow, we believe we can increase our margins at an accelerated rate, and you see that in our results now. Lastly, that domestic wine growth and economic development underpins it all. There is so much momentum from a consumer and a regulatory standpoint. Now is the time for a business like ours to seize on it.
As I double-click on that a little bit, and just cognizant of time, I will not go too deep, you see up here really where our consumer-focused innovation is. Where is the consumer going? The better-for-you matters. Our fastest growing brand is on a slot, Zero Sugar. Big Zero on the label. People are thinking about their health. It matters if there is a functional benefit. As I said, we have lots of innovation coming in that space. Sparkling is another growth area for us. It is a growth area within wine. Sparkling does not just mean champagne. We do that with our traditional method, Brut from Trius. You can also do different methods like Charmat. You can infuse your bubbles, and that's a lower-cost way of doing it, a quicker-to-market way of doing it, and you can offer a more value-based product.
We play up and down the sparkling spectrum. That is a growth area where we are investing today in specialized tanks and capabilities. On the right there, I encourage you to try it if you haven't. We are the leader in fresh cream liqueurs. Everybody knows Baileys. Baileys is a powdered milk. That's why it can sit on your shelf for 10 years. Just keep pouring it, right? We actually use Reed's Dairy locally here in Ontario for all of our fresh cream liqueurs. If you try a PJ's or a Wayne Gretzky cream, it is fresh. It is shelf stable. Once you open it, it goes in the fridge. The taste and the flavor and the freshness of it is amazing. We recently did a roadshow.
We're in the midst of a roadshow at Costco, and it is performing exceptionally well and talking already about when is the next roadshow because we do multiple flavors, and it's a real hit and at a more value-based price point from a cream standpoint. Obviously, the Wayne Gretzky spirits that we operate in as well. International domestic blends, blended wines, that is the value wine. You'll find our bag-in-box there. You'll find our other blends in the 750s. Big piece of our portfolio. We're one of the leaders there. VQA is the premium wine across the country. It is the premium symbol in Canada. We play from the value-based part of VQA all the way to ultra-premium in Ontario and in BC. The bottle in the middle there, Nota Bene, that is one of the leading premium wines in BC. Amazing wine.
The one on the left there, the Gray Monk Pinot Gris, that is the number one SKU in the West. Both fantastic wines. Wayne Gretzky is the number two-three brand in the East, you see there on the right. Lastly, we know imports play a role here, so we invest in imports as well. We have a Californian brand, Neon Coast, a Chilean brand, Vivo. AmaBene is Italian. Avenue is French, and we have brands that play in different markets. Just launched Rewild, a brand out in BC that we intend to take nationally. It is a sustainable brand out of Australia. We play across categories. In terms of market evolution, this is where I talked about how it's changed. You see liquor boards, grocery, retail. We have our 100 retail stores, sports, and entertainment. We do the 200 mLs at the Jays.
Go Jays because we make more money the farther they go in the playoffs, in addition to what's exciting. We're at all major restaurant and hospitality outlets across the country. The call out here is that distribution went from 6,000 to 11,000 in one year, and the reason is Ontario opened up its market. All those gas and convenience came online, grocery came online, Costco came online. That's an important call out because it's a very hard pivot to make for a business. Our size and scale help us make that pivot. Arterra is able to make that pivot. A lot of the mid-size players, it's a slower pivot.
Our ability to get into a CPG model quickly, our ability to use our sales team, who's headed by people that have worked at Molson and understand the dynamic, has really put us in a good position to take advantage of the rapidly evolving marketplace. In terms of our assets, as I said, about $500 million when you wrap it all up. We have our estates, 10 across the country, our vineyards. We're over-indexed in the West, but we have vineyards in the West and the East, about 600, 700 acres, production facilities, and then our development land out in Port Moody. Many of you have heard me talk about Port Moody. It has taken time. We're looking at use. We're open to residential and industrial now just because of some of the market changes in region, and there's still active conversations on it.
We're being smart with the asset, but we still intend to sell it, and I do think we'll get it across the finish line. Our estates, I won't spend any time here. There are two things people always love here. We have the number one visited winery in North America, all of North America, with Wayne Gretzky. We have the number two visited winery in all of North America with Peller Estates because they speak to such a wide base of population. We have other wineries in the East, including the Riverbend Inn, which is a small inn. In the West, we work up and down the valley from Gray Monk in the North, which is a great kind of broad market appeal winery and product brand, all the way down to Black Hills, much more exclusive.
That's where Nota Bene is from in the far South, about 10 minutes from the U.S. border. With that, and I probably took too long, I'm going to pass it over to Renee.
Thanks, Paul. I'll just quickly touch on our financial overview, some of the changes that Paul had mentioned. On this slide, you can see kind of our historical performance. On this, you can really see our revenue resiliency. As Paul was saying, we have brands, we have our product portfolio, which sells up and down the value chain. As we go through events like COVID or an economic downturn, or people are just looking to consume differently, have had a change in their lifestyle, we're able to meet them where they want to be. We can hold that revenue resiliency as the consumer market is changing. You can also see here the downturn that Paul had mentioned on margin and EBITDA from coming out of COVID.
As many other companies, we were faced with supply chain challenges and inflation, but we have implemented quite aggressive programs internally to right-size that and have come out back to near record levels of both margin and EBITDA. When we look at F 2025, we won't spend a lot of time here, but F 2025 was a year of growth across all levels. Sales, margin, EBITDA, we were able to take advantage of our size and scale to win in the new marketplace in Ontario, taking share from our competitors. Our strength that we got out of the gate there is continuing through into F 2026. Margins, 42.8%, which again is getting up to kind of record high levels. That, along with some strong SG&A management, led to a 25% increase in EBITDA, again, + $60 million, which is right on our kind of record level.
That is continuing through F 2026 as we look at relatively stable sales, but again, continuing to accelerate the growth despite that in margin and EBITDA. With the performance that we saw in F 2025 and F 2026, this is where we were able to really, really drive a lot of working capital improvements, generate cash, pay down almost $40 million worth of debt in a year and a quarter, and get to about 2.5, 2.6x EBITDA level with our debt. Really strong performance that is allowing us to look towards the future and start to enter that growth mode, as Paul was referring to. When we look at our targets and how we're trying to continue this momentum forward, our ability to deliver on these items provides us with the flexibility, the cash flow, the debt position to unlock opportunities for increased shareholder value going forward.
While we're looking at areas of growth that we can enter, whether it's kind of white space, organic, look at M&A, what other capital allocation opportunities are available to us. Again, coming out of COVID, we had to really hunker down and take a very targeted approach to right-sizing, restabilizing our business. Now that we've done that, we can continue to look at those opportunities in the future. I will pass back to Paul to wrap up.
Awesome. We wanted to leave a few minutes for any questions. Renee highlighted our results there, and I think what I'd say is there's two, there's a few key drivers in there. Obviously, our ability to continue to win in market, and we see that showing up in our revenue. We're doing a great job there. We put in place, and Renee touched on it, a basically $30 million cost savings program on the back of COVID. Between cost of goods sold and SG&A, we're actually going to over-deliver on that as we exit the back half of this year. We are far smarter than we were. Everybody kind of talks about when you have pressure in a business, it actually leads you to a place where you make better decisions as a business.
I certainly say that for us, we've made some strategic changes in the team that have really benefited us as well. That margin improvement is there. Lastly, we acknowledge that there is that domestic momentum on policy. There are some new programs out there that are benefiting us and show up in our results. It's a combination of those three things that are giving us the momentum, the increased cash generation, driving down our debt, and opening up capacity. In terms of where we're at, I'll highlight it real quick. Market leader matters. It is really hard to get into this business. We are in a unique position to take advantage of our presence, of our history, of our real estate, of our proven ability to do transactions. Our profitability has been, and we have been saying it will continue to improve moving forward.
I talked about the drivers in that. We think we can continue to unlock value. You saw us do a very small asset sale earlier this summer. We sold a small vineyard out in the West. I think the value was around $175,000 an acre. That was a non-strategic, non-optimal location. We own a lot more vineyards out there at higher values. We'll look to unlock some of that. I don't timestamp it, date stamp it in terms of when we're going to do it, but it's an opportunity for us as a business as we move forward. We've paid dividends. We believe in it. We're yielding around 5%. It's an important part of our story. Our metrics got a little wobbly there in the midst of the back end of COVID, but we know it's an important lever for our investors.
We'll always evaluate it, but we're a committed dividend payer. We think there's long-term growth. The momentum domestically is showing us that. The policy domestically is showing us that. In addition to that, we think the M&A windows are going to open. We're in a unique position with where we've gotten the business that we'll be able to take advantage of that where it makes sense. Smart decisions as we look to grow. There's different ways to grow, different ways to return value to shareholders. We'll make the best use of cash and capability. Lastly, just that asset base. It underpins the business, puts us in a unique position. That is our presentation. I think we got about three, four minutes left. Happy to answer any questions.
Yeah, sorry.
I had a question. Consumer brands, it sounds like you're addressing that, make some new products coming out for the better-for-you. What about the RTD category? Because that was a big thing for a while before they just rushed into the RTDs hotel.
Yeah, so RTDs exploded and then they normalized and you've seen still some growth there. It's still a growth area, but you've seen some retraction in the pace of growth. The challenge in RTDs is that there is a tremendous amount of turn in both the brands and the flavors. If your flavor doesn't hit, you're exposed both from a production standpoint, but also from a write-off standpoint. We have dabbled there. I would say that what's more likely for us is we are going to work with wine in and around the RTD space. I don't see us playing big in vodka in RTDs or like a whiskey in RTDs at this time. Never say never, but in and around wine, we have a right to win. That would be our focus. Yeah, just U.S. wines coming off shelf.
It is my number one question that I get and a very relevant question. It has benefited domestic and local. We have seen, depending on how you look at it, a 50%- 80% increase in VQA demand over the period U.S. wines have been off shelf. VQA is only a portion of the market. There's the import portion, there's the IDB portion. You don't see all of that impact flow, but certainly some of the growth is coming from that. I think there is a realization that U.S. wine is coming back. That will happen. We are making sure that we are smart with our inventory allocation, smart with our pricing, smart with our future plans so that we're making more now, but we're positioned to be in a good spot when U.S. wine comes back on shelf.
Not really in the vodka space. That is our sales team doing a good job. It's coming off a smaller base, our vodka portfolio. It does very well in direct to licensee. We have a couple of big partners there, and it's just continuing to build its following.
We don't have cash on our balance sheet. Basically, any cash that we generate just goes right against our revolver. It's kind of just in that net debt number. It fluctuates quarter to quarter. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not there, but it all goes back onto the debt to allow us to keep saving on interest.
Yeah.
Why don't you people take it out?
You want us to take out an estate winery? I'll start with this, and I've said this everywhere, and I really believe this. We need the industry to be healthy, small, medium, large. We want to get good policy and programming for everybody. If the industry's healthy, we're good. In terms of acquisitions, we're open to looking at anything. We will always look at anything. It's got to be the right strategic fit for us. One minute left. I'm done. Thank you.