Good morning. Thanks for joining us today. We have an update with iFabric , who last week reported their Q1 2025 results. CFO and Hylton Karon, CEO. This presentation will be an overview of the quarter and then right into Q&A. We will not work off a presentation. Regardless, the session will contain forward-looking statements. If you'd like to know more about those, you can find them on the company's presentation on their website. Like I said, there will be a Q&A section. Feel free to put a question. Out of the way, I'd like to introduce Hylton Karon, CEO.
Hilton, do you want to jump in and do the presentation of the financials? Then I'll make some statements, and then we can get into Q&A, please.
Sure. I don't know why, but you're breaking up, so I didn't hear that whole first section.
Oh, my apologies. I will try to get on different Wi-Fi. I'll be right back.
That's okay. We'll take it from here from now.
We'll deal with it in the interview.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Hilton Price, CFO of iFabric . As I normally state before I get into the synopsis of the quarter, we did put out a very comprehensive press release on our quarterly results. If you're interested in reading the full release, you can find it on CDOT, as well as our website together with the financial statements and MD&A relating to Q1. That will give you all the information you need in depth as regards the quarter. In this discussion, I'll be focusing mainly on what I consider to be the main or salient aspects of the quarter. I'll start with revenue. The revenue came in at CAD 7.1 million compared to CAD 6.8 million last year, an increase of CAD 300,000, or 5%. By small margin, that was a record first quarter for the company.
Given all the negative factors in the market at the moment, reduced consumer confidence, tariffs, I do not have to discuss all of those. I think it was a pretty solid quarter and reasonably satisfying for ourselves to actually see an increase, however small it may be. In terms of our revenue by division, revenue in our Intelligent Fabrics division increased by 25%, CAD 1.2 million from CAD 4.6 million last year to CAD 5.8 million this year. That was as a result of new programs in both the U.S. and Canada, mainly Canadian. Canadian programs are outstripping U.S. at the moment. By contrast, unfortunately, revenue in the Intimate Apparel division decreased by 40%, or CAD 800,000 from CAD 2.1 million last year to CAD 1.3 million this year. The main reason for this is that we had a new program, a new major program commence shipping last year.
This quarter, we did not have any new programs that were the equivalency. That was the main reason for that decrease. In addition to that, our Intimate Apparel division, Q1 is historically the weakest quarter for this division. It is post-Christmas. Shoppers are tired. Invariably, this is a slow quarter for that division. Gross margins, we did see a drop in margins from 44% in 2024 to 39% this year. That is attributable to the product mix for the quarter. Really, as a result of the drop in Intimate Apparel revenues, which do carry higher margins. Whenever we see a drop in those revenues, margins will decrease. Through the year, our goal is to try and maintain margins around the 40% level. I am hopeful that we will be able to do that.
Expenses, we did see an increase in expenses of around CAD 300,000 in the quarter. That was mainly due to the costs of our leaching study. We did pay some big invoices in the quarter for the final part of the leaching study, which hopefully is now getting to an end. I will leave Mr. Karron to discuss that in further depth. We did incur some large costs in the quarter with regard to the study. We also paid some costs relating to reorganizing our bank line, which I will discuss further in a few minutes. We had other increased expenses like travel. We are really pushing to increase business. Travel is one of the expenses that does increase significantly as a result of those efforts. EBITDA, as a result of a low margin contribution, higher expenses as anticipated.
Adjusted EBITDA did drop by $500,000 from $800,000 last year to $300,000 in 2025. Cash, we had a very strong collections quarter. Encouragingly, we saw cash increase of CAD 3.6 million. Ended the quarter with CAD 5.6 million in the bank, which is very encouraging. Now, dealing with the two new things or new major things that happened in the quarter. One, banking agreement. We signed a new banking agreement with BMO, which increased our credit line from CAD 6,750,000 to CAD 12 million. The line's currently unutilized, and therefore is fully available to fund new businesses. We do expect to use it this year. In the past, we haven't used our credit line. Given what I think is coming forward, or it seems to be coming forward, I think we will be using our credit line this year.
The last main thing that happened in the quarter was that we acquired the remaining 25% of the company that owns our Markham warehouse. The cost of this acquisition was around CAD 2.2 million. In addition to that, we repaid the minority share of the debt of around CAD 500,000, which means that we laid out about CAD 2.7 million in total. This is funded by a new mortgage of CAD 3.7 million, which is used to repay the existing mortgage of around CAD 800,000, as well as the cost of the shares and repayment of minority shareholder debt. Strategically, we felt this acquisition was necessary as the minority shares placed limitations on how we could use our Markham property. Removing them was instrumental in our ability to sign a new banking agreement.
As you can see, the bank were quite happy to significantly increase our credit line by us being able to fully use the mark and warehouse as a security instrument. All in all, a very busy quarter for iFabric . I think basically that's all I really have to say. I'll take any questions of the aisle. All right, Hilton, thank you. I'm going to jump in and just give a little presentation, a little bit of an update, some updates, and just some points that I think it's important at this time for the investor community to understand as we navigate these rather challenging times. The breakdown of our revenue in Q1 was about 10% export, which is chemicals in the Asian market, about 23% in the United States, and over 65% of the revenue of our company is still in Canada.
I think it's important for the investor community to understand that predominance of our revenue is still Canadian-based, while 25% and 26% have got those great growth potentials in the United States. As we start these programs and as they do well, they will grow. We see the future, as I've stated many times, where there's going to be more revenue in the United States than in Canada. Canada is still enjoying rather significant growth in 25% in Q4, as you saw Q4 of last year. I think that Q4 of this year, please keep in mind, we have to have orders in-house in order to produce the goods, bring them in from overseas, and distribute them in a four or five-month window.
With where we sit today in May, it goes without saying that we've pretty much put 25% to bed, and development work that the staff and customers are working on is well into the 2026 calendar year. I'm really very comfortable with the growth that we put out. We said double-digit, whether it's 15% or 20%, I think as the year progresses, and we'll put out updates as we are closer to shipping windows to put more color on how we proceed. There's no doubt that 25% will represent another growth year for the company. Another thing that I just think is very well worth highlighting is that we've been doing this business a long time, and we've been working with overseas supply for a long time. One thing that we did as a corporation is we took a strategy not to cancel one order.
We kept full production on every single order while numbers of 145% were floated. We've got a rather interesting strategy. We've used it for many years in Canada, and we've just opened it in the United States. What we do is we have a bonded warehouse. We bring goods in duty-free, and we store them in our facilities duty-free, which means that when we bring it into Canada, the only time that the goods actually incur a great preservation of cash is the only time that those goods incur the duty bill is the day we ship the goods to the customer. They can sit on the shelf for a month, 2 or 3. For every $1 million that we purchase, that's a $200,000 preservation of cash. 20% is the ballpark duty that we pay.
With that said, in the U.S., we've opened up a, we're doing the final touches of opening up the bonded warehouse in our Houston warehouse location. What we're currently working on is what has been stated openly as the current duty being 30%. We were paying north of 20% already. That was the standard practice for many, many years. What are we looking at? We're looking at, on average, about an 8-10% increase in first cost. We've negotiated with our suppliers. We might take minor hits of a percent or 2 or 3, but really minor compared to the 145%. We are bringing in the goods duty-free. We will then turn around to the retailers as their shelves get leaner. We're already so close, I think, that there will be minor.
They have made it abundantly clear retail prices in the U.S. are going up. At the end of the day, will there be an impact on our financials? Minor at worst and almost insignificant at best because of this being a global supply chain. As I say, China being the major supplier into U.S. for our segment of goods, I think 30% is very, very workable and attainable with the cooperation of the retailers. I think our strategy to not stop any production is going to pay off where a lot of our competitors could have delayed and canceled orders completely. We did not stop any Hylton Karon did make a statement on the EPA study, on the leaching study in Europe, that we had to pay some rather significant money towards. Excuse me.
That just tells everybody this thing is going ahead, full steam ahead. They are having to—these are very expensive bills because they have to develop new science in order to get this leaching study done. This is all pioneering work. I've said it over and over again to people about this exercise. We are the world's first to do it. As each phase is put upon us, in a lot of cases, we've had to develop, or the lab has had to develop the science as we go. Not a quick, not an easy, and not a cheap exercise. Every indication is that we're moving forward and that this, according to EPA, while I cannot guarantee it, is that this is their statement that they have said this is the last thing that they need to give us an apparel designation.
We're very optimistic that we'll get it when. Very tough to say, but we're pushing hard. It's a daily thing internally in our company. We don't take it lightly. We've invested a lot of time and effort, but the result will be there in the end, and we will have many years of being the world's only fabric with a medical kill claim. I think that that will serve this company for many, many years to come. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Q&A, please.
My Wi-Fi holds. If there's an issue, just let me know, and I'll turn my camera off to ask the questions. Just starting with the leaching study, can you be more specific on the cost of the study in the quarter and where it goes from here timing-wise?
The actual study, I believe, is Hilton, you've got the invoices. I don't have them in front of me. I think it's close to $300,000. I know.
No, the quarter, we paid about $170,000. So we pay it as things progress. We do not just pay it off.
There will be some more bills going forward. I think we're at the end game in terms of our cost.
As far as I'm aware, that's the final hour in terms of putting the study to bed. I don't expect beyond the next quarter or so that we will have any further costs, which I suppose speaks to the fact that we anticipate that the study will be complete.
Okay. In terms of timing, when are you expecting completion? I think you're also waiting on a peer review. Do you have any indication?
Those are—thanks, Deborah. Those are two different things. The peer review is just for the medical journal, that's got nothing to do with the EPA. When it comes to timing on these things, it's just irresponsible to put a—we would love to say a month or two or three. From the time we give the GLP study for the EPA on the leaching study, it's about a—and I say that about because it's about a four-month window. We're waiting for this study, whether it's a month, whether it's two months, what I continually tell our followers and our investors who've been with us a long time, if it's another four months or five months in the bigger picture for the years of what it means to our customers. That's really the reason why we're doing it, is what does it do to our marketing ability with our customers?
Are we going to stay the course? I think that 25% into 26%, we all know these customers have built and we have grown this business in five years from $10 million to $30 million. It is not taking us another five years from $30 million to $60 million because people understand and they understand what the significance of what we are working on, what it means to them. I think that we are—and the fact that we are showing that we are continuing and remaining committed to it speaks volumes to them that we are going to stay the course. To give a date is really hard. On the journal, once again, this is not a paid thing that we can control the narrative. This is completely done on an arm's length approach. Once again, we are pushing.
These people have got 30, 40 journals that they—submissions that they work on at a time. We would love to believe that we keep calling and being a pain to try and get our—but once again, it is out of our hands. This is not something that we could pay more to get it done quicker or to call a lobbyist or any of those things. It is just these things take what time they do. We had phenomenal actual lab results of the clinical trial. We know that the empirical data proves how significant our technology is in that market. We just got to wait. Let the journal run its course.
Okay. Another audience question. If the $3 million in revenue that was expected to fall into Q4 had not fallen into Q1 revenue, Q1 would have been down 40% year over year. Is this a concern?
Let me answer that. That guidance that we gave was our feeling of where the year would end. The fact of the matter is all our inventory, even the stuff that was delayed by the strike, did hit our warehouse, and the bulk of it was shipped to customers in last year. We were a bit short of our estimate. I think that's unfortunate, but we still had a record year and a lot to be proud of. The fact that there were these delays did not majorly impact Q1 because we would have shipped all orders that we received from customers up to the year. We may have had some backlog or order book at that point, but that's always the case. Every quarter going forward, there's a backlog of orders that get shipped in the following quarter.
I believe that most of the impact on Q1 was possibly a few hundred thousand dollars, two, three hundred thousand. I do not think it is something to get bent out of shape over. It is what it is. I think having records both last year and in the current quarter does make us—does do us proud. Other than saying that, I do not think there was a $3 million impact in the current quarter. Absolutely, there was not.
Okay. I've got a number of questions on tariffs. Let's start with this one. Group Dynamite quickly moved its production to Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam to avoid the tariffs in China. Is iFabric looking to do something similar?
As I stated, I think I've addressed this. We've brought the duties. I mean, they were 145%. They're down to 30%. Who knows where the final number—but it's going to be in that range is our guesstimate. As I said, we've been paying north of 20% for many, many decades. North of 20% was the average duty we're already paying. You're looking at about a 6-8% difference at first cost, which is something that we can negotiate with our suppliers. They still want our business. We've got factories that make the kind of quality, and we've built our business and grown our business because of the kind of suppliers we have. No. While we have looked at Vietnam, we have looked at Cambodia.
The problem that people don't understand is textiles and clothing, the way it's controlled and tariffed is based on where the raw material comes from. What people don't understand is that these countries like Cambodia, like Vietnam, they actually don't have a supply of fabrics, of raw materials. All the raw materials are going to come from China anyway. By moving our production, the cut and sew and printing to other countries, all it is, it's adding weeks of additional logistics to take fabric from one country to another. There's really no benefit. You're not going to get any kind of a cost savings. I really think that the clothing industry, we've done it for a long time. We've worked with the same factories and the same business people for many, many years.
We've been able to successfully grow this business at a pretty impressive rate and going forward, what they've done for us going forward. No, I don't think that China from a global aspect is going to be a—is not going to be the number one source of clothing well into the future. I really think that that's something that—and if we had to try and find factories to do our products, it would take years for us to get them up to speed, for them to make samples, for us to really find out what they can do and are they reliable sources. We are not going to gamble when we deal with the Walmarts of the world, the Targets of the world, the Kohl's, the Costcos. Timely delivery is critical for us to be their suppliers and grow with them. Excuse me.
We have to have this ability to continually deliver on time. I think that no, it's something we will look at, but it's not something that I honestly see as now that we've brought the duty rates down to within well under a 10% difference, it's just not going to be—it's just not going to impact our industry.
Okay. I had another question just on your U.S. business. Do you view this as being at risk given the tariff situation?
Not at all. Not at all. I think that once again, it's an industry-wide situation. As I said, the retailers have communicated with us that they are willing to change their retail pricing. They have also been doing this for decades, and they know where these commodities come from. From raw material right through finished production, these are really well-groomed industries that have been put in place. Honestly, I do not see a change in source of supply for our industry. I think China is going to be back in a very big way.
Do you foresee destocking on the shelves in the U.S.?
No. People still need underwear. People, it's just go find a Hanes brand, all these big companies. They manufacture overseas. They appear as North American or U.S. brands. Go look at the label of where their product is made. It's made overseas. No, I don't see destocking of brands. I know you go to the LCBO here and you can't find your California wine. It's very different when it comes to apparel and clothing. People need underwear. People are going to need their denim jeans. It's not made in the U.S. anymore. Those industries are not coming back. Can they bring back some car production? Can they bring back some big-ticket items? Can they bring back the metal industry? Probably. They're going to give it a try. It's going to take years and years and years. This is not a flick of the switch situation.
In the interim, people have got short attention span. They're going to want their new fashion. They're going to want their new clothing. We're going to be able to supply it. There is no way where the North American who works for $10-$15 an hour and you're paying $10 a day manufacturing overseas, even if they put 200%, it's still cheaper manufacturing overseas. Those industries are not coming back to North America, period. Not going to happen.
Could you expand on who pays? Oh, sorry, Hilton. Oh, no. Okay. I thought you were saying something. My apologies. Could you expand on who pays the tax on your products? Your U.S. customers, i.e., Walmart, or does iFabric land the goods?
No. Unfortunately, we are the lander of the goods. So what we do, believe it or not, and with a lot of our suppliers, we do what's called DDP, Duty Delivered, Duty Paid. So it's included in their price to us. They've got to land the goods at the port through customs as part of our negotiated price with them. So there's really only 2 models. Either they pay it or we pay it. So it's just a negotiation on how we get the best pricing. We are moving more and more and more towards them. And then the risk. When the goods are on the water, as opposed to us owning the goods FOB the port in Asia, then we've got to carry the insurance risk, etc., etc., and pay bigger deposits. It's far more advantageous for us to leave the risk.
Until the goods are off the ship at the port in the container, cleared through customs, that's when ownership gets transferred to us.
Got it. Okay. Are you impacted in any way by the elimination of the de minimis tariff exemption by the U.S. for China and Hong Kong?
I'm going to plead ignorance. I'm not.
No. You have an exemption. So if goods were under, I think it's $800.
$800. We know. That's not our market. That's not our market. That's not our business.
Okay. So no way.
We ship container loads to our customers. We don't ship to the individual consumer. That's just something that people that run websites are going to try and it'll impact them.
Got it. Okay. Last quarter, you indicated that the U.S. margin might be impacted by 10% and the Canadian by 5%. Is this still your thinking?
Probably less. It's probably going to be less. I think that, as I said, we've had these stable suppliers for many, many years. We negotiate prices well in advance. There might be some minor pricing. I think now that we've got pricing from them, I think there might be more impact on the U.S. side, to be honest. As I said, it's under 25% of our revenue. Canada this year is going to, in the fourth quarter, I mean, we know what we're producing now in new segments. We've actually got two new segments that we'll make some noise about closer to the delivery time. Our customers wouldn't be happy with us putting out announcements about what we've developed for them for putting on the shelf later in the year, which is both U.S. and Canadian in product segments we've never delivered into before.
While our core business remains solid, these are going to be very exciting new additions to the business in no insignificant way.
Okay. And then.
Can I add something there, Hilton? I mean, it's not only about tariffs. Currency also plays a part of our costing structure. Actually, if the US dollar gets weaker, and it did get weaker recently, our goods get cheaper. That can offset some of the tariff costs or quite a big chunk of it. We have a strategy for Forex. We have forward contracts, and we try and lock in our margin with clever currency manipulation. It's not all about the tariffs. Currency can actually play a big part in mitigating the currency risk. I mean, the tariff risk.
Understood. Okay. Yeah, that seems sensible. A couple more audience questions. So the weakness in the Intimate Apparel division, do you foresee this being an ongoing issue, or is it just a one-quarter anomaly?
I would say it's more of a one-quarter anomaly. We've got some very nice initiatives going into 2026 where that business is still relevant to the overall. As we've stated over and over again, the intimates business is not the business that's taking us to $50 million and $100 million. It's a core small segment business that will turn its $8 million, $10 million a year. We've got such a small and unique little segment in the specialty area of lingerie that it really is never, since we've introduced Intelligent Fabrics and all the variety of products that we continually grow in, we do, Hylton Karon said, it's a great margin contributor to the bottom line. Where we can find pertinent programs, we will continue to service that segment of the market.
It is not something that is going to really impact the bottom line of the total group at the end of the year. It is not great. I mean, retailers, they have some good quarters, some bad quarters. As Hylton says, when you put in in Q4, Q1 is traditionally the weakest quarter for that business. Yeah. Can I add to that as well? We did bring in quite a lot of inventory pre-tariffs. Hopefully, we will be cushioned for at least one quarter. We do carry a significant inventory in the U.S. and Canada for that matter. In the U.S., that inventory that we held or we currently hold came in pre-tariff.
Okay. Have you had any reluctance by customers to place orders for 2026? Are you seeing any slowdown?
Not at all. Absolutely not at all. No. In fact, there are certain programs where we open them in 2025, and before we've even delivered the first unit, they've already told us what 2026 looks like. They're that encouraged by the business. No, not at all. I think now that, as I said, the tariffs have come down so precipitously, it is now a real opportunity. It's pretty much business back to normal.
Okay. Got a question about current and future contracts in the defense sector. Do you currently have any contracts in defense?
No, we do not. We believe that we have got something that is pertinent to that part of life. It is something we will continue to try and get some audience at some point in time. I think the fact that the business is growing at the rate that it is growing at, and when people see in Q4 what we have added to the business for 2025 and 2026, it is a lovely thing that we have got so much generic organic growth in this business for so many years to come. The military application and pertinence is something that has absolutely been on our radar. We will just continue to try and find the right audience for people to appreciate what we can add to that industry. It is not something that we are blind to. It is something we will continue to find entrée into that industry.
Too early to talk about revenue and margin.
Yeah. There's no specific program that's at the stage of product design at this point in time. Absolutely not.
Another audience question asking about the online direct customer business and how that's performing.
We've got it. Once again, it's not a great revenue driver for us. We're not in the, we're really not in the retail business. I mean, we offer it, and we offer it at retail prices. The margin's pretty phenomenal for us. Really, our core business is volume delivery to the major retailers. I think that that's a model that works well for us. I think that for the future, that's pretty much what we've got to continue. That's what we're known for and what we're comfortable with.
Yeah. I'll add to that. We've got our own brand that we do the retail through. We're promoting that brand. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we actually sort of brands for major retailers. As a strategy, we might give that brand over to one of the major retailers having promoted it.
Because as Hilton says, our business is volume. Once a brand is recognized and we can get it in at the major retailers, we might well transition and do it that way.
Got it. Okay. One last audience question, just talking about growth drivers and upcoming catalysts. Maybe you could list some of those for us.
I think that we've seen it last year, and you're going to see it again this year. As I said, you've got to know year after year, month after month, we have to have orders in-house now in order to deliver 3-5 months from now. The drivers for this year are these new programs, these new products over and above the core generic growth of these programs that are growing so well and continue to really deliver for our customer. I mean, that's what it's all about at the end of the day, is the goods checking out on their shelves. We're just so happy that we've had such success that they keep inviting us. The question always is, what else can you do for us?
I think that when one sees, and you can hold us to it, when one sees the end of 2025 come out, never mind 2026, we've got some wonderful new product segments in really nice numbers that will go on top of really strong business. Honestly, there's really not much more to say than that right now. It's really we are so pleased with our order book for this year. It's going to be another record year for the company. We've always stated numbers, and we've always come pretty damn close. We're comfortable saying that this year is going to be another significant move up for the company.
That's great. Congrats on a solid start to the year. Q1 looks really good. Yeah, looking forward to seeing this company perform over the coming quarters and seeing some of those milestones hopefully achieved. It'd be great to see some value unlocked. Yeah, thank you for your time. Thank you to the audience for participating and for your questions. If anyone has any follow-up questions or would like a call with Hilton, please feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to arrange that for you. Hilton and Hylton, congratulations. Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thanks.