The end of the quarter stood at CAD 369.1 million or 3.16 pro forma adjusted EBITDA. We believe our balance sheet provides the flexibility to continue to execute our strategy of becoming a fast-growing digital-intensive provider of audio and video music brand. Finally, during the fourth quarter, we purchased CAD 80,000 shares under our normal course issuer bid program. For the whole fiscal year, we bought back CAD [2.1] million shares for a cash consideration of CAD 15 million under the current and previous NCIBs. The current program allow us to repurchase CAD 3.2 million shares until September 26, 2022. This end my presentation. I will turn back the call to Eric.
Yeah. It seems that we might have an issue with the call, JP, so.
Oh, yeah. Technical.
It seems that maybe only the analysts are on the call, so let's see. I'll let you go with the operator.
Operator, are you there?
Hi, I am here. Are we ready for the Q&A session?
Operator, we seem to have all participants that are muted for the call. We wanna verify if the analysts were able to hear the call.
Okay. Let me double-check that for you. They should have been able to hear all of the conversation. One moment. Hello. Yep, they're just in listen-only mode at the moment. As soon as we are ready to start the Q&A, they'll be able to speak as well as hear.
Let's see. Let's start the Q&A and see.
Okay, perfect. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be pooled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the pooling process, please press the star followed by the number two. One moment for your first question. Your first question comes from Matt Lee, Canaccord . Please go ahead.
Hey, morning, guys. Yeah, I was able to hear the call just fine, so that's not a problem. I think the one question that we have is regarding, you know, margins for the next year. Can you help us understand what you're expecting in terms of an EBITDA margin and maybe, you know, cash flow margin, you know, for next year?
Yeah, a very good question. This quarter, there was CAD 4 million of extra OpEx. CAD 2 million is an investment. CAD 2 million was a bit non-recurring capitalization of R&D and different stuff. Expect our EBITDA margin to be between 33% and 35%. We should be back to normal. The same EBITDA margin we had. For the year, we had 35%, and we expect to stay in the same range.
That's great. Then maybe you can kind of talk about the opportunity you're seeing in out-of-home advertising, and kind of the revenue you're expecting that to contribute this year.
Yeah. Roughly the inventory right now we have in Canada is about CAD 60 million of inventory that we can sell, and that's at four minutes an hour. Very excited, lots of potential. Our inventory in the U.S. is closer to CAD 100 million, so we have a lot of inventory left to sell in the U.S. Our number one mandate is to sell that inventory. Like in the radio business, if you don't sell it, you lose it. It's ramping up. I think this year, no, this quarter, as you saw, our advertising this quarter was close to CAD 7.6 million. That's what we did. It gives you a good.
I think, you know, with the ramp-up, Stingray Advertising should be close to CAD 35 million-CAD 40 million based on our current numbers.
Great. Maybe digging down, you know, what type of margin does that advertising revenue come with?
For sure, the gross profit on that one is smaller because of the accounting. The revenues are taken gross, but we share a large percentage with our partners, and then we pay commission. You should expect a gross profit closer to the 40%-45% range instead of 80% when we work on net. It's just because of the revenue share with our partners.
Great. That's it for me. Thanks.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Adam Shine, National Bank Financial.
Thanks a lot. Good morning. Hi. Just to follow up or two on the last couple of questions. I thought the margin range was being targeted to sort of 35% to maybe 40%. Now we're talking, I think, Eric, 33%-35%, total net consolidated?
Yeah, because if you take the retail media
Yeah.
Which has a gross profit of 45% instead of 80%, and this year we expect to do, you know, close to CAD 30 million- CAD 40 million in that new product line, it affects your EBITDA margin. It's not that it's not profitable, it's just that it's, we have the revenue share that we give to Metro and Walmart and CVS.
Okay. If we think about, you know, FY 2022, as Mathieu alluded to in the opening remarks, as a transitional year and certainly, you know, a catch-up year in the context of COVID and e asy comps. You know, this year is about evolving recovery. Can you speak at all to, you know, the opportunity here in terms of the top line, when we think about CAD 35 million- CAD 40 million of advertising revenue, when we think about some ongoing traction of late in the traditional radio business. You know, I see the prospect of, let's call it, double-digit revenue growth, to say the least. Looking around the level maybe of CAD 325 million, and then I guess to that, we need to think about 33%-35% type margin. Is that a reasonable way to look at fiscal 2023?
I think so. I think you're in the right range. For Q1, because these results are late and we're in June. Q1, we should have a very similar quarter in terms of growth than we had in Q4. Again, double digit. Q1 is looking good. Difficult to promise, you know, if something's gonna happen in October, November, December. So far, the start of the year, the organic growth is double digit, and the radio was also pacing well with the same type of growth. I think for us, the EBITDA range, for sure we're coming back. There's a lot of OpEx that were one-off, so I think we're confident about those numbers also. Again, depending on there being no big surprise coming in the fall.
Right. Just to, you know, in terms of semantics, you're still having a reporting segment called Broadcasting and Commercial Music. When we think about, you know, the nature of how Stingray Business specifically is evolving, maybe you could just elaborate on what exactly the overall umbrella product is that's being pushed to the Stingray Business clients. Because, you know, we've got Stingray Business as we originally know it in terms of, you know, the in-store music and the digital signage. To that you add the Chatter, right? In terms of the AI insights, and then of course, this new construct being the Stingray Advertising, right? Which sort of replaces the Stingray Retail Media advertising network.
Is there an overall umbrella for all of these products, you know, go to market, or is Stingray Business the default catch-all?
Yeah. I think, you know, for us it's the same customer. Example, Metro. Metro buys signage, Metro buys music. We do advertising in Metro, and we also do Chatter and AI in Metro. That's the way we segment our business. It's one contact. All of this, all of these products, we put it under Stingray Business and for sure Stingray Business as a whole, because you're adding a lot of the retail media, you know, will have a very large growth like we saw last quarter. It's gonna be a very big year for Stingray Business.
You know, I think you've been spending quite a bit of time talking about, you know, the nature obviously of the in-store advertising network and obviously the retail media traction in Canada. Can you speak at all to anything going on in regards to Stingray Business in other parts of the world where you have operations like Mexico, Australia?
Yeah. For us, you know, Australia is still a nice business to get global deals because most of our, like we just got Nespresso, we got Tesla, so it helps us with global deals, but it's a small unit. Mexico also helps us with global deals, but it's a small unit. Our number one focus for Stingray Business is U.S. That's where our growth will be coming, not only for the music but also with the Stingray Advertising. We're looking to get more customers. We have 16,000 locations in the U.S. that we can sell advertising. Good news is we're moving forward with a partner that will give us measurement like we did in Canada. We are working with a, t hat should be coming in the next few weeks or next month. We're excited about that, and we'll be able to start monetizing the network in the U.S . Like we do in Canada with agencies at a much higher CPM. The CPM we're getting in Canada is close, for audio, is close to $ 20. Great CPM in Canada and because of the measurement. If we could do the same CPM in the U.S., that will be our big win.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Adam.
Your next question comes from Drew McReynolds, RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Excuse me. Thanks very much. Good morning. Couple of follow-ups, just from Adam's questions or earlier questions. Just on the radio recovery, you flagged automotive, which obviously continues to be weak. You know, are there any other categories out there that you would kinda consider just not fully recovered? Just trying to unpack what is left here to come into the picture, assuming there's a continued return to normal. Second question on just the SVOD and OTT subscriptions. Another uptick, sequentially here off the seasonally strong quarter. Just some granularity on how you're tracking with those subscriptions on, and are you on the path to a million like you've previously indicated that was a target.
I'll have one more after that. Thanks.
Okay. Drew. For the radio, again, Q1, April, May, June, again, strong growth, double-digit growth, very happy with how we're recovering. Stingray Radio, very strong with local sales. The only negative part again is we're not getting the same visibility with national sales. We're not getting the same orders in advance that we used to have, so the business is more last minute. Very happy for Q1 and Q2. The car business is still not back. I agree with you. One of our board members, as you know, is Rob Steel, who has many car dealerships. We were talking yesterday at the board that we still see an order problem.
There's still low inventory being given to car dealership, so we don't see that coming back for the next six to 12 months. On the good side is the radio team has started to sell in the Walmarts and Metro. We're getting some local sales in our Stingray business network. There's always new products. As you know, in Ontario opened up the lottery rules for gaming. As you can see on radio, you're hearing a lot more gaming ads. I think we're able to adapt. Slowly but surely, because of the cost savings, our EBITDA will be close to what it was pre-pandemic, even if sales are lower. It is quarter- by- quarter. I wish I could give you more visibility for the next 12 months.
For the SVOD, we're still on pace to hit a million subscribers. I think another big growth is coming from Amazon. Amazon's a great partner. Now we launch in Australia, we'll be launching in India, Sweden, Germany. The more countries they launch, the better it is for us. We also have some new partners in Mexico, and also our friends at Google and YouTube are also looking to launch an SVOD service. A lot of big partners are getting into that game. By de facto, Stingray Classica, Jazz, Karaoke, and Qello is being picked as always in the top lineup of when they launch their products. Very happy to be partners with these global players.
The main advantage we have, and the same reason we did a deal with Tesla, or we just did a deal with LG. The reason LG chose us as their music partner is because Tesla, LG, Amazon, Google, they want partners with global rights. That's one of the advantages of Stingray. Because of our presence in all the cable industry, we're able to have global rights for all our products, which makes us unique. Not many companies in our space have global rights, so that's a big advantage.
Thank you. One final one, just back to the margin trajectory. It sounds like there's a little bit of non-recurring, obviously a little bit of mix, but coming with a higher, you know, revenue growth profile. In terms of the incremental investment that you talked to in fiscal 2022 that you're putting into the business, will we see incremental investment of any kind of materiality in fiscal 2023 as you kinda look to look at your strategic initiatives? Or is the step up of investment, you know, somewhat behind you? Just trying to size that one up.
No. Right now we're investing, let's say, CAD 2 million a quarter for the U.S. business and retail media or Stingray Advertising for those products. That's CAD 8 million a year. You know, retail media in Canada had in Q4 zero sales. Now this quarter, we're getting our sales and we have a good pipeline for this year. That's what I mean. The investment will stay the same, but now we're gonna have sales with it. I think officially April, May, June is when we officially started selling ads. A lot of new customers, very exciting, and huge growth. The beauty about that, all that growth is organic. We'll be able to monetize our investment starting in Q1.
Got it.
So.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The answer is no incremental investment in 2023.
Yeah. Got it. Thanks, Eric.
Thanks, Drew. Sorry for the voice.
Yeah, all good.
Your next question comes from Tim Casey, BMO. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I wanna go back to the margin discussion here. I mean, how did we go from 35%- 40% to 33%- 35%? I don't understand that. You know, yeah, mix is an issue, but is there an erosion in margin in all the other, let's call it non-radio businesses? The radio margin is fairly transparent. But what's going on in B&C there? Because this is not an immaterial change in your direction here, and I'm just confused as to what has happened here.
Yeah, good. Tim, I agree with you. One big part with radio is, as you know, January, February, March is our lowest quarter of the year because it's the lowest in sales and the fixed costs are the same. So, the radio, you know, went from 40%, 42% EBITDA margin in October, November, December down to 29%, just based on sales. So, there's a bit of seasonality when you look at Q4, so we gotta be careful there. It's always our weakest quarter because of the impact on radio.
Eric, I'm not talking about the quarter, I'm talking about the full year.
Yeah.
You're directing us to 33%-35%. That's a long way from 35%-40%. I just don't understand what's happened here.
I, again, the impact of retail media this year is significant. I'm happy to do a bridge with you after the call just to, with Stingray Advertising, you got a gross profit of CAD 40-CAD 45, so, you know, it's not gonna give you 40% EBITDA margin. There is a big impact coming this year with that transition because of the gross or net. I'm happy to do the bridge analysis, which you came after.
Sure. Okay. A couple more then. In terms of the direction you're giving us in terms of investment, I mean, are you putting M&A sort of on the, you know, back burner or setting it aside for right now and focusing on operations? Are you still looking to M&A as a strategic growth lever?
No, for this year, you know, we discussed with the board. M&A is more on the back burner. ISAN was a strong acquisition of over CAD 60 million, and we have a lot of inventory to sell. For us, our number one focus is to sell the inventory in Canada, the CAD 60 million, and to sell the CAD 100 million of inventory that we have available right now in the U.S. without any new customers. I mean, without any new suppliers. A lot of emphasis to hire people, meet more agencies and to show the advantage of retail media. I think for us to deliver strong organic sales because all this is brand new organic.
Unless there's something very, very focused or niche that would complement this, I think we're more in a, you know, how you say, transitioning our deal with retail media and focusing on that.
Right. Okay. Last one. What are you hearing from your regulatory contacts in terms of the radio file and ownership review? I mean, it seems like the industry is having trouble getting the CRTC's attention. Like, do you see this as a review that it's gonna happen in 2023? Or what are your thoughts on timing and outcome there?
No. With the CRTC, everything seems to be delayed. You saw it with the Rogers-Shaw deal. You know, a lot of hearings are being delayed. My expectation is the more we work with them, my expectations get lower. Hopefully, it was supposed to be in the spring. They were saying the radio review will be in April, May. Now it could be the fall. Again, it's not only me. It's when we speak to all our other partners, Bell and Rogers and Corus, I think we all seem to be disappointed in the timing of these reviews. For now, I'd say it's on hold.
If and when it comes, how are you thinking about how Stingray will approach the opportunity?
You know, we're speaking to all the other partners, and everybody's in a holding pattern right now because nobody knows what's gonna happen and the timing. I think we'll have to reevaluate when we get at least a guidance on when the decision's coming. It's, you know, hopefully everybody is confident that we'll go from two radio stations to four. Again, you never know with even the government and the CRTC. Difficult to plan something that is not based on what management can do.
Righto. Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Tim.
Your next question comes from Scott Fletcher, CIBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking the call. I wanted to ask a couple questions on the ISAN acquisition now that you've had it in the fold for a quarter. The first thing I wanted to ask is, it looks like, you know, the revenue contribution was a little more than we might have expected, given the LTM performance when you said you're talking around CAD 18.5 million when you bought it. Have expectations changed around organic growth now that you've had it in the business for a quarter?
Yeah. We've been at ISAN. The U.S. network has been highly, you know, it's done very well. We did almost $5.6 million last quarter. So, I don't want, depending on the exchange rate, we did CAD 6.5 million-CAD 7 million. I'm just giving you overall numbers. Very strong quarter. We expect the same results to come in Q1, Q2. I think we're on a good track. Again, we're only selling 15%-20% of our inventory, so we still have 80% more to sell. Those sales will need to come with more advertisers, more sales people.
I must say this, the U.S. network is a large network of 16,000 stores, so very happy with it.
Okay, thanks. Then maybe on the margin side, I saw one of their main competitors raise some VC money. I'm just wondering if you think that that's gonna be an even further pressure on the margins there, just given the competitive environment. Obviously, they're looking to hire and they're looking to increase sales as well.
Yeah.
Curious what the margin thoughts are there?
The reason why the margin, you could debate, if we took the revenues on a net basis, then the gross profit would be 90% because our only cost that we have is the sales team, which is roughly 10%. If you take it on a gross basis, depending on what revenue share you do with different partners, then that's what I mean, when your gross profit goes down to 45%. I think the margins will remain strong again. I don't see. The fact that our competitor, Vibenomics, raised money is good news for us. There's more and more attention going for audio ads in stores.
It's a new market. Very happy to be like Pepsi and Coca-Cola or Burger King and McDonald's. I think, you know, there's a big market coming and excited how we can show that space, which is again, most of the retail media is done online. When you think about it, and they do video, not much audio happening in the U.S. and Canada.
Okay, thanks. I'll ask. Yeah, sorry.
Go ahead.
Okay. I'll just ask one more question. Just on the synergies you're expecting with the deal, I mean, is that CAD 16 million number still the target and still sort of what you think you can get out of it?
Are you talking, just to make sure, Canadian or U.S.?
Oh, sorry. I'm talking about the ISAN deal again. You mentioned that you saw CAD 16 million cost synergies or synergies total.
Do you think? [crosstalk]
Last quarter.
You're talking the 16, is it EBITDA or what's the 16?
I think that's what you said last time, but just wondering if basically maybe zooming out, is the EBITDA margin. Sorry, is the synergy target sort of still in place? Do you think that you could still, you know, realize what you thought you did when you bought the business?
Our biggest synergies with ISAN is first to get a measurement. In Canada, we have Comscore, and we're working to get a measurement in the U.S. Second is to get the [POSes] connected, and third is to work with our partner, Hivestack , to start selling ads from agencies as a much higher CPM. That's coming forward. In terms of whatever with synergies, the EBITDA that was in Canadian dollars, we are on track to what was given to the market.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.
I'm not sure if it's CAD 16 million EBITDA or what the number is, but I'm happy to take that 16 offline.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn it back to Mr. Mathieu Péloquin. Please go ahead.
Okay. Well, this concludes our call for today. We understand that we did have technical issues. We'll validate that the webcast has been properly recorded for anyone else who wishes to listen to the call. With that, I thank you very much and talk to you later. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.