Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Rogers Sugar First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session, which will be open only to financial analysts. Instructions will be given at that time. Please note that this call is being recorded today, February 10, at 8:00 A.M. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mike Walton. Please go ahead, Mr. Walton.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me for today's call is Jean-Sébastien Couillard, VP, Finance and CFO. During today's call, I will review the first quarter results for 2022 and trends in our industry. please be reminded that today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding our future operations and expectations. Such statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied today. Please also note that we may refer to some non-GAAP measures in our call. Please refer to the forward-looking disclaimers and non-GAAP measure definitions included in our public filings with the Securities Commission for more information on these items. A replay of this call will be available later today.
The replay numbers and passcodes have been provided in our press release, and an archived recording of this call will also be available on our website. I would like to start off this call by underscoring our continued positive outlook for the business for fiscal 2022, despite some headwinds in the first quarter which impacted sales. Our full-year sugar volume guidance remains unchanged as we expect to make up delayed volumes from the first quarter over the next three quarters. While volatility will likely continue in the coming months, overall, we expect underlying demand for sugar to remain strong as retail inventory levels return to pre-COVID norms. Additionally, we anticipate that improved pricing and a successful harvest season in Taber will lead to improved profitability over last year. Our outlook for the maple business also remains positive, and our demand expectations for the year have not changed.
We expect to recoup inflationary increases as we renegotiate contracts and expect to see improved margin growth, and profitability from the last fiscal year. Moving on now to the impacts from COVID-19 and some of the global and industry-wide challenges we've been facing over the past several months. In the latter half of December, as Omicron transmission grew and the number of community cases increased, we took steps to uphold our rigorous health and safety standards. We deployed rapid tests to all employees for a safe return to work after the holiday season, while also increasing our masking requirements to N95s in any plant that had an outbreak. In addition, our internal COVID committee, which includes a working group of nurses, site leadership, and our executive committee, continued to meet twice weekly to discuss evolving conditions and decide how best to ensure worker safety and uninterrupted operations.
In the first quarter of 2022, our overall investment in health and safety measures related to the pandemic was lower than the same time last year. We expect costs to lower over time. However, they will continue to be affected by changing case counts. Costs have been trending downward over the past year, and absent a surge of community cases, we expect this trend to continue. Our people have continued to manage and operate our business reliably and capably, despite the prolonged and ever-changing impacts of COVID on our operations. I am very proud of the care and thoughtfulness demonstrated by our employees and their commitment to deliver essential ingredients to those who depend on us. While we have managed to avoid any material COVID-related shutdowns to date, a number of our industrial customers have not been so fortunate.
Towards the end of the calendar year, our sugar volumes lowered as a result of unexpected reductions in demand as labor shortages caused shutdowns at some customer facilities. The volatility caused by Omicron has led to global supply chain impacts, carrier shortages, and inflationary increases, which affected our operations in the first quarter. In addition to the impact of COVID-19, our supply chain was affected by the floods in British Columbia, which caused a longer-lasting impact than initially expected. We are monitoring the impact on our supply chain and inflationary increases in international freight, local freight, packaging, and warehousing. These increases are largely captured in future maple contract renewals and have lesser impact on our sugar business as we are an FOB seller. Let's turn to our first quarter results.
Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was impacted by several external factors that led to results below our internal expectations and a reduction from the same quarter last year. In addition to the impact of COVID-19 and natural disasters on demand and shipping costs, Adjusted EBITDA lowered as a result of a lag in passing through increased costs in the maple business and increased non-cash administration expenses. Now starting with our sugar business. Our sugar volumes reached 180,000 metric tons in sales, approximately 10,000 metric tons lower than last year, largely due to lower demand in our consumer and industrial segments.
Our consumer business lowered by 6,000 metric tons as COVID-related demand lowered and retailers reduced previously built-up inventory levels to more historic norms. As well, the impact of the BC floods and the extended road closures carried over into the first quarter and led to a loss of specialty product sales in some markets in the province. Given the extremely poor road conditions in Western Canada following the floods, we temporarily suspended the transportation of some specialty sugar product categories to protect the safety of workers who transport our products. Our industrial business segment lowered by 3,600 metric tons, primarily due to the impact of increased COVID cases, especially in the last two weeks of December. Several large clients faced staffing shortages which limited production capacity and caused some customers to unexpectedly delay their shipments.
Growth in our liquid business partly offset these lower volumes with an increase of 3,000 metric tons from the same period last year and from increased sales from new and existing customers. As expected, our export business decreased by 3,800 metric tons from the same quarter last year when we took advantage of a one-time opportunistic quota under the ratified Canada-U.S. -Mexico Agreement. Despite the lower sales volumes in consumer and industrial, our most profitable business segments, adjusted gross margin improved as a result of higher pricing and increased byproduct contributions. Overall, our sugar segment has been able to adjust quickly to the changing pricing environment and is largely staying ahead of inflationary pressures. Finally, for sugar, the Taber crop is progressing well thanks to the early harvest program we implemented last year.
This year's harvest season delivered the expected beet volumes and the processing campaign is going well. We expect approximately 120,000 metric tons of beet sugar production from this year's campaign. In our Maple segment, Adjusted EBITDA lowered to CAD 3.4 million in the first quarter. This was due to reduced consumer demand, shipping delays, and inflationary wage, freight, and packaging increases. Sales volume decreased in the first quarter as a result of lower consumer sales, largely driven by ongoing consumer volatility. Sales volumes were also impacted by delayed shipments due to backlogs from global shipping issues. A tight labor market, particularly in Quebec, led to higher wage costs in the first quarter, which increased our cost structure, but has also led to improved employee retention in our Maple business.
While there can be a lag in passing through these increased costs to our customers, as we saw it in the first quarter, we continue to negotiate price increases on new contracts and expect to catch up to inflationary impacts as contracts come up for renewal. As well, we continue to see the positive impacts of price increases previously implemented. Maple is a global product that is shipped worldwide and continues to have a strong order book. We expect growth to remain firm moving forward, although at more normalized level from the highs sustained during the pandemic. As many of you know, last year, maple production was lower than usual as a result of poor weather conditions. This, combined with increased demand from COVID-19, led to a significant drawdown of the strategic maple reserve.
While the reserve is lower than typical, we believe there is sufficient capacity to supply the market. Following several years of excellent growth, including 20% industry-wide growth in the last two years, PPAQ has approved 7 million additional taps to help supply the growing global demand for maple products. Approximately 1.5-3 million of these taps are being installed this year and will begin to contribute to production in 2022. Spring is a crucial time in the maple syrup production, and so it is too early to speak to the 2022 crop, but we expect to be able to update the market at the end of Q2. As I mentioned last quarter, global demand for sugar remains strong, and we are assessing our current capacity level, future demand projections, and our ability to capture growth opportunities as they occur.
Over the next few quarters, we will be evaluating our capacity utilization, production optimization, and other potential levers to meet this increased demand. Finally, I want to again say thank you to our employees. Our employees work responsibly and thoughtfully to meet the needs of our clients and get the critical ingredients they need every day. Now I will turn the call over to JF, who will provide additional information on the quarterly results.
Well, thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of 2022, our Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 26.1 million, down CAD 1.6 million from the same quarter last year, due mainly to lower profitability in our Maple segment. As Mike mentioned, our Maple segment was affected by lower sales volumes and higher packaging and labor costs. Our sugar segment was also impacted by lower volumes compared to last year due to ongoing market volatility caused in part by the pandemic. However, the volume shortfall was offset by improved pricing on several key customers negotiated over the recent months. We are expecting overall pricing to continue to improve in 2022, reflecting the current market conditions in Canada. Let's begin our review with some comments on our sugar segment.
Sugar sales volume in the first quarter was 180,000 metric tons, 10,000 metric tons lower than the first quarter of 2021. This was driven by a decrease in consumer and industrial volumes, partially offset by an increase in liquid volumes. As well, export volumes decreased from the same quarter last year due to the absence of a one-time U.S. quota opportunity of approximately 4,000 metric tons. This opportunity in the first quarter of last year was done under CUSMA and provided us with a healthy contribution to our financial results. Our adjusted gross margin was CAD 0.7 million higher in the first quarter compared to last year. The revenue shortfall created by the lower sales volume was more than offset by improved pricing, contributing for about CAD 2 million and higher byproduct net contribution of CAD 2.7 million.
The increase in byproduct contribution relates mainly to pricing increases for beet pellets and molasses sales. This improved pricing was market-driven and is expected to continue throughout the year. On a per unit basis, adjusted gross margin improved by over CAD 13 per metric ton to CAD 174 per metric ton in the first quarter of 2022. This reflects the improvements in pricing and the stability of our operating costs. Administration and selling costs increased by CAD 1.8 million compared to the same quarter last year, primarily as a result of higher share prices, which led to a non-cash increase in share-based compensation expense for the first quarter. Distribution costs decreased by CAD 0.4 million in the first quarter, despite the tight and difficult supply chain and logistic market.
The decrease was due to lower volume of sugar moved between plants to meet customer demand as inventory level at the beginning of fiscal 2022 was higher compared to the beginning of 2021, hence relieving pressure on our supply chain. As Mike mentioned, our sugar beet crop is progressing well. We are at the tail end of the processing stage, which is expected to be completed at the end of February. The harvest portion of the campaign provided the expected amount of beets and thus far the quality is aligned with our expectations. At this stage, we anticipate a production of 120,000 metric ton of beet sugar from our Taber operation. We remain positive for the outlook of our sugar business for fiscal 2022.
We anticipate that the volume shortfall of the first quarter, which principally occurred in the later part of December, will materialize over the next quarters as a significant portion of the variance was due to timing and stronger volume of exports are anticipated in the future. We also want to point out that the return to normal operation for our Taber operating facility, along with the current and expected improvement in pricing for large customers, will contribute to an improvement of Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2022 as compared to fiscal 2021. Let's now turn to our Maple segment. As discussed earlier, Adjusted EBITDA in Maple decreased CAD 1.5 million from the same period last year. The decrease was due to lower volume from reduced demand from existing customers, along with timing issues related to supply chain challenges encountered in the quarter.
The lower EBITDA was also caused by higher costs associated with packaging material and labor availability challenges. Consistent with the element discussed above, adjusted gross margin percentage decreased by 80 basis points compared to the same quarter last year. While our costs were affected by inflationary pressures this quarter, we expect there to be only a short lag until we are able to recoup most of these costs with renewed contracts. Administration and selling expenses remained largely unchanged from the prior year period, and distribution costs decreased due to the volume reduction. Our outlook for the maple business segment remains positive for the remainder of 2022 as we anticipate our volume to reach 52 million pounds, which is similar to last fiscal year and is supported by the fact that we haven't had any significant customer loss since last year and are seeing strong demand going forward.
We are expecting that recent price increases negotiated with customers will improve our quarterly EBITDA. Now I would like to highlight other related financial items. Our adjusted net earnings for the first quarter were CAD 11 million or CAD 0.11 per share as compared to CAD 12.2 million or CAD 0.12 per share for the comparable period last year. Free cash flow for the last 12 months increased by CAD 2 million compared to the same period last year. The increase was mainly attributable to lower interest paid and an increase in Adjusted EBITDA, excluding non-cash items, partially offset by higher income tax payments and higher capital expenditures, excluding value-added projects. Overall, our capital expenditures for the quarter were slightly lower than last year at CAD 2.8 million compared to CAD 4.4 million.
The variance was mainly due to timing as we expect to spend between CAD 25 million and CAD 30 million in 2022. Today, we're also announcing that the board of directors approved a payment of CAD 0.09 per share dividend in relation with the results of the first quarter. This is consistent with the dividends paid in previous quarters for the last several years. We are anticipating maintaining our dividend payout practice for the foreseeable future. In closing, I would like to reiterate that despite lower Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter, we anticipate improvement in our 2022 financial results over the results posted in 2021. Our expectation is supported by the recent improvements in pricing, the prospect of a good production out of our Taber facility, the stability of our operations, and the current volume forecast received from our customers.
We are looking forward to the next three quarters to yield results showing improved profitability for both of our business segments. With that, I would like to turn the call back over to the operator for questions.
Thank you. In order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Please note that we'll only take questions from analysts today. Our first question is from Michael Van Aelst with TD Securities. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning.
Morning, Michael.
Are you having any challenges at all sourcing raw sugar given the global supply chain issues?
No, we're not having any troubles sourcing raw sugar due to global supply chain issues. We did have a boat in December that was delayed because of mechanical issues, but no material shortages on raw, Michael.
Yeah, that's good to hear. On the pricing, when did the price increases for sugar kick in?
Well, some of which started to kick in the later part of last year and last quarter. We also, I think, we mentioned in our outlook, we also have some other ones that are effective January first. We, you know, part of our, I would say the reason we feel favorable for our outlook is the fact that we have, you know, good market-based price increase that have kicked in and will kick in in the new year, allowing us to improve our financial results line.
When I see your gross profit per metric ton up as much as particularly considering the mix, you know, it looks like you're not only catching up on some cost pass-through, but getting ahead of it a little bit. Does that make sense?
Yeah, Michael, that's exactly correct. As I reported last quarter, you know, given the market and how strong the market is on volume, our focus has now returned to margin improvement and we're quite satisfied with the volume. We're seeing the results of that approach to the business now in the business.
Assuming there's continued cost inflation in certain areas, whether it's, you know, logistics or labor, would you be taking more price increases, or do you feel like you've already priced those in for your outlook for this year?
Yeah, we'll continue to push on pricing where we can and remain competitive in the market. That's our focus, is to make sure we're capturing the value that is available to us in the market on every negotiation as they come through.
Okay. On the maple side, the same idea. Like, you... I guess in this case you didn't get the price increases early enough. Are they already taking effect in this quarter or are they more gradual?
More gradual, Michael. You're right. The increases in maple and labor and packaging and freight were more dramatic, and we've already put pricing in maple as you've seen previously, and we couldn't keep going back to the market. As contracts come up for renewal, we'll continue to pass through those cost increases and improve our bottom line.
Okay. I'll let someone else questions. I'll get back in. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
Yep. Thanks.
Our next question is from George Doumet with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Yeah. Morning, guys. In the last call, you called out about CAD 10 million or so of one-time costs that occurred in fiscal 2021 that you don't expect to recur in 2022 for the sugar business. Can you maybe give us a sense of maybe the one-time costs related to COVID directly or indirectly that you're facing now and maybe expect to face for fiscal 2022, just to kind of comparison?
Our COVID costs, you know, the normal ongoing COVID costs, we get about CAD 300,000 in the first quarter. It's slightly lower than last year, I think as people are learning to, I guess, live with COVID. I think to me, to us, sorry, it's more about the volatility it creates or the less predictability it creates on the market. It's tough to put a finger on it. When we talked about the CAD 10 million, I think the biggest impact, the biggest item in this CAD 10 million was related to our crop in Taber. You know, when we're looking at our crop right now with a few weeks left in the processing campaign, I mean, the harvest portion was good for us. We're
We have about 2-3 weeks, and the last 2-3 weeks are always, you know, more of a grind due to weather. You know, so far we're fairly confident. I think we've put a number. The number we put out there is 120,000 metric tons of sugar. We're surely approaching that number as we stand today. When we think about the CAD 10 million variance, that was the biggest item. COVID is there. We would expect COVID to kind of taper off in the second part of 2022. I'd like to have a crystal ball to predict where it's gonna go.
It seems to be, I mean, we had a bit of an increase in COVID-related costs just in December when Omicron hit. Hopefully this is behind us and there won't be another wave. As everybody can probably attest, this has not been a very easy thing to predict.
Okay. Fair enough. Maybe on the maple business, can you talk about how much price you would expect to take maybe for this year? Would you expect margin expansion as well, or is it just kind of pricing what's kind of the flat volumes? Just trying to get a sense of maybe if there's anything else to be done on the margin side other than price.
Yeah, it's a good question, George. It's a difficult market with costs coming in as they have on the packaging and freight, as I said earlier. Yeah, we're gonna continue to price where we can and get back to the margin level that we're more comfortable with. That is the pursuit that the business has got a mandate to do. We're gonna continue to drive back to those better margin levels.
Okay. Just one last one for me. When can we expect to get maybe something a little bit more definitive in terms of the evaluation of expansion opportunities for the Eastern Canadian operation? Maybe can you share some maybe what you guys are thinking or maybe when we can get something more definitive there?
Yeah. That's a great question, George. Thank you for that one. Yeah, it's a big undertaking to do the evaluation. We're underway and looking at all the options. As I said last time, the discussions are advancing, looking at, you know, we have enough network capacity for sure to supply the Canadian market. But you know, we need to add some capacity in the east, and we're looking at what we can do with the current facilities or other levers we may have to look at to deliver more volume to the eastern market, competitively. In the next quarter or two, we should have more information on that, but it's an active project on our front right now.
All right. Thanks, guys.
Our next question is from Stephen MacLeod with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, guys.
Good morning, Stephen.
Good morning. I just wanted to ask a little bit about some of the labor impacts that you may have seen in the quarter. Sorry, I jumped on a little bit late to the call, but just wondering if you can sort of quantify or talk about sort of labor impacts that you may have had in the plants, either on the maple or the sugar side, and how that's evolved since the quarter's ended.
You're referring to COVID impacts or?
I guess both COVID, but also just a lot of the noise we're hearing about labor shortages. Just wondering if that's impacting you at all, in the operations.
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Like everybody in, especially in our plant base in Quebec, but everybody in the world with COVID, with Omicron, we had a spike in cases and, but with the diligence that the team manages, as we said earlier in our comments, we were able to manage that. We didn't have any plant shutdowns. We had some tightness on some specific production lines as we allocated labor to keep core products produced. But that was, you know, over a couple weeks that Omicron, you know, took hold and it's, we've come out of that like everybody else now.
As far as overall shortage of labor, as we reported in our earlier comments, we did adjust labor costs in our maple business to be more competitive with the tight labor market in Quebec. Since doing that, we have not had resource issues for labor in our maple plants at all.
Oh, that's great. Great to hear. Thank you. Just continuing on the maple business, you know, you talked about obviously some of the pricing that you didn't get in the quarter, but you expect to get as the year progresses. Can you talk a little bit about sort of how maybe what your expectation is on getting back to historical margins, in that business that you referred to?
Jess here, Steven. Well, I think two things in maple that really impacted us in from a cost perspective and a volume perspective. When we had less volume in the first quarter than we had anticipated, and it's not because, you know, we lost customers or the orders were not there. We had a hard time shipping. I think, you know, our inventory, our warehouse were full and challenges we had were mainly related to logistics and finding people to move this to customers. Our order book is actually quite healthy. From a cost perspective, you know, we'd like to be back to double-digit margin. I think we make no bones about it.
I think we have a plan to get there. I think the increase, the inflation or market-related increase as far as components, freight and labor to a certain extent are probably slowing down a bit, as our way to get back to that target. That's definitely where we're going. I think the maple market is still strong. It might take a bit longer than we had initially anticipated, but we think we'll get there in the next few quarters.
Okay. Thank you. Maybe just finally, with respect to the Eastern Canadian volume growth or capacity growth that you're referring to in the previous question, Mike, can you just provide a little bit of color around sort of what you're seeking to solve with the capacity expansion? You mentioned that you currently already have enough capacity to serve demand in Eastern Canada. I'm just curious about what the driver is for the capacity expansions.
Yeah. We're seeing continued growth in the market as everybody has seen in the production of sugar-containing products that go to the U.S. is really driving demand, and that the heartland of that production in Canada is Eastern Canada, primarily Ontario and Quebec. We have network capacity. We have unutilized capacity in Western operations, but we're running you know tighter in the Eastern market and supporting the Eastern sales with moving goods from the West when it's required for spikes in seasonality and demand. Looking at the long-term picture, it's prudent to service the business adequately to meet the customer needs as we always have.
We're gonna look at what we can do within the existing facilities to add more capacity and then any other things that the study produces for us that would be interesting to look at. We'll discover those as we go through the process.
Great. Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Our next question is from Endri Leno with National Bank. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple from me on the sugar side, and then I have another couple on maple.
On sugar, the first one, when you talk with your retailers and, any color you can give us on how inventories are trending? I mean, they were higher last quarter. Are they back to normal, at this point, or they're still elevated?
Yeah, I would say they're drawing back to normal inventories now, Endri. You know, it's hard to peg everything in COVID as the volatility and demand has been tough to call and tough to manage for everybody, including the retailers. We've seen them, you know, the term we used before, destocking, but they're running at a lower inventory base, and that'll put us back to normal weeks. That should smooth sales in the quarters coming ahead versus the buildups we've seen in previous years in Q1.
Okay, great. Thank you. The other question on sugar is that, did the customer delay in sugar flows last quarter, are they back online and are they at the same capacity as they were before the closures, or are they still not 100%?
Yeah, great question, Endri. You know, just like everybody that's running plants and we've seen in the news that get impacted with COVID outbreaks and have to slow or shut, you still have the order book. What we've seen the customers that we supply that were impacted are making up those volumes quickly in January. We expect everybody's back as quickly as they have full staff at full capacity.
Okay, great. Thank you. Next one is on maple on the cost recovery side. I know Jay has said a few quarters anyways to recover. I was wondering if you can kind of give more color a bit in terms of the negotiations that come up. I mean, from what I recall, like I think the big negotiation period and new contracts, they all come up sort of after the harvest, like I guess late spring. I was wondering, do you expect more action on those margin recoveries after that time, or should we expect something even before, right? Like in the upcoming quarter in Q2.
That's a great question, Endri. Yes, you're correct. The majority of the contracts are on the crop cycle, so after the crop is done, that's when most of the contracts or many of the contracts come up for negotiation. However, we've been very active and prudent with our customers in the pricing and where we can and where we have some contracts that have come up for renewal, we've applied pricing increases as they came through.
Okay. Okay, great. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Endri Leno.
Our next question is from Frederic Tremblay with Desjardins. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning.
Morning, Fred.
Fred.
Given the tight labor environment, do you think there's an opportunity to maybe drive incremental efficiencies and optimization in your maple bottling plants? I'm just curious to see if there's other levers besides pricing to improve margins there.
Yes, Fred, that's a great question, and we're active on that very vital. As you know, we spent money in modernizing the maple business when we acquired it, and we have an ongoing capital project in the maple plants to look at solutions for just exactly what you've talked about.
Okay, great. Then, just sticking with maple here, I was wondering if you could comment on, competitive dynamics and sort of if you view the market as being disciplined at the moment as you approach some of those, additional, negotiations with customers.
Yeah, it's always. Thank you. It's always a competitive market for sure. The dynamics have changed because I think most people in the maple business are getting hit with cost pressures faster than anybody would have thought, especially on international freight. It remains competitive. I would never use the word disciplined in the maple industry. I'd say it's very actively competitive.
Okay. Thanks for the color.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Michael Van Aelst with TD Securities. Your line is open.
Hi there. Just a few follow-up clarifications. You mentioned that the byproduct revenues are up a lot in the quarter. How do we, like, tell the difference between how much of that is volume shift into the quarter and how much of that is, you know, pricing increase? In other words, how should we look for the next few quarters on a year-over-year basis?
I'd say, you know, when you look at the variance, you know, overall, our sugar margin was down about CAD 2 million, you know, I think the average of the volume. But I think, probably half of it was, most of it was, like, you probably recover half of it through the price increase. So the volume impact would have been significantly higher if we didn't have the price increase as we move along. We're expecting this price increase to compound for the rest of the year and help us, you know, catch up on that shortfall we had in the first quarter.
Are you willing to give us an idea of how much more year-over-year improvement we should expect from byproducts this year?
From a byproduct standpoint, we think that the trend that we've seen in the first quarter will carry on for the rest of the year.
Perfect. Wow, so CAD 2.7 million higher each quarter?
No, but you know, there's significant volume in the first quarter, you know, without giving a number. I think, you know, we probably will be CAD 2 million more than we were in the past.
Okay. That's great. The stock-based comp, how much was the increase in stock-based comp in the quarter?
Just under CAD 2 million.
Perfect. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
We have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back to the presenters.
Okay. Thank you very much, everybody, and we'll look forward to speaking to you next quarter.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.