Good morning, and welcome to the EMERGE Commerce fourth quarter and year-end 2021 results conference call. At this time, all lines are listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session for analysts. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on May 2nd, 2022. Your hosts today are Ghassan Halazon, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Jonathan Leong, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I am required to provide the following statement respecting forward-looking information, which is made on behalf of EMERGE and all of its representatives on this call. Certain statements made on this call will contain forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of words such as intent, believe, could, expect, estimate, forecast, may, and other words of similar meaning.
This forward-looking information is based on our opinions, estimates and assumptions in light of our experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that we currently believe are appropriate and reasonable in their circumstances. Actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, expectation, belief, or projection in the forward-looking information. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. We caution investors not to rely on the forward-looking information.
Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusion, forecast or projection in the forward-looking information and material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information are contained in EMERGE filings with Canadian Securities Administrators. During today's call, all figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Ghassan Halazon, Founder and CEO.
Thank you very much, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to participate in our fourth quarter and year-end conference call. Joining me today is Jonathan Leong, our CFO. This morning, I will walk you through the terrific progress we are making at EMERGE and share some insights on our business, including our recent acquisitions and upcoming pipeline, as well as our priorities for the balance of 2022. Following my remarks, Jonathan will provide further details on our financial results, and we will conclude by opening up the call to analysts for questions. During our first year as a public company, our revenues more than tripled, and we delivered three quality acquisitions, significantly enhancing the portfolio scale, profitability, and diversification. Perhaps nowhere is our progress more evident than in the Q4 results we reported this morning, the culmination of the team's hard work all year round.
Q4 2021 was by all means a transformative quarter for EMERGE Commerce. We completed two profitable acquisitions and delivered exceptional results overall. During Q4, Gross Merchandise Sales, or GMS, grew to CAD 26.2 million from CAD 8.3 million. Q4 revenue grew to CAD 14.9 million compared to CAD 2.4 million, an increase of 531%. Adjusted EBITDA grew to CAD 1.4 million from CAD 0.1 million, an increase of 1,229%. Cash flow from operations grew to CAD 2 million compared to CAD 1 million in Q4 2020. We are pleased to share that our Q4 results came in at the high end of the preliminary ranges we previously announced in February 2022.
Ultimately, we are most proud of the record Adjusted EBITDA result and strong positive operating cash flow during the quarter. It is worth noting that Q4 results reflect only partial periods for BattlBox Group and Wholesale Pet, which were acquired on October 6 and November 15, 2021, respectively. On a pro forma basis, assuming both acquisitions were completed before the period, Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter would be closer to CAD 1.8 million. We plan to continue to prioritize profitability in 2022, particularly in this macro climate. While the power of the pro forma platform in place today are most evident in the fourth quarter, our full year results also paint the picture of a business that made great strides in our quest to graduate from marginal scale and profitability to meaningful scale and profitability.
For fiscal 2021 annual revenue more than tripled to CAD 34.8 million from CAD 9.2 million in 2020. EMERGE reported Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 1.2 million in 2021 versus CAD 0.8 million in the prior year, a 53% increase. EMERGE entered 2022 with a pro forma business that comfortably eclipses CAD 100 million in gross merchandise sales, with substantial growth in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. Looking ahead, Q1 2022 marks the company's first full quarter with the BattlBox Group and Wholesale Pet under EMERGE ownership. Management is pleased with the performance of both businesses during their first full quarter based on preliminary results. Our Q1 results will be reported later in May, but we are comfortable sharing a high-level update on today's call that we believe investors will appreciate.
Despite unprecedented macro challenges facing businesses globally in Q1 2022, EMERGE drove record GMS exceeding Q4's GMS based on preliminary unaudited results. The business benefited from a diversified e-commerce portfolio and a multifaceted customer acquisition strategy in the wake of a volatile digital advertising landscape. Q1 is traditionally a seasonal month for a number of EMERGE's verticals. Notwithstanding, the company was also able to achieve excellent revenue growth and strong positive Adjusted EBITDA overall, exceeding management's expectations based on preliminary unaudited results. Moving on to M&A. As expected, acquisitions have been the propeller of our tremendous growth in 2021. Our team has proven that we can source, close, and integrate highly accretive acquisitions while delivering exceptional value to our members. Since our public listing in December 2020, our M&A team has executed three transformative acquisitions: truLOCAL, BattlBox Group, and WholesalePet.com.
These acquisitions embody the type of disciplined, profitable, growing businesses that EMERGE Commerce aspires to acquire. Our acquisitions have generally skewed larger and more profitable with time, mainly because we have gained credibility with our investors, lenders, and ultimately with high caliber prospective sellers who now have the benefit of seeing that we have successfully acquired and partnered with quality e-commerce businesses, management teams, and brands. We believe that continuing to build our track record will grant us access to high-quality acquisitions opportunities as we progress. Although each of our businesses may seem different on the surface, there are often similarities which we believe are excellent indicators of future success. We tend to look for bootstrapped e-commerce companies that have a multi-year track record of organic growth and profitability, and typically a market leadership position or a real shot at it in their respective niche.
We look to partner with proven management teams and to supplement their skill sets and resources with ours. So far, EMERGE has largely spent the early years of acquiring anchor businesses and capable management teams across our five verticals: pets, golf, premium meat, outdoor gear, and local experiences. Now that a number of core verticals have been cemented in this next phase, we plan to pursue tuck-in acquisitions to bolster existing verticals in addition to continuing to launch new verticals. Tuck-in acquisitions, in particular, are especially conducive to a deeper level of synergy between the brands. Extracting synergies is a big operational theme for 2022, in particular, and we are keen to drive savings and upside across the portfolio. The current pipeline of M&A opportunities remains robust. With multiple signed LOIs, the company anticipates the recent macro climate could result in more attractive acquisition opportunities and pricing.
EMERGE successfully leveraged its CAD 25 million debt facility to finance various acquisitions. The company anticipates refinancing and upsizing the debt facility, paving the way for additional acquisitions with minimal dilution to shareholders. Despite the various market dynamics facing some of our verticals and the e-commerce sector at large, our diversified model, which now includes five verticals, coupled with our accretive acquisition strategy, has helped us navigate this macroeconomic climate better than most, delivering our strongest quarter ever in Q4 and an excellent start to 2022 based on preliminary results. Our go-public transaction was designed to accelerate our growth by raising the capital needed to consolidate niche assets in the e-commerce space. Our thesis was we could acquire customers at a lower cost and achieve better economics by buying niche businesses instead of building them ourselves.
We believe that a public listing would not only give us the currency, but also the increased awareness to build out a strong pipeline of M&A targets. In the past year, we believe we have proven our thesis and dramatically de-risked our acquisition strategy. Our three recent acquisitions demonstrate that we can acquire high quality, growing, profitable e-commerce businesses in the 4 times -six times EBITDA range and drive platform synergies with our shared services model. With our first three acquisitions now behind us, a robust pipeline, we believe we are in an excellent position to continue to execute on this existing strategy. We are confident that there is a tremendous opportunity in front of us to acquire profitable, growing businesses and help accelerate their growth.
As we continue to expand our pipeline, we will continue to make strategic investments into our HQ team and systems to position us for long-term growth. Given the diverse nature of our asset base and our acquisitive strategy, we are confident that EMERGE can continue to deliver excellent growth overall. 2022 is shaping up to be another transformative year for EMERGE despite macro headwinds, and we believe the work and the investments we have made in 2021 lay the foundation for a strong 2022. I am proud of what EMERGE accomplished in 2021, and I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity ahead to leverage the power of the platform that we are building and drive future growth, profitability, and operating cash flow. I will now turn the call over to Jonathan for a review of our financial results.
Thanks, Ghassan. Good morning, everyone. We closed two acquisitions during Q4, including the BattlBox Group and Wholesale Pet, which had a meaningful impact on our results. However, please keep in mind that our reported results only include BattlBox Group and Wholesale Pet from the date of acquisition in October and November 2021, respectively, through to December 31, 2021. Our gross merchandise sales, or GMS, for the fourth quarter increased 216% to CAD 26.2 million, up from CAD 8.3 million in the comparative period last year. For fiscal 2021, GMS increased to CAD 58.3 million, an increase of 98% compared to 2020. GMS is a non-GAAP measure and represents the total dollar value of customer purchases of goods and services through our brands, excluding applicable taxes and net of discounts and refunds.
We report revenue on a gross basis for some of our brands and on a net basis for others, which is why we like to present both the GMS and revenue figures. As an overview, our Wholesale Pet, UnderPar, WagJag, and BeRightBack brands generally report on a net basis, while our BattlBox, truLOCAL, and Carnivore Club brands report on a gross basis. For the fourth quarter, our revenue increased significantly to CAD 14.9 million, up 531% from CAD 2.4 million in Q4 2020. For fiscal 2021, our revenue increased to CAD 34.8 million for the year, up 278% from CAD 9.2 million in 2020. Our Q4 results reflect the contributions from truLOCAL, BattlBox, and Wholesale Pet.
Gross profit for the year increased to CAD 15.1 million in 2021 compared to CAD 7.2 million in the prior year, and increased 228% to CAD 6.4 million for Q4 2021 compared to CAD 2 million in Q4 2020. While gross margin as a percentage of revenue decreased compared to the prior year, this is mainly due to how we report our revenue with some of our newer brands, such as truLOCAL and BattlBox, reporting on a gross basis rather than net basis. The net loss for Q4 2021 was CAD 1.2 million compared to CAD 2.6 million in the prior year.
The decrease in net loss is primarily related to the addition of results from the acquisition of the BattlBox Group and Wholesale Pet in Q4 2021, as well as some timing of transaction costs related to the company's public listing reverse acquisition in Q4 2020, including a non-cash cost of $888,988 in 2020. The net loss for the year was CAD 6.6 million compared to a net loss of CAD 4.4 million for the year ended December 31st, 2020.
The increased net loss for the year is primarily due to the higher amortization and depreciation and then transaction costs related to the acquisitions of truLOCAL, BattlBox Group, and WholesalePet.com, as well as the remeasurement gain on contingent consideration recorded in 2020 as compared to the amount recorded in 2021. The company reported Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of CAD 1.4 million compared to CAD 0.1 million in the comparative period, an increase of 1,229%. For the year, the company reported Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 1.2 million in 2021 compared to CAD 0.8 million in the prior year. Overall, we ended the year on a high note with two great acquisitions combined with strong results.
We're pleased with the performance of our latest acquisitions to date and look forward to continuing to execute on our acquisition pipeline in 2022. I will now pass it back to Ghassan for some closing comments.
Thanks, Jonathan. In closing, 2021 was a phenomenal year for EMERGE, and Q4 in particular showcases the team's progress with record revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and operating cash flow. We have made tremendous strides in scaling our business and graduating it from a marginally profitable business to a meaningfully profitable business with a diversified portfolio of category-defining e-commerce brands. Further to that, we are off to an excellent start in 2022 during a time of tremendous macro uncertainty. We look forward to reporting our results for Q1 later in May. Our aspiration remains the same, for EMERGE to become North America's preeminent acquirer of high-performing niche e-commerce brands, allowing acquired companies to take advantage of the benefits that come with our collective scale, unavailable to any individual bootstrap e-commerce company with limited resources.
We remain focused on our goals of, one, making additional acquisitions of niche e-commerce brands with a track record of growth and profitability. Two, achieving organic growth for the existing portfolio. Three, investing in the team and infrastructure to support further acquisitions and scaling. Four, driving the business from marginal to meaningful profitability and ultimately enhancing shareholder value. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Aravinda Galappatthige with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the quarter, Ghassan and team. I wanted to start with, I guess maybe developing on a comment you made about sort of expanding your credit facilities. You know, naturally recognizing sort of the conditions in the market, we don't know exactly when that's gonna change. You know, you would naturally sort of, you know, would really have to rely on debt to kind of expand, to move ahead with M&A for the time being. Can you give us a sense of your level of comfort with respect to leverage, how far you would wanna go with maybe in terms of a multiple of EBITDA?
Connected to that, just so that we can have a decent gauge of what the balance sheet would look like in the next six-12 months, you know, can you just remind us of, you know, where things stand in terms of some of the chunkier earn-outs and different consideration? Well, different consideration we know, but the earn-out elements, particularly for Wholesale Pet, because I know that's a bit chunky.
Yeah, sure. Good morning, Aravinda, and thanks for your questions. I guess I'll start off on the debt side, and then Jonathan can discuss some of the further earn-out potential obligations later. Firstly, on the debt side, our debt facility is currently at CAD 25 million. Of course, we've used the facility for the various acquisitions, and it's worked out quite nicely. We've scaled up the facility from what was originally CAD 5 million a couple of years back to CAD 8 million at the time of truLOCAL, and then ending last year following BattlBox and Wholesale Pet, drawing on the remainder to get to the full CAD 25 million.
We are now actually having multiple formal discussions on the debt side. We do have multiple term sheets that we are exploring with what I would consider a sort of a graduation in terms of the amounts available. The terms generally are, I would say, more reflective of the pro forma business that we've arrived at. It's one thing to, you know, look to access debt when you have marginal or close to zero EBITDA, and it's another thing with the level that we've arrived at and the scale we've arrived at.
You know, companies that we've acquired, like Wholesale Pet, that have a history of cash flows and profitability, that's a very conducive addition to our portfolio, not only from a business sense, but from a debt perspective. We feel quite confident with the number of options that are available to us. It is our goal to not only upsize the facility but also to access a cheaper and longer-term debt, all of which are currently available to us via some of these term sheets that we are exploring. Of course, nothing is definitive. This is a priority of ours. We've talked about it for a while.
We certainly are looking to get something done here in terms of a refinancing and upsize of the facility. Our comfort level, I wouldn't say, has changed too much. I think we are centered in and around the 3.5 times-4 times debt to EBITDA levels that we've talked about before. These are the levels we would like to maintain, you know, sort of our leverage. That's what we anticipate we will continue with.
Before I pass it on to Jonathan to comment on specifics, obviously, this is an interesting year from a macro climate, given some of you know, the challenges that all businesses and e-commerce businesses in particular have had to face, whether that's the advertising landscape, whether that's you know, inflation, whether that's other things. Now, we've managed to make significant progress with our overall portfolio. I think you know, as it pertains to earn-out, it's still a little early to see what that all looks like. I'll let Jonathan give you a bit of particulars around what the details entail. Jonathan?
Yeah. Thanks. As Ghassan just mentioned, you know, there are a wide range of outcomes for the earn-outs, which, you know, it's still too early to tell exactly where they'll land. I can definitely give color in terms of the potential earn-outs and the deferred consideration as well. On the deferred consideration side, if we look at the last three acquisitions we did, we have a couple of deferred consideration payments that are required. We have truLOCAL, which has about CAD 1.5 million owing on that, which is coming due kind of at the end of this year. BattlBox, we have deferred consideration of $1.5 million, and that's payable over three years, so it's $500,000 each year.
With Wholesale Pet, we have a deferred consideration of $2 million, which is paid over a two-year period, so $1 million each year. On the earn-out side, we have BattlBox, which has an earn-out of up to $2.4 million per year, with half cash, half shares each year, US dollars. With Wholesale Pet, which has a two-year earn-out, and each of those years is up to $4.5 million per year. Then we have truLOCAL with the earn-out this year, which is up to CAD 3 million, which again, CAD 1.5 million cash, CAD 1.5 million shares.
Thank you, Jonathan. The one thing I'll add, of course, is all of our earn-outs are designed with a minimum level of revenue and EBITDA growth. So none of it is just sort of, you know, sort of high-level metrics. It's very specific to a certain level of EBITDA. These are companies, when you look at Wholesale Pet and BattlBox, these are companies that are in and around the CAD 3.5 million EBITDA range pre the type of growth we are looking for in some cases. Just wanted to point out that the anticipation is if these companies were to achieve their earn-outs, that they would make significant EBITDA and ultimately cash flow for the company.
Thanks, Ghassan and Jonathan. Just a quick second question, and I'll pass the line. Obviously, you know, with sort of, you know, you talked about macro conditions, and I think in the U.S. there's some sort of initial concerns around.
Genuine slowdown. You know, you have a predominantly subscription business, which is helpful. Anything that you're seeing in terms of sort of churn profiles, as you sort of observed the last several months, you know, I know that the different businesses have different levels of sensitivity to macro conditions.
Yeah.
Anything that you wanna call out. Connected to that, Ghassan, like, you know, maybe just talk about your synergies, like, initiatives. You know, some of these assets have been with you for maybe, you know, five, six months. Is there anything that you're seeing that you can kinda build off of as far as, new initiatives are concerned? Thanks.
Yeah. Totally. Thanks, Aravinda. We can talk a bit about some of the macro headwinds that are impacting really all businesses these days. One data point is on the truLOCAL front. Of course, the price of meat has gone up substantially, and sort of one of the headline categories that we all see and read about these days in the news and are impacted by in many cases as customers. What we've done with truLOCAL, and we mentioned this sort of midway through Q4, is we've adjusted the prices upwards. We've increased the average price from CAD 249 to CAD 259 for the large box, which is sort of the most popular box we have.
That's about a 4% increase in price. We've done that, of course, to protect our gross margins. As you might recall, in Q3, we took sort of some hit there, and it was you know, it took us about a quarter or so to react and to increase prices. As I've highlighted previously, the good news is we saw minimal churn. Nothing that indicated that it was a concern. In fact, if anything, we were, you know, with the transparent communication that truLOCAL approached this with, it was very much a net positive, I would say.
We also had to increase, you know, improve and find some efficiencies in shipping and in other areas, which overall kept our margins in the 35%-37.5% for truLOCAL, which we think are quite healthy for the business. We were able to withstand that. We still are, till today, substantially higher in overall subscriptions and in revenue at truLOCAL versus the pre-pandemic levels. You might recall truLOCAL grew from about CAD 9 million to CAD 20 million in one shot, at the time we purchased it. Of course, last year we achieved the revenue side. We talked about this. We received the revenue side of the formula, so truLOCAL was able to actually grow slightly year-over-year.
Given a bit of the margin that got cut into in Q3, we didn't achieve the EBITDA target at the time. This is something for us that we keep monitoring. I think BattlBox, our other subscription business, you know, I think is kind of dabbling, as we've mentioned before, with TikTok and with Netflix and in different customer acquisition avenues. I would say Facebook, the Facebook environment and the ad, the digital ad climate at large, has been something we've had to navigate with both our brands 'cause they do. Even if they have their own channels, they do somewhat spend some money on Facebook and Instagram.
Those are channels that have been disrupted, but we found different ways around, and that's why we highlight our diversified customer acquisition strategy as well. That's a bit of color there on some of the macro headwinds. It is not an easy time to operate any business right now, where thankfully we're not reliant on, you know, China in a big way, where there's been tremendous slowdowns for other e-commerce companies. You know, truLOCAL is, it's a local slash regional supply chain, so it works with local farmers here. While it has the inflation challenge or headwind, it's been able to not have any impact from the China side. Same thing with WholesalePet.
It's a business that is a marketplace model, sits in the middle. WholesalePet.com has just been a booming business. They're off to such a great start with good organic growth in their first quarter. Now, BattlBox has a bit of China sourcing and relationships, but they've done a lot of planning in anticipation of more difficult channels and higher costs for containers, as we all hear about. They've been able to navigate. Their gross margins are also very healthy, in fact, a bit healthier than truLOCAL.
Thanks a lot, Ghassan. I'll pass the line. Great color.
Thank you, Aravinda.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star one. With that, your next question comes from Andy Nguyen with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi, Ghassan. Congratulations on a great quarter. I just wanna touch on-
Thank you.
the progress with truLOCAL expansion in Quebec and also the B2B initiative. Follow up on that, what's sort of your growth expectation for truLOCAL this year? Is it somewhere around mid-single digit?
Yeah. Thank you, Andy. Morning, and appreciate the questions. Starting with, I suppose truLOCAL, you know, we get the question a couple of times now around sort of the Quebec landscape and how that's going. I think I highlighted this previously. One of the reasons Quebec took a bit longer than these other markets was because truLOCAL was quite reliant on digital-only strategies versus typically markets have had access to gyms and offline partnerships that have helped launch markets.
Now that the world's opening up again, we expect truLOCAL to test some of these strategies in Quebec and start to garner more success. I think overall, you know, I wouldn't say that we expect Quebec to change the game in any way at this moment in time, but we do expect bigger growth than we saw in the prior year. That's one on Quebec. In terms of B2B, this has been an area of immense early promise for EMERGE. Of course, we were inspired by Wholesale Pet B2B model, you know, very sticky, very good cash flows, et cetera.
We've been looking at not only truLOCAL, but all of our different brands and figuring out where does a B2B angle fit in, and how can we build this background play of very sticky merchant relationships, monetizing that side of the equation, not only the consumer side of the equation. With truLOCAL, we've been dabbling with multiple different you know initiatives. We highlighted corporate gifts in Q4. We are doing some B2B trading between the farmers. It's still pretty early, but we're very excited about those results. In terms of truLOCAL overall, right now, we are forecasting low double-digit growth. I wouldn't say with the general macro environment, we still think we can do double digits, but probably on the low end.
I would say conservatively, probably on the 10% range, inclusive of all of our initiatives at truLOCAL.
That's great. Thank you so much. I'll pass the line.
Thank you, Andy.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, Mr. Halazon. You may proceed.
Great. Thank you very much, everyone. We really appreciate your time. We look forward to reporting our progress throughout the balance of the year and our Q1 2022 results in late May. Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.