Well, welcome everybody to the first session of the day. Good morning, and welcome. We appreciate you joining us for the WTR Insights conference session with LifeVantage. I'm Shawn Severson, Co-Founder and CEO of Water Tower Research. Today we have Carl Aure, Chief Financial Officer of LifeVantage, for our first presentation. Thank you, Carl, for joining us.
Great. Thank you, Shawn.
Just a quick reminder before we start, LifeVantage's safe harbor statements are available in the latest investor presentation that can be found on the presentation page of its investor relations website. Additionally, this discussion may not be reproduced or transcribed without written consent from Water Tower Research. With that, ready to get started. First question, Carl. Let's talk a little bit about the LifeVantage story. I know there's some investors here who are probably new to the story, and let's start with a proper introduction, and just walk us through what LifeVantage does as a first step.
Yeah, certainly. Thanks, Shawn, and thanks everyone for attending. Appreciate you giving us the opportunity to talk today. Yes, we are LifeVantage Corporation. We are headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Actually, LifeVantage has been around for over 20 years. It was founded 20 years ago. It's been publicly traded on Nasdaq for the last 14 years. I think the story is relatively unknown. We grew really quickly initially, and then I would say over the last few years, we've hit a bit of a plateau. Overall, I think the company is really, really strong from a financial standpoint. I think we're really, really strong and have a really good story to tell going forward.
For the second question, wanted to talk a little bit about the CEO and CEO transition. In the middle of leadership change, as Steve Fife retired in April after nine years, and Terrence Moorehead will be joining as President and CEO. It's a lot of change in a short window. How should investors think about the continuity strategy? Obviously, changes are happening, but from the investor perspective, what's their takeaway here?
Sure. Yeah, no. We've had a lot of things happening over the last few months. Steve Fife, our CEO, he's been with the company for over nine years. He started as the company's CFO, then about five years ago, the board asked Steve to step in and take over as CEO. During his tenure, I think Steve did a lot of really great things for the company. Operationally, there was a lot of things that needed to be fixed internally, with updating our supply chain, our internal infrastructure. I think one of the other areas that Steve really did a lot of work on is with the development of our what we call LV360, just kind of a comprehensive reset of the business.
Included in that, there was a complete overhaul of our compensation plan, the way that we pay our independent sales force. One of the things I didn't mention in the introduction is that we sell our products through a direct selling channel. We have approximately 50,000 consultants worldwide that really are our independent sales force. One of the key things that we did through that is that we completely overhauled the comp plan, really modernized this approach, which I think has been really well received by our team. I think whenever you're messing with a comp plan, I think there's a certain level of risk going into it, but we recognize that that was something that had to be done in order for us to be in a position so we could to grow going forward.
I think Steve did a lot of really great things. Financially, he introduced the financial discipline that we have now. I think we can talk a little bit more later about the financial position of the company. We're very strong financially. We have a very strong foundation, really strong balance sheet, a great business model that's profitable and is really good for shareholders at the end of the day. I think Steve left us in a really great position. We have an interim CEO that stepped in, his name is Michael Beindorff. Michael stepped in from the board. He stepped in, he's an interim for the next three months or so. We have a new CEO that's starting, his name is Terrence Moorehead. Terrence will be officially starting at LifeVantage on August the 5th.
We are really excited and optimistic about that. I think Terrence, he's coming from a company that I'm not sure if you're aware of, it's called Nature's Sunshine Products. A similar company, about a little bit bigger than LifeVantage, maybe double the size of what we are. A publicly traded company, and he was there for the last seven years. I think if you look at his track record, did a lot of really great things at Nature's Sunshine. Was able to get them on a year-over-year growth trajectory. Really did a lot of work on improving just their overall EBITDA and profitability metrics. His skill set is really more in the area of sales and marketing.
He's got a deep experience in this industry, not only with Nature's Sunshine Products, but he also spent a lot of time with Avon, which is another obviously big direct selling company, and where he got a lot of international experience as well. I think international is going to be another area for us as we really dig in and look for growth opportunities. Overall, a lot of change, but it's been something that it was a deliberate change with the board. This has been in process for the last 18 months. I think Steve has really left us in a great position for us to be set up for growth going forward. Very optimistic.
It sounds like he's bringing some new dimensions. He talked about international and some new opportunities, obviously revenue drivers. There's some new views. Is that fair to say?
Yeah. No, for sure. I think when you look at, maybe I can reference this slide here, you look at where our footprint is internationally, we're primarily North America. Almost 80% of our total business is coming from North America. We do sell in 18 markets worldwide, but I think we're just really scratching the surface of international expansion. That pie chart off to the right is just a distribution of how the industry breaks down geographically.
You can see that, at least from the industry, about 37% of the total comes from America. Really what that says to us is we're heavily over-indexed in the U.S., meaning that I think that we've got significant growth opportunities international. Over the last few years, I think we've been really focused on rebuilding the foundation of the existing business. Now we're to a point where I think that we could really leverage the international growth opportunity.
Is that more of a selling in a channel difference internationally, or are you able to take the products that you have today, obviously North American-dominated, but the products work, it's just a different process for selling, which he brings the expertise to?
Really the only challenge for us to expand internationally is making sure from a product registration standpoint. Not all ingredients work the same. The majority of our products, or all of our products are 100% natural products, so we're not a pharmaceutical company. We're a health and wellness company, where we're focused on all-natural nutraceutical products. Really the only barrier for us to expand internationally is the product registration process. Once you clear that hurdle, it's really easy for us to expand internationally. It doesn't require a lot of capital. It's not capital-intensive. For us, for the ability to actually expand internationally, it's really relatively straightforward.
From our side, that's where I think there's a lot of white space out for us, not only in the countries that we're currently in, and you look at Europe, we're just barely scratching the surface in Europe. In Southeast Asia is probably where our biggest growth potential is, and we're just really getting started there. That is something I think we'll really lean into over the next three to five years.
Yeah, the pie chart really tells much bigger TAM. Is that something that there are tangible milestones for, or for the investors would be looking for over the next, is this an 18-month, 24-month process that it takes to break in? I'm just trying to put some perspective, time perspective.
Yeah. No, it obviously depends on the country.
Yeah.
Some countries are easier than others, I would say on average, from us to start a project ground up, it's nine to 12 months likely. We've got a roadmap of countries that are on our list that we're looking at. There's a few that we're currently working on, I would think over the next 12-18 months is where you're going to really see us start to really lean into international development and start to try to recognize that growth potential.
Great. Thanks for that answer. Do talk a little bit about the headwinds you've had recently. GLP-1's a highly competitive market, just frame up the past few quarters, the challenges you've had, and what you've been doing about it tactically and strategically.
We launched a new product in October of 2024, and it's our first venture into the weight management space. Historically, we've been focused on other areas in the health and wellness arena. In October of 2024, we launched a product that we call MindBody, which is a natural GLP-1 product. We had phenomenal success out of the gate with that product.
The quarter that was launched in October of 2024, we are a June 30 fiscal year end, that would've been our fiscal Q2. That was a record quarter for the company. Massive success out of the gate. We sold out of the product within the first three weeks that we had it produced. We thought we had three to four months on-hand, and we sold out immediately. Since that point in time, a lot of things have changed in the GLP-1 market, as you know.
Right.
Major developments on the synthetic and the pharmaceutical side, they continue to innovate, with the introduction of the oral synthetic drugs, just all the downward price pressure associated with that. It has certainly been a challenging market for us overall, those are some of the headwinds we've been facing. I think what we've learned from all this, that the MindBody product is still a really good product for us. It's a natural alternative, it's 100% all-natural alternative, I think it still has a space in the market. In longer term, we still anticipate it to be 8%-10% of our total revenue.
I don't think it's going to be the growth catalyst that we thought it was going to be a year ago or 18 months ago, it still is a solid product in our portfolio something that I think that we'll continue to innovate and work with at the end of the day. From a product standpoint, I think one of the things we've learned about MindBody and just weight management in general is that I think the consumer is definitely a finicky consumer at the end of the day, right? The retention in the LTV associated with weight management products is just different than what our other core products that we have.
I think we're refocusing a bit on our better retaining products, the products that we know that customers will continue to keep on subscription and to continue to go to at the end of the day. That's where MindBody will still be a part of the portfolio, but I think we're really refocused on our core products, which include Protandim and collagen and some of the other lines.
That was really a new product that was introduced, something they hadn't really seen in the portfolio. You imagine it was more of an effort that it took to get that integrated. So much competition came in, like you said, it's even been tough for the pharmaceutical companies, right?
Yeah. No, that's absolutely right. Yeah, I think we found that it was a bit of a distraction at the end of the day, right? I think our field, our sales field, got really excited about it. They were highly focused on that, and I think they lost sight of some of the better-performing products that we have over time. I think that's been a bit of the disruption.
Our field now, we've got them really focused back on what the company was founded upon, which is Protandim, and some of the other products that we have. Pairing Protandim with some of the other, in a stack strategy, with some of our other key products as well. That's where we focused. I think the independent sales force is really back engaged. I think we're moving forward. We'll continue to innovate from the product standpoint.
Salesforce is like the shiny new thing at first, don't they? Forget about some of the other stuff.
That is for sure.
The execution. You guys talk a lot about peer-reviewed science, and it's a differentiator for you. Can you just expand on that and familiarize investors with what that means and how it translates into your business?
Certainly. Yeah, no, that is something that we really pride ourselves on, is the science behind our products. We believe in the quality of our products at the end of the day. Again, as I mentioned, we're not a pharmaceutical company. We are a health and wellness company. We're not required to do the research, but we want to because we want to prove the efficacy of our products. Our primary product that I mentioned, the Protandim Nrf2, has lots of studies behind it, more than 30 peer-reviewed studies at the end of the day. One of the keys behind it, and the findings behind it's one of the only all-natural products that's been proven to reduce oxidative stress in your body by 40% in 30 days. Which is a pretty powerful statement.
For being an all-natural product, I think the science behind it is really, really important. I think the science is what our sales force understands, the science, and that's the tool that they go out and use to be able to sell it to other consumers at the end of the day. Science is something that's really important for us. We continue to innovate in that area.
We just recently received a patent associated with, it's a combination patent associated with our Protandim product and our liquid collagen product that we call Healthy Glow Stack. Again, what we're finding is that a lot of our products, when you're pairing the Nrf2 product with one of the other products, that we're finding a lot of synergistic benefits associated with it. Again, something that we'll continue to innovate, and as we develop new products in our pipeline, we'll continue to innovate and develop the science behind it at the end of the day.
What's really interesting about that is if you look at the consumer today, the ability to research, right?
Yeah.
So much of this used to be around marketing and promotion and the television commercials you'd see, and consumers.
Yep
Would see these and really weren't able to dig into the science. I think this is an intriguing differentiator in the sales process because I don't know about everybody in the audience, but if there's anything I see, I run it through Claude or I do a Google search. I'm looking for science behind what it is. I'm assuming that becomes, with the peer-reviewed science, it's something that's tangible that helps that sales process versus something that's just marketing.
No, absolutely. You're right on point with that. I think, when you have the peer-reviewed studies that are out there, these are independent third-party studies that are conducted. When you put and there's very positive results associated with it, you give the consumer the ability to go out and research on their own. That helps them at the end of the day to understand what the product does, and how it benefits them at the end of the day. Ultimately, it's a very powerful sales tool.
Well, it helps you because there's data.
No, absolutely.
For those that don't have the data, it doesn't always go so well, right?
Yeah. That is absolutely true.
Yeah. Last question. I want to talk about capital allocation. You guys have done a great job there, been debt-free and a buyback. The strategy that you've taken there and I guess the strategy behind it with the balance sheet, what are you going to do with it? Obviously there's opportunities for acquisitions. You've done the buyback. What's your views there?
Yeah. That's one of the things we've given a lot of thought to over the last four to five years since I've been at LifeVantage. We've really developed this balanced capital allocation strategy. The good thing about our business, it's a highly variable cost structure, so we're able to right-size expenses as needed, as revenues have kind of gone up and down. The company has always been very profitable. We continue to have, you look over the last three years, we generate 8%-10% profitability margins, always generating positive free cash flow. We've been evaluating internally and have a lot of discussions at the board level how best to return that to shareholders at the end of the day. Number one, we always want to invest internally where it makes sense.
Some of that is in investing in the science and the research in the product development pipeline. One of the other areas that we're currently investing in is just updating our IT infrastructure. We've talked about a partnership we have with Shopify, we're improving our e-commerce platform. That really will give us the ability to drive better conversion in the future and really just improve the overall experience from a consumer standpoint. Beyond the internal investment, I think one of the things that we've been very active from a share repurchase standpoint, we have a $60 million share repurchase authorization that's out there. We've been very active on that over the last few years. You look back over the last seven years, I think we've repurchased close to $45 million of value of LifeVantage stock through open share repurchases.
The other thing that we've done is we also have implemented a dividend. Back four years ago, we put a dividend in place, and each of the last four years, we've increased the value of that dividend. Again, we're looking for this balanced approach to be able to return value to shareholders at the end of the day. I think the final leg to that or the final piece is on M&A. Up until recently, the company has not been active from an M&A standpoint, but we did close on a smaller transaction in October of 2025. We purchased a company called LoveBiome, which is a company that is in the similar space that we are, but has a product that was really compelling to us in the gut health space. Gut health is an area that's a very hot topic that's out there.
There's a lot of consumer focus on gut health, and we were able to identify them and were quickly introduced and recognized that they've got a really compelling product. We were able to close on that transaction. We closed the transaction in October of last year, quickly integrated them, and I think what that proved to us is that we can be successful with M&A in our space. I think sometimes this direct selling space, I think companies have had challenges culturally being able to integrate.
I think with the right company and the right culture, that it's possible to integrate. We've proved that, and I'd say to date that's been really successful for us. As I look forward to the future, we'll continue with this balanced capital allocation strategy. I think we'll always, again, number one, I want to invest internally. That's going to provide the best return on investment. We also have these other levers at the end of the day that I think is very shareholder-friendly, and we take it very seriously internally and want to do the best thing we can at the end of the day to drive value.
Just lastly on that, the investment in international, seeing how we touched on that, is there anything that investors need to think about there in terms of the investment, investing internally on the international side?
Yeah. No. Certainly investment internally as we grow international is an area we'll dedicate some internal spend. As we talked earlier, that the level of capital investment to expand for us international is not significant. It's paying for registration of product and getting your supply chain in place, it's not overly capital intensive. Yes, the short answer is yes, we're committed to that area, and that I think is one of the best areas that we can invest internally that'll drive the best growth opportunities for us as we look long term.
Great. Thanks, Carl. Running out of time. We do have a couple questions if anybody has them. We got a few minutes if anybody has anything they want to ask.
I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? Oh, the question was what was the average price on share repurchases? Over the last seven years, I would say the average price has been $7-$8. If you look at the weighted average of share repurchases over the last seven years, it's been in that $7-$8 range.
We've purchased higher than that as well. Again, we're looking at always evaluating where is the best opportunity for us. We believe long term that we've got a good investment story here, and the company has a very strong foundation. Yeah. We were, yeah. We were in the Russell last year. Based off of where the latest reconstitution that we anticipate that it will fall out.
Is that the reason for the initiation of what seems to be a short position in the stock? It seems like for a company that has consistent cash flow-
Yeah
Has a reasonably consistent story, you've become a battleground stock. Did it start there with the removal?
No, I don't think so, no. We started to see elevated levels there earlier in the year, say in the January timeframe. It's been a difficult one for us to evaluate. I think longer term, the only thing for us is we're focused on execution, right? That's what we need to focus on, and we believe that we've got the right long-term strategy, and we'll continue to execute there.
All right. Great. Well, thank you, Carl. Thank you everyone for joining us today. You can find research at www.watertowerresearch.com. You can access a bunch of information on the company, and we look forward to watching the progress, and especially as Terrence joins and moves into position. Very exciting. Thank you, Carl.
Great.
I mean Carl, sorry.
Yeah. Thanks, Shawn, appreciate it. Thanks everyone for your attendance.