Tilray, Inc. (TLRY) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tilray, Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
May 14, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tilray’s First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If anyone needs assistance during the conference, just press “*0” for an operator. Later, we will have a question-and-answer session. If you would like to participate in that portion of the call, just press “*1” to get in the queue.

Now, it is my pleasure to turn the call to Rachel Perkins.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on Tilray’s First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. On today’s call are Brendan Kennedy, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Castaneda, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, please remember that during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual events than those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to Tilray’s reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulators and its press release issued today for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today.

Finally, please note on today’s call management will refer to adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss, which are non-GAAP financial measures. While the company believes adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today’s press release for a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most comparable measure prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to Brendan.

Thank you, Rachel. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today, I will review the progress we have made since our last call just eight weeks ago. This includes focusing on our global growth strategy and providing an update on our opportunities for long-term growth in the global medical, wellness, and adult-use cannabis markets. Mark will then review our first quarter 2019 financial results in more detail and discuss our long-term financial targets. After that, we will open the call for your questions.

The global transformation of a $150 billion worldwide industry is just beginning. At Tilray, we are building a global platform to be a multi-billion dollar consumer packaged goods company, known for delighting consumers with a house of trusted brands and delivering those brands to market through world-class multinational supply chain. We are taking decisive actions to create a global infrastructure that can be scaled globally over the long term.

We are pleased with our first quarter results, which include the first full quarter of adult-use market sales. Revenue increased 195% year-over-year to $23 million, and total kilogram equivalents sold increased both sequentially and on a year-over-year basis to 3,012 kilograms. We are proud to have achieved this growth despite the continued supply constraints across Canada.

We now believe there could be a supply balance in Canada in the next 18-24 months as the market finds an equilibrium between supply and demand. This is longer than our estimate just eight weeks ago, as the industry continues to struggle ramping production in the existing regulatory environment.

That being said, we have seen increasingly high demand in the Canadian cannabis market for the highest-quality branded cannabis and have decided to increase our Canadian production and manufacturing footprint by investing $32.6 million across three of our five Canadian facilities. The $32.6 million expansion project will increase Tilray Canada’s production space in Nanaimo, British Columbia by 33% to 80,000 square feet, High Park Gardens’ production space in Leamington, Ontario by 82% to 282,000 square feet, and the High Park processing facility in London, Ontario will increase 100% to 112,000 square feet. Both High Park Gardens and High Park processing have room to further expand in the future. These projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2019 and we will provide updates as they evolve.

These increased investments are in addition to our expansion efforts in Portugal, which is expected to receive its GMP certifications over the course of the next several months. This will allow the product that we produce in Canada to stay in Canada, as our Portugal production will be used as a hub to serve international medical markets.

As we have discussed previously, our global growth strategy remains focused on six top-line performance drivers that we expect to generate strong returns as the business continues to grow. First, increase our production and manufacturing capacity to serve the rapidly growing global medical market, as well as the adult-use market in Canada and other markets over time. Second, maintain a rigorous focus on quality as we scale. Third, partner with established distributors and retailers to scale distribution of our products further and faster. Fourth, build a differentiated portfolio of brands and products that appeal to a diverse set of patients and consumers. Fifth, expand the addressable medical market by fostering mainstream acceptance with the medical community and governments. And finally, sixth, pioneer the future of our industry by investing in innovation, R&D, and clinical research.

In the first quarter, we announced partnerships and acquisitions that align with our growth strategy. Our strategic partnership with Authentic Brands Group (ABG) announced in January will leverage ABG’s portfolio of more than 50 of the world’s most iconic brands, as well as their North American distribution network. We expect our co-branded products to come to market in the second half of this year in the U.S. and Canada, focused mainly on CBD products.

We also completed the acquisition of Manitoba Harvest, the world’s largest hemp natural foods producer, and Natura Naturals, a licensed cannabis cultivation facility in Leamington, Ontario. We have made significant progress integrating Manitoba Harvest and Natura Naturals, accelerating our entry into the U.S. and furthering our operational capabilities in Canada. We closed Manitoba late in the first quarter yet we have already begun to leverage their existing relationships with over 16,000 retail locations and sharpen our plans for the U.S. market opportunity. We are excited about the future potential we have with new and existing retail partners over time and our early progress with this transaction are on track with our expectations.

We will continue to deploy capital in the most promising markets where we see the greatest potential to pursue multiple paths to grow. Our vision has always been to be a global leader in the cannabis market, which is why we are judiciously planning for expansion in two of the largest markets: the United States and Europe. We believe our strategic global partnerships and acquisitions demonstrate our focus on the diversification of our global opportunities for long-term growth.

Going forward, we will continue to pursue strategic M&A that opens new territories, increases our capacity, increases our brand offerings through innovative form factors, brings us R&D technologies, and provides us access to strategic retail distribution channels.

Building a portfolio of trusted brands and products is a key piece of our strategy to capitalize on the estimated $22 billion hemp-derived CBD industry in the United States. With Manitoba, Authentic Brands Group, and Live Well, we believe we are well-positioned for long-term leadership in the market. While we expect Manitoba Harvest and ABG U.S. CBD product sales to ramp in the second half of this year, Live Well will begin shipping supply in the second quarter.

Focusing on Europe, we have been disciplined in our approach and chose not to participate in the German tender process. Instead, we focused on our EU campus in Cantanhede, Portugal, where we completed a successful medical harvest in March and held an inauguration ceremony to celebrate the company milestone. This campus will be our international hub for operations and includes indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cultivation sites, as well as research labs, processing, packaging, and distribution sites for medical products.

As we are awaiting our GMP certification, we will continue to build inventory in Q2 and we expect to recognize revenue in the second half of 2019. We believe we are well-positioned to serve the European market from Portugal, as more companies legalize medical cannabis.

While the Canadian market remains challenged with quality supply, we are confident supply/demand dynamics will become more balanced over time, as additional production capacity becomes available. We believe clinical research will help the cannabis industry by fostering mainstream acceptance with the medical community and governments.

In the first quarter, we announced our support of two new clinical studies: a pilot study led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne to evaluate the feasibility and acceptance of a larger randomized placebo controlled trial of cannabis extract as a form of treatment for reducing severe behavioral problems in pediatric patients with intellectual disabilities and a study with McGill University Health Center’s Division of Infectious Disease and Chronic Viral Illness to examine the effectiveness of medical cannabis on immune activation in people living with HIV.

For the balance of the year and into 2020, we continue to anticipate the following corporate milestones: launching Tilray and Manitoba Harvest CBD products in the United States as regulations permit; signing additional adult-use supply agreements in Canada — we started delivering product to Alberta during this quarter; shipping Tilray products to pharmacy chains in Canada — we do have products available on Shoppers Drug Mart today; exporting Tilray medical products to new countries; expanding Tilray’s medical cannabis product offerings in the international markets we currently serve — we did start selling flour in addition to oil in Germany; extending our existing pharmaceutical partnerships to additional countries and regions; completing the build-out of our facility in Portugal — we did have our grand opening and completed multiple harvests; obtaining a manufacturing license and GMP certification in Portugal, a process that is already under way; obtaining production and sales licenses for High Park’s processing facility in London, Ontario; initiating additional clinical trials — we added two during Q1; recruiting additional executives from outside the industry to further strengthen our management team — we added several during the first quarter; and, finally, adding additional strategic partnerships.

In summary, we are executing on our strategic growth initiatives as planned and I am proud of the progress we have made. We are positioning the company for long-term sustainable growth globally and are confident in our ability to drive shareholder value through our multiple avenues for growth.

With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mark.

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Thanks, Brendan. Good afternoon to those of you joining us on today’s call and webcast. It is a pleasure to be speaking with you today. Please note all the financial information we discuss today is prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP and is in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

We had a strong start to the year and we believe we’ll continue to gain momentum as we progress throughout the year. Focusing on Q1 results in more detail, Q1 revenue essentially tripled to $23 million or $30.6 million Canadian compared to the first quarter of last year. Excluding excise taxes, revenues were $21.5 million. Revenue growth was primarily driven by the Canadian adult-use market, the addition of hemp food sales from the Manitoba Harvest acquisition, and strong growth in international medical markets.

Extract products represented 37% of non-food revenue for the first quarter of 2019, compared to 40% of revenue in the same period last year. We are pleased with our performance in the Canadian adult-use market so far, which represented 34% of revenue for the first quarter. Adult-use revenues grew approximately 80% sequentially from Q4 to Q1. We are still in the early days of the adult-use rollout, with a limited number of products available due to regulations and supply constraints. These constraints will loosen this year with other form factors being available later this year.

On the hemp foods side, we closed the acquisition of Manitoba Harvest on February 28, and included one month of results in our first quarter. As we discussed on a prior earnings call, we expect approximately $20 million of contribution per quarter from this business. We also anticipate the rollout of U.S. CBD products in the second half of this year.

On the international side, our revenues increased four-fold to $1.8 million from $432,000 in the prior year. The growth is primarily driven by Germany and Australia. Our growth internationally and in Canada continued to be limited by lack of supply that we expect to improve over time.

Moving on to operational metrics, excluding hemp foods, total kilogram equivalents sold more than doubled to approximately 3,000 kilograms from 1,300 kilograms in the same quarter last year. The overall average net selling price per gram was $5.60, or $7.54 Canadian, and $5.28, or $7.02 Canadian, excluding excise tax. This compares to $5.94 in the prior year’s first quarter.

Gross margin for Q1 increased sequentially to 23% from 20% in the prior quarter. Gross margin continues to be impacted by increased costs, with the ramping up of cultivation facilities as well as high cost third-party supply. In addition, hemp food margins were impacted by an approximately $700,000 non-cash charge related to acquisition accounting for the fair value of inventory. The remaining additional non-cash charge of approximately $1.4 million will hit in the second quarter of 2019.

As we discussed on our prior quarter call, we continue to expect sequential increases in gross margin throughout this year, heavily weighted toward the second half of the year as a result of our Portugal facility coming online, with full GMP certification and the ability to sell higher value-added products in Canada adult-use markets.

Total operating expenses increased to $33.3 million, which includes $5.3 million in non-cash stock compensation and $4.4 million for acquisition-related expenses. Excluding those items, operating expenses increased by $15.9 million compared to the prior year’s first quarter, which is primarily comprised of an increase in G&A of $8.7 million and sales and marketing expenses of $5.6 million. The increase was driven by increased headcount related to growth initiatives, public company costs, and operating expenses added through recent acquisitions.

Our net loss for the quarter was $30.3 million or $0.32 per share compared to a loss of $5.2 million or $0.07 per share for the first quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP adjusted net loss for the quarter was $25.2 million or $0.27 per share for the first quarter 2019. The adjustments in net loss are the non-recurring acquisition-related charges.

We reported an adjusted EBIDTA loss of $14.6 million compared to a loss of $3.2 million for the first quarter of last year. The increase in net loss and adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to an increase in operating expenses related to growth initiatives.

Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $325 million. We continue to believe that we have sufficient capital to execute our growth plans for the next 12-16 months. We continue to believe we have significant growth opportunities with multiple paths for value creation and expect to achieve strong growth for the years to come.

Long-term, we continue to expect to capture a sizable portion of the global cannabis market, with an estimated gross margin of 50%-plus and adjusted EBITDA margins of 25% to 30%. The EBITDA margins are based on the legal markets that exist today and, as new markets are added, we will invest and develop those markets, which may have a short-term impact on EBITDA margins but also provide for greater revenue upside.

We are pleased with the results for the first quarter. We are still in the very early stages of growth and we believe we are taking the necessary steps to lay the foundation for solid long-term growth in the global cannabis industry.

This concludes our prepared remarks. Brendan and I are now available to take your questions. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. And, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, just press “*1” on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, press “#”. Again, if you have a question, just press “*1”.

And our first question is from Vivien Azer with Cowen. Your line is open.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Hi. Good afternoon.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Good afternoon, Vivien.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

So, just to kick things off on revenues. It came in really nicely, certainly ahead of our estimate, ahead of consensus. Wondering how your fiscal 1Q results compared to your internal expectations. And if there was upside to your expectations, from a second perspective, what drove it? Thanks.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

So, Vivien, yes, our numbers came in pretty solid for Q1. As you know, some of the key drivers to that is having plenty of supply and sufficient supply to reach these markets. But if you look at our adult-use market, we are up 80%, which was ahead of where we were originally expecting for Q1.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Great. That’s terrific. Mark, you reiterated that you expect to be recognizing revenue from novel form factors that will be legalized later in the year. I’m just curious to understand how you’re thinking about the 60-day notice period because it doesn’t leave a ton of wiggle room to generate revenue in the fourth quarter if I’m thinking about it right. Thanks.

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. If there’s an additional 60 days on top of the mid-October date, that only leaves a really small window in the second half of December. We are still expecting to be able to have revenues kick in earlier than that, so we’re still waiting to see the final regulations on that 60-day window.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Got it. But just to clarify then, you’re expecting some kind of flexibility from the government?

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

We are.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Okay. My last question is on the capacity build-out. It makes sense, given that you’re pushing out your target for supply and demand balances in the marketplace. Your comment was that those build-outs will be completed by the end of the year but thinking in terms of how that translates into revenue recognition — and understanding that the construction will be done by the end of the year and then we should add another 12-15 weeks for cultivation and processing or could it be sooner than that? Thanks.

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Yeah, so I think you’re looking at it the right way. So, as we finish, it’s still going to take time to have the plants start up and to have the cycles of the plant start. So, you’re thinking about it right.

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Graeme Kreindler with Eight Capital. Your line is open.

Graeme KreindlerEight Capital — Analyst

Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions here. First question, just wanted to elaborate on the wholesale supply available that you were discussing earlier. Now that we’re into sort of mid-May, I just wanted to get some color on what the picture looks like in wholesale supply. Has it improved into Q1 or is this something that can be kind of lumpy in the market?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I would say it’s pretty lumpy. We haven’t seen a whole lot of supply out there and when our team goes out to inspect the supply that is there, we’re not finding the greatest quality. And so we, oftentimes, will inspect product and it’s just not of a quality where we’d feel comfortable putting it in our packaging and selling it under our brands. We do see some progress. We see some very nice facilities coming online but I think we’re still expecting several quarters of supply imbalances here in Canada. I think you’ll see some smoothing of the lumpiness when we start being able to sell other form factors in Canada. That will give producers, such as us, and consumers more options of products to sell and products to buy.

Graeme KreindlerEight Capital — Analyst

Got it. Thanks. And to follow up on there, the average net selling price per gram from Q4 look like it decreased into Q1. So, I was wondering if I could get a bit of color there in terms of what the contributing factors were.

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Sure. So, if you think about our pricing, the pricing is relatively fixed to the provinces in most of our channels. So, pricing hasn’t moved. It’s really a function of mix. So, we actually have sold a little bit less extracts this quarter versus the prior quarter or prior year’s quarter and versus last quarter. So, it’s more a function of mix as opposed to any price changes. And as you saw, adult-use was a higher percentage of revenue compared to last quarter as well.

Graeme KreindlerEight Capital — Analyst

Okay. Great. That makes sense. And then my last one here. I’ll jump back in the queue. You mentioned about pursuing other strategic partnerships. So, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what specific verticals would be higher up in your pecking order and if you’re putting any sort of timeline or range of timelines in terms of when we could see another strategic partnership be announced?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

That’s a good question, Graeme. As we see cannabis disrupting a number of other industries, we have been inundated with contacts from Fortune 500 companies who are interested in exploring partnerships with Tilray. And it’s a range of companies from a broad variety of industries. Generally, the deals that have been done with other companies, we generally talk to those people at some point in their process. Right? Imagine if you’re a business development person at a Fortune 500 company that’s looking at the cannabis industry, that person wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t talk to us. So, obviously, lots of other tobacco companies are looking at the industry, lots of other CPG companies are looking at the cannabis industry from all different categories within CPG, and we’re also starting to have lots of conversations with U.S. retailers who are interested in carrying CBD products in the second half of this year. Some of the conversations are focused around carrying our products and other conversations revolve around essentially contract manufacturing some of their in-house brands using Tilray-sourced cannabidiol.

Graeme KreindlerEight Capital — Analyst

Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that and I’ll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Graeme.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Michael Lavery with Piper Jaffray. Your line is open.

Michael LaveryPiper Jaffray — Analyst

Thanks. Good evening. How’s it going? You mentioned the harvest in Portugal and that the certification is in the works. Can you give us a sense of how to think about the trajectory there? I know working to get the certification is out of your control, at least to some extent on timing there, but when should we think about shipments and how that builds over the course of the year?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So, I first went to Portugal three years ago and the first step of the process was signing an MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, with various departments within the Portuguese government — Ministry of Industry, investments there, Public Health, INFARMED, and then there’s an agency called AICEP. And we signed that MOU. We did what we promised, we invested heavily and built-out a facility. The facility is now complete and we have a greenhouse, have had a greenhouse operating since last December. And so we’ve had multiple harvests from that greenhouse. So, we’re building up inventory in Portugal. The next step is for us to process that product and begin to export it from Portugal to other countries within the EU. I imagine that the first shipment will likely be from Portugal to Germany.

As we’re building up that inventory, I would expect three different GMP certifications to take place, really over the next four or five months. So, the first one, we’re expecting within the next month or so. We’ll receive another GMP certification from INFARMED, our regulator in Portugal. Essentially, the Health Canada equivalent in Portugal. The second GMP certification, we would expect sometime mid-summer, June/July, and then the third one in the fall. The third one is for oils and extracts. And so we expect revenue really in the second half of the year from that facility in Portugal.

At the same time, we’ve approved a 300% increase in our capacity in Portugal. So, we’ll build an additional three hectares of glass house there and that — so, 7.5 acres. We expect that to come online just at the end of the year, start of next year. Obviously, to Vivien’s question, at the beginning, it takes a while to ramp up. Essentially, these facilities are like large machines. It takes a while to ramp up and start up these facilities. And then in Portugal this summer, we will have an outdoor THC grow. We did one last summer. The grow this summer in Portugal outdoors will be about 50 times larger than the one we did last year. And we have also approved an indoor expansion in Portugal and that’s probably still about three quarters out from being complete.

Michael LaveryPiper Jaffray — Analyst

Thank you. That’s great. And then on the comments around supply balancing, could you give a sense of, when you look at that, does it factor in, I assume, exports to Europe and kind of the whole global view? And then, second, just as you think about the net impact for you, obviously that would suggest potentially better pricing but maybe less favorable costs on the spot market. How should we think about where you net out and how that may have changed relative to what you might have expected before?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I think the first change you’ll see this summer from us is that more of the product that we produce in Canada will stay in Canada for the medical market here in Canada and the adult-use market. And what we’ll do is we’ll replace the product that we’ve previously been exporting from Canada to other countries with product that’s produced and processed and packaged in Portugal. That’s the first and most immediate change. Over the short term, we expect to see relatively high prices on the spot market. But we expect those prices to become much more reasonable over the course of the next — really, over the course of the next few years.

Michael LaveryPiper Jaffray — Analyst

And a sense of where that nets out? Obviously, if you’re buying on the spot market, that’s a cost for you, but the industry’s selling prices would seem to be better. Do you have a sense of if this shift is — if the supply balance seems to be a little bit further out than it was before, is that net positive overall or negative or not much difference? How should we think about that?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I think over the long term, you will start to see more pricing segmentation. Most of the provinces, most of the buyers in the various provinces have a good/better/best — some of them have good/better/best/premium — pricing segmentation. And so I think that you’ll start to see that segmentation look more like what you see in probably beer, where you have 1x or 2x pricing segmentation across the lowest-price products to the highest-price products. And so that’s one change you’ll see, obviously, with increased supply. I think you’ll also see more pricing segmentation with the addition of other form factors in the fall. It’s much easier to have pricing segmentation with oils and extracts and beverages and edibles. And so I think that’s one change that’s coming down the path after October.

Michael LaveryPiper Jaffray — Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Tamy Chen with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Tamy ChenBMO Capital Markets — Analyst

Thanks. Hi, Brendan. Hi, Mark. My first question is could you talk a bit about how you’re thinking about the pace of revenues in the Canadian rec market over the coming quarters, in the sense that we’ve seen a very slow rollout of retail stores across the country? And does that have an impact or does that limit the cadence of demand from the provinces or does demand continue to actually grow, it’s just a matter of having enough supply right now?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I think there’s a bunch of different things going on. I think you hit on at least two of them. Obviously, it’s taking a while for the retail stores to open, which isn’t that different from what we saw in Nevada and what we saw in Washington. If you’re looking for an analog in the U.S., those are probably the best two examples. But we now see — I think there’s 450 retail stores, a little over 450 retail stores in Washington State, which has a relatively similar population to Ontario, and we have less than 25 open in Ontario. And so there’s a lot of room for growth, in terms of retail in Ontario. So, I think you’re right on that point. I think there are supply issues.

And I think the other key factor that is sort of slowing down growth in the industry or creating slower growth than we anticipated is really the form factors. You can go into illicit retailers in Canada today and buy all the same products that you can buy in a U.S. state. You can buy a beverage, you can buy an edible, you can buy vape oil cartridges, which is what consumers want based on what we see across the U.S. And so you’ve got these consumers in Canada that can’t buy the legal products that they want and so I think that is continuing to fuel the illicit market in Canada. I think that once the other form factors are allowed in October, that’s when you’ll start to see more and more illicit consumers convert over to this fully legal system.

Tamy ChenBMO Capital Markets — Analyst

Okay. Got it. And my second question is a more high-level one. Just thinking about it from a perspective of a CPG company evaluating the cannabis opportunity, what do you feel are the advantages or merits for a CPG company to partner with a Canadian-licensed producer versus considering a strategy such as leveraging offtake from a more dedicated extraction company and then just using their own CPG brands for — whether it’s the U.S. CPG market or other markets out there.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Brands are expensive and they take a long time to build and they’re the No. 1 asset of any Fortune 500 CPG company. And when they’re looking to enter an industry, enter a space that is complicated and they don’t necessarily understand it, they have a choice of going it alone or partnering with someone who understands the cannabis industry and, probably more important, understands how to partner well. And if Tilray can meet the quality standards of companies like Novartis and Sandoz, the quality standards of companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev, that means we can meet the quality standards of any Fortune 500 company. And so when they look at making the decision that you describe, they look at us, they see that we have very high quality standards. We’re inspected regularly, not only by government regulators around the world but our partners, not only Sandoz and ABI, but all of our distributors in countries around the world. And we can meet those standards and we know how to partner well, not only with pharmaceutical and alcohol companies, but with companies like Authentic Brands Group that owns over 50 iconic brands. They went through a similar vetting process and decided that it was much better for them in the long run to partner with Tilray than go it alone.

Tamy ChenBMO Capital Markets — Analyst

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Tamy.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Brett Hundley with Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Luke PerdaSeaport Global Holdings — Analyst

Hi. This is Luke Perda on for Brett Hundley. The first question — do you guys expect to have beverage production ready for later this year and what about other products for the Canadian marketplace?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

We do. We’ve been aggressively building out our capacity in our London, Ontario facility. And in addition to all of the equipment that we have there today, we are putting in additional extraction equipment, a small kitchen, and a beverage line. And we anticipate having edibles and beverages in market as soon as we can. The edible side is easier. We have lots of people on our team that have produced those products previously outside of Canada. And with beverages, the joint venture with ABI has been aggressively performing R&D, as well as our internal team, over the past few years. Aggressively pursuing R&D so that we’re ready for that launch. And we have some new brands and new products that we’re excited to bring to market.

Luke PerdaSeaport Global Holdings — Analyst

Great. Thanks. And second one. Can you talk a bit about the recent expansion announcement inside Canada? Specifically, can you speak to the long-term strength of its sales arrangements and why the company feels confident that capital should continue to be spent on Canadian cultivation rather than other areas of the supply chain or even greater levels of cultivation in other countries?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

So, in Canada, when we look at the ROI in terms of investment dollars, the easiest calculations are with expansion at our existing facilities. There, it’s a very known path. We know what we’re building, we know what we’re getting, we know that in Nanaimo, London, and in Leamington, we know that we have the — essentially, the utilities are really important. We have the power, the water already piped into our facilities. We oversized all of those when we were doing our initial build-outs so we have capacity. And the return on that investment is — that’s really easy math compared to a lot of the overpriced M&A opportunities that are available in Canada today.

Outside of Canada, we’re making our most significant investments in Portugal, where not only are we investing significantly — 300% increase in cultivation, several hundred thousand square feet of indoor capacity, like I said, more than 50 times our outdoor cultivation this summer than the last summer — but our production and manufacturing space in Portugal is really built for 300% of the cultivation that we can do. And so our intent is to purchase raw materials — cannabis and oil — from other producers around the world and bring that product into Portugal, process it, package it, and distribute it in finished form to other countries. And so that’s where we’re making our largest investment because, from Portugal, it’s very easy to distribute products globally.

Luke PerdaSeaport Global Holdings — Analyst

Thank you. And just one last one here. As Tilray’s engaged in more R&D, what is the view on the company’s ability to drive floor production, inclusion in sale of unconventional cannabinoids, like CBC, CBN, and the like? Is Tilray on a similar timeline to that of the overall industry? And what’s the best way to get these cannabinoids, be that biosynthesis or plant-breeding technologies?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

So, we’re seeing increasing demand in the U.S. for minor cannabinoids — CBC, CBN, to name a few. We looked at biosynthesis, whether we’re talking yeast or E. coli or microalgae. We made a few small investments there and explored a number of them. I think, in the long run, those cannabinoids are likely to be produced outdoors using specific genetics that are high in certain cannabinoids. And we’ve done some work on our end internally, not necessarily with breeding but selecting the right strains that have a wide variety of cannabinoids for use in outdoor cultivation. I think you’re going to see really interesting math over the long term, where I think some of these biosynthetic producers are going to face some steep competition from large, 100,000-200,000 acre hemp and cannabis farms.

Luke PerdaSeaport Global Holdings — Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Robert Wertheimer with Melius. Your line is open.

Robert WertheimerMelius Research — Analyst

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Robert.

Robert WertheimerMelius Research — Analyst

So, my first question is just, obviously, you guys have a lot you can evaluate but I wonder if you would flesh out for us your decision on the tender in Germany and just the pros and cons of that. Obviously, you have investments in Portugal versus importing. I don’t know if there’s a particular cost that you were concerned on or whether there was just no need. Maybe you could give us a little bit of background there.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. I first went to Germany in November 2015. The first day, I met with two members of German Parliament. That afternoon, I met with two members of BfArM, the Health Canada or FDA equivalent in Germany, and two activists. The next day, I hired our first employee in Germany. I believe we were the first cannabis company, certainly the first Canadian LP to have an employee there. Throughout the rest of 2015 and 2016, we had regular meetings with BfArM and essentially the DEA there, the Bundesopiumstelle.

The more we talked to the regulators there, the more we realized that the Germans really wanted to control medical cannabis at the border. They were going to go through this tender process but my sense was that they wanted to control medical cannabis at the border. German medical cannabis legalization, similar to Canada, was the result of a few different lawsuits and one patient won the right to grow cannabis in his apartment, which terrified the Germans.

And so they opened up their program. We saw an initial tender go out, which blew up after, I think, nearly a year. We didn’t participate in that tender. And based on conversations we had with government officials in Germany, didn’t participated in the second tender. The second tender really is — I think there were 13 different — I’m not exactly sure how many there were. But I think there were roughly 13 bids to produce about 200 kilograms a year at a fixed price.

That product is sold to the German government at a fixed price and so there’s no opportunity for refining products or branding or packaging and it just wasn’t a tender we were interested in when we could obtain a license in Portugal to produce massive amounts of cannabis there and we knew that the regulators in Germany were more than willing to import our product from Portugal, just like they’ve allowed us to import product to Germany from Canada where we currently sell Tilray flour and Tilray oil in pharmacies throughout Germany.

Robert WertheimerMelius Research — Analyst

Very helpful. Thank you. If I can ask another, on your supply/demand analysis look in Canada, obviously Canada has different pinch points maybe at different times, whether it’s straight up growing or packaging or distribution. You’ve talked to some of them today. Do you expect growing to be a shortage for the next 12 months and is that an advantage? I mean, when do you expect, I guess, to have a healthy supply of available product to source in and how much of that might you do?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I don’t expect it to be solved in the next 12 months. Going back, 18 months ago, a lot of the media and a lot of the analysts covering the industry in Canada were talking about how there was going to be a glut of cannabis today. And I think one of the main issues was that a lot of the Canadian LPs were being valued on a really strange metric. They were being valued on a multiple of funded capacity, which led all of the CEOs of the public LPs to grossly overestimate the capacities that they would have in place today.

And we believed them and our intent all along was to purchase raw materials from some of these cultivators. If you look at a company like ABI, they don’t grow wheat and malt and hops and barley. And so our intent was to buy raw materials from these cultivators and process those raw materials and build brands. If I could go back 18 months, 12 months ago, I would invested another $100 million to $200 million in terms of Canadian cultivation. That was a mistake. But we believed all the hype 18 months ago.

And so I think, based on what I’ve seen, I think that we’re still 12-24 months out from reaching some sort of demand/supply equilibrium. Like I mentioned in my answer to Vivien’s question, I think that other form factors in October will help. But I think that it’s still going to take quite some time for some of these high-quality facilities to come online.

Robert WertheimerMelius Research — Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Mike Hickey with Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Mike Hickey Benchmark Company — Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the strong quarter. I’m just curious, obviously you showed some caution on supply and you have obviously become more conservative over the few weeks since you last talked. Your initial guidance for ’19 was three times ’18 sales plus $65 million from Manitoba Harvest. You did sort of ’18 ex-food sales. So, curious if you think that guidance is still relevant or what sort of expectation do we set for us for ’19? Thank you.

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, just first point is we don’t give guidance. We have general direction but we typically don’t give specific guidance. But the numbers we gave out still hold. The risk that we always see in this industry is regulatory. So, if for some reason GMP takes longer or the regulations in Canada for other form factors get pushed — as Vivien indicated, it may get pushed until mid-December, which could push out revenue opportunities. Now, that’s just timing. When you’re starting a new industry, when you look back at the alcohol industry, no one remembers whether it started in Year 1 or Year 3. I mean, it’s still a massive industry. So, there may be delays here and there but we’ll stand by our directional guidance based on what we know today.

Mike Hickey Benchmark Company — Analyst

All right. Fair enough. I guess on the regulatory risk point that you just made, when you look at the edibles market, I think something we should be excited for, but when you sort of consider the pending regulatory construct, do you think it’s just too restrictive to give legal edibles a real chance to take market share from the illegal market?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

I’m fairly optimistic on the opportunity. I think that the guidelines, the regulations around potency and form factor, serving size, all those are fairly reasonable. I think the biggest challenge is still that they’re not certain yet and we don’t have any certainty in terms of packaging. And so we’re installing lots of equipment but we don’t know exactly what the products are going to look like coming out of those manufacturing lines. And so we’ll have to — that forces us to install a lot of machinery that has to have some flexibility.

I think, to your question, I think that one issue that still remains is that lots of the products that are available in this illicit market are beautifully packaged and beautifully branded. And it’s a little bit strange in that those products, many of them look like they should be the legal products, and the packaging that has all the warnings on it, it looks very different from what you see in individual U.S. states.

Mike Hickey Benchmark Company — Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Last question from me. A peer of yours made a recent acquisition of a U.S. multistate operator. I’m sort of curious of your thoughts on that strategy as a future path to the U.S. market upon legalization. Thank you.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I think we looked at that deal, as we have with most of the deals our competitors announce, and we decided that it wasn’t the right deal for us. We expect to see copycat deals between Canadian LPs and U.S. MFOs. We have had lots of those conversations. I’ve been in the industry for about nine years, started in the U.S., and so you can imagine if any of those companies are contacted by a Canadian LP, they generally reach out to us. We expect to see further consolidation in the industry. We expect to see copycat deals. We’re focused on making decisions and placing bets that will pay off for our investors for the long term. So, if we found the right partner and the right structure, that’s certainly something that we would consider.

Mike Hickey Benchmark Company — Analyst

Thanks for the color, guys. Best of luck.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Aaron Grey with Alliance Global. Your line is open.

Aaron GreyAlliance Global — Analyst

Thanks for the time, guys. Just one quick question from me. So, it’s great to see the momentum on the adult side, but just taking a quick look at the medical side, where we saw revenues decline sequentially and what we’ve seen the past three quarters, can you just talk about the trends there? I know some of it might be driven by both but just what you’re seeing on the medical side with about six months of adult use now past us. Do you think that decline might be more a function of demand or allocation of limited product or I guess just, more broadly, what you’re seeing from the category dynamics there? Thank you.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Aaron, it’s definitely about allocation. We’ve taken — at the start of every quarter, we have to estimate what demand is going to be and we make decisions based on what we think demand is. And I think one of the surprises over the last five or six months is that there’s still robust medical demand. And so, going forward, we would allocate more toward medical. More product at the beginning of the quarter.

Aaron GreyAlliance Global — Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Scott Fortune with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Scott FortuneRoth Capital Partners — Analyst

Good afternoon. Real quick one to touch base on kind of the CBD opportunity in the U.S. In talking to retailers, what type of product opportunities are you seeing from the topicals to the tinctures and such for CBD? And kind of what’s your expectation for the product rollout from Manitoba Harvest going forward here?

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we’re having lots of conversations with lots of different retailers. They all want everything. I think one big surprise for me over the last six months, one changing dynamic that is really different in the U.S. is that a lot of the demand right now is driven by consumers and retailers and not the large CPG companies that we were talking about earlier in one of the earlier questions. But every large retailer is looking for a wide array of CBD products today. And this change is really being driven by them. They’re way ahead of the curve compared to the CPG companies.

So, it’s everything from extracts and oils, tinctures, gel caps, oral sprays, protein powders, looking at lots of different products like that for Manitoba Harvest. On the Authentic Brands Group side, looking at lots of different topicals under some of their brands and expect to launch a topical series of products, set of products in the second half of this year. And then I’ve had lots of conversations with large CPG companies that are interested in products that we would never manufacture ourselves, whether it’s antiperspirant or gum, things like that. And what they’re looking for is a Tilray-certified CBD ingredient.

Scott FortuneRoth Capital Partners — Analyst

And real quick, do you think some of these larger retailers are waiting for FDA clarity here? We may have a meeting on May 31 but how do you think they’re going to move with ingestibles versus the more topical side of products? Thanks.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

That’s a really good question, Scott. So, there’s not one answer. There are retailers in the U.S. that are going to do this no matter what, which I think is going to lead to a really interesting second half of the year. And so there are retailers in the U.S. that aren’t waiting for the FDA and then, as you can imagine, there are more conservative retailers that are going to wait and see what happens with some of the FDA hearings at the end of this month and over the course of the summer.

Scott FortuneRoth Capital Partners — Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is Mike Grohndal with Northland Capital. Your line is open.

Michael Latimore Northland Securities — Analyst

Thanks, guys. This is Michael on for Mike. Maybe just a quick one on the percent mix of extracts for the total. Should we see that kind of staying the same through the rest of the year until you get the new regulations in Canada?

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, the extract mix was in the 30% range. It really is going to depend on somewhat of the mix for adult-use as well as the mix for international. Some of those that might drive that change in that mix but it’ll be relatively in that range.

Operator

Mike, does that answer your question?

Michael Latimore Northland Securities — Analyst

Yes. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And I’m not showing any further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the call back to Brendan Kennedy for his final remarks.

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thank you. I want to thank our 1,100 employees for their dedication and extraordinary efforts in building Tilray and for improving patients’ and consumers’ lives through cannabis. We appreciate everyone’s questions and participation on today’s call. Have a great evening.

Operator

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This concludes the program and you may all disconnect. Have a wonderful day.

Duration: 64 minutes

Call participants:

Rachel PerkinsInvestor Relations

Brendan Kennedy President and Chief Executive Officer

Mark CastanedaChief Financial Officer

Vivien AzerCowen & Company — Analyst

Graeme KreindlerEight Capital — Analyst

Michael LaveryPiper Jaffray — Analyst

Tamy ChenBMO Capital Markets — Analyst

Luke PerdaSeaport Global Holdings — Analyst

Robert WertheimerMelius Research — Analyst

Mike Hickey Benchmark Company — Analyst

Aaron GreyAlliance Global — Analyst

Scott FortuneRoth Capital Partners — Analyst

Michael Latimore Northland Securities — Analyst

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