Jamieson Wellness Inc

TSX:JWEL

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Jamieson Wellness Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 3, 2023. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Pilato, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Thank you, Darryl, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join us to discuss our latest results. I'll begin with some high-level comments about the quarter and provide an overview of our key strategic initiatives. Chris will then follow with a more detailed view of the financials and provide updates on our guidance. We will then open it up for questions. In the second quarter, we continued to execute on our growth strategy and leverage our global platform to deliver another solid quarter. Total revenue increased nearly 50% to $168 million, reflecting 52% growth in our Jamieson Brands segment and 43% growth in our Strategic Partners segment. Continued strong consumption trends remain a key driver of success as consumers continue to prioritize their health and wellness. In Canada, Q2 revenues increased 2%, with consumption significantly outpacing shipments in both units and dollars. In the U.S., our Youtheory brand drove revenue of $42 million, driven by our strong innovation plans. Additional factors that help to propel Youtheory growth in Q2 included further strength in e-commerce and some distribution expansion. Our China business unit continued to evolve this quarter. In mid-May, we completed 2 key strategic growth initiatives: the transition to an own distribution model in the country, enabling us full control of our value chain and future in the world's second largest vitamin mineral supplement market as well as the closing of our partnership agreement with DCP Capital. Our Q2 revenue in China increased 63%, driven by cross-border e-commerce and new distribution, coupled with the step-up in pricing tied to the transition to our own distribution model. On a pro forma basis, our China revenue was up 21% versus prior year and continues to reflect very strong consumer demand. Our revenue in international markets was $8 million, lower than previous year's revenue of $10 million. Factors contributing to the decline include timing of customer inventory replenishment as well as regulatory approvals at the government level taking longer than normal in some markets due to post-pandemic related backlogs. We continue to work in these countries to get approvals through the pipeline and get our products to market as soon as we can. There remains a continued positive consumption trend across many of our international regions that we're happy with, including stabilization and growth of plus 5% in Eastern Europe. Strategic Partners revenue was up 43%, driven by pricing, production capacity and timing of orders scheduled in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA of $31 million was up 27% versus prior year. As expected, revenue grew at a faster rate than adjusted EBITDA, reflecting strategic investments in brand building activities and our expansion in the U.S. and China, while continuing to grow our domestic leadership position. We are now more than halfway through 2023 and have made significant progress on the transformational activities we began in 2022. Our U.S. business has continued to advance integration efforts as planned, and we continue to capture synergies we have realized from day 1 to continue to drive growth and profitability. We are expanding distribution and leaning into our strong innovation pipeline with the Youtheory brand's first low-sugar dummy SKUs and the renovated [indiscernible] SKU hitting the market in Q2 and showing early positive signs of success in market. We continue to expect performance in Youtheory to show steady progress over the near term, as reflected in our strong guidance for Q3 and remain committed to our long-term revenue growth and margin expansion. In China, we continue to see strong momentum in the market, and we are well positioned to capitalize on the significant long-term potential with our new operating structure, which puts us in full control of our brand and the value chain. We have ample manufacturing capacity to support anticipated growth for the next several years and are leveraging DCP's deep expertise in the Chinese market to strengthen and accelerate our opportunities. In the immediate term, we continue to focus on strengthening our brand awareness and building out our on-the-ground team and infrastructure. In summary, the step change we realized in scaling our business globally over the past several quarters continues to show significant progress. All our core strategic growth initiatives are on track and our results have enabled us to once again increase our quarterly dividend. As the world continues to recalibrate post-COVID-19, we continue to monitor and adapt to this macroeconomic environment. Although we delivered another strong quarter in quarter 2 and consumption continues to show strength and resilience in Canada, meeting our expectations. We are starting to see some inventory adjustments at the retail level due to higher cost of capital. This, combined with the post-COVID product registration backlog in a few international markets have caused us to trim the high end of our full year guidance from plus 28% to plus 26% on revenue and plus 18% to plus 16% on adjusted EBITDA, while still delivering a strong year of growth in a year of global transformation. We are also pleased to announce today an increase in our quarterly dividend based on continued strong results. Chris will walk us through more details shortly. In closing, our ability to navigate and deliver results in a changing post-COVID-19 environment on a global scale is a testament to the strength and resilience of our strategy and our team. I want to thank the Jamieson and team for their commitment and passion for helping advance our mission of becoming the world's most trusted health and wellness company and delivering another good quarter. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Chris to discuss our second quarter results and guidance in more details. Chris, over to you.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. In the second quarter, revenue increased by 49.6% to $167.6 million, driven by Youtheory acquisition and growth in both our Jamieson Brands and Strategic Partners segments. Jamieson Brands revenue increased by 51.5% to $132.9 million. Domestic Canadian revenue grew by 2%, reflecting strong consumer consumption, which significantly outpaced shipments in the quarter in both units and dollars as the consumer continues to be highly engaged in the category. Our Youtheory segment contributed $42.1 million of branded revenue, driven by the initial shipments of our new and improved Turmeric SKU, continued strength in e-commerce and distribution gains in the quarter. In China, our transition to an owned distribution model helped drive revenue growth of 63%. On a pro forma basis, China revenue increased 21%, reflecting the timing of the transition to our own distribution model, continued strength in cross-border e-commerce, club channel sales and new distributions in Chinese retail. In our International business unit, revenue declined by $2.2 million due to timing of customer orders for unique international SKUs, offsetting the full impact of the decline in Eastern Europe in the prior year's second quarter. Shipments in the second quarter of 2023 were impacted by the government regulatory slowdowns in a few key markets impacting innovation in existing markets and our entry into new markets. Consumption remains strong across many geographic regions, including 5% growth in Eastern Europe. Our strategic partner business increased by 42.8% to $34.7 million, reflecting quarter-over-quarter impact of higher pricing, timing of orders scheduled in the prior year. Gross profit margin decreased by 370 basis points on a reported basis and was down 230 points on a normalized basis, reflecting the inclusion of Youtheory's lower gross profit margin profile on our consolidated operations. Reported gross margin included $2.3 million adjustment to increase the fair value of inventory related to our Chinese distributor acquisition and transition to our own distribution model. Within the Jamison Brands gross profit margin declined by 580 basis points to 37.4% or by 410 basis points on a normalized basis to 39.1%, reflecting the inherently lower gross margin profile and seasonally high volume of Youtheory in the quarter. Gross profit margin in Strategic Partners segment increased by 310 basis points to 14.8%, reflecting consumer -- sorry, customer and program mix as well as volume-driven operating efficiencies with pricing offsetting higher input costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased by $9.8 million compared to the prior year. Excluding the impact of specified costs and the addition of Youtheory, SG&A increased by $4.9 million or 24.5% largely reflecting global expansion initiatives by adding resources, marketing and infrastructure to support our growth in the U.S. and China. Specified costs of $3.6 million in the quarter, comprised of transaction-related costs and IT system implementation expenses. Second quarter operating income increased by 27.6% to $18.6 million as a result of higher revenue and gross profit, neutralizing higher investments in SG&A. On a normalized basis, second quarter operating income increased by 25.5% and EBITDA increased by 18.6% to -- sorry, $22.3 million, reflecting higher revenue gross profit, partially offset by investments in SG&A. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 27.1% to $31.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 330 basis points to 18.5%, reflecting lower margin in the Jamieson Brand segment driven by the inclusion of Youtheory. Net earnings decreased by 28.6% to $7.2 million and adjusted net earnings, which excludes specified costs and foreign exchange increased by $13.6 million. Our earnings per diluted common share was $0.17 and adjusted earnings per common per diluted common share was $0.32, flat compared to the prior year as increased net earnings has been impacted by the additional borrowings in support of our Youtheory and distributor acquisitions plus higher prevailing interest rates and the timing of cash flows associated with our DCP partnership in the quarter. A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net earnings is provided in today's press release announcing our second quarter results. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. We generated $11.7 million in cash from operations in the quarter compared to $13.3 million in the prior year. Cash from operations before working capital considerations was $4.2 million lower due to decrease in earnings, including the realized acquisition and system improvement costs previously mentioned. Cash invested in working capital decreased by $2.5 million in the quarter, driven by the timing of accounts receivable collection and changes in payables in the quarter. In the quarter, we invested $25.8 million to acquire certain assets of our former distribution partner in China and invested $2.8 million in other capital and intangible expenditures. We distributed approximately $7.1 million in dividends, and we ended the quarter with approximately $246.2 million in cash and available operating lines. Based on our strong cash flow position and earnings today, we have announced a dividend of $0.19 per common share or approximately $8 million in aggregate -- this represents a $0.02 or 11.8% increase compared to the second quarter dividend. The dividend will be paid on September 15, 2023, to common shareholders of record at the close of business on September 1, 2023. Now turning to guidance. Consumer consumption continues to be strong across the organization, and we are maintaining our previous growth expectations within our most strategic growth pillars in the United States and China. In Canada, consumer consumption of more than 8% year-to-date continues to outpace shipments while retailers have begun to reduce their investments in working capital. with lower shipments in Canada and regulatory timing impacting our international business, we have decided to trim the top end of our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges. For fiscal 2023, we now anticipate the following: net revenue in the range of $670 million to $690 million, reflecting annual revenue growth of 22% to 26% compared to our previous range of $670 million to $700 million; adjusted EBITDA in the range of $140 million to $144 million, an increase of 13% to 16% from a previous guided range of $140 million to $146 million. And adjusted earnings per fully diluted common share of $1.56 to $1.63 compared to a previous range of $1.62 to $1.72, reflecting the anticipated change in adjusted EBITDA and our revised interest expectations due to higher prevailing interest rates and the timing of funds received from our partnership in China. Additionally, I would like to note the following guidance assumptions: Jamieson Brands segment revenue growth of 24% to 28% compared to our previous range of 24% to 30%, driven by the following updates. -- an increase in Jamieson Canada revenues of 2% to 4% compared to our previous stated range of 3% to 6% growth, reflecting continued consumer demand, marketing plans, innovation and the impact of prior year pricing. These growth drivers are offset by reduced inventory levels within our customers and distributor partners as they lower working capital investment in response to higher cost of capital. International revenue expected to be flat or up to 10% growth from our previous stated range of 5% to 20% growth, reflecting a post COVID-19 government slowdown of processing product registrations in new and existing markets. Our revised outlook continues to be driven by marketing, innovation and the timing of distribution into new markets. Consumer consumption remained strong in Canada and in the United States. And as such, our guidance remains unchanged at 25% to 30% pro forma growth in China and 11.5% to 19% growth on a pro forma basis in the United States. Normalized SG&A, including marketing expenses are expected to increase 31% to 35%, updated from our previous guidance range of 35% to 40%, reflecting the prioritization of brand resource and brand and resource investments. Full year growth is based on the acquisition of Youtheory accelerated investment in marketing resources and infrastructure spending to support long-term growth opportunities in the United States and in China. A complete discussion of our third quarter and full year fiscal 2023 outlook as well as factors impacting our expected performance are included in the outlook section of our MD&A filed this afternoon. In closing, I would like to thank the entire Jamieson ones team for their continued commitment and hard work as we continue to deliver high-quality brands that consumers trust while executing on our strategic plans. With that, let me turn the call back to our operator, Daryl, for Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And I'm standing by for questions. Our first question comes from Endri Leno.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

I just wanted to start a little bit with the Q3 guidance, especially when we're talking about the domestic Jamieson. I was wondering if you can give a little bit of color in terms of kind of how you see the volume movements in Q3 versus pricing consumption and shipments in that regard?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes, so we did put out some guidance by the quarter, and you are seeing a decline in Q3 in the Canadian guidance. I think it's important to ground everyone on what was happening a year ago where we reported a plus 12% and -- so in that quarter, we had pretty strong shipments behind a few things. One, the last real push or the real last real wave of COVID in Canada, we were still shipping in against that latest wave. We had some early shipments going on earlier than expected shipments going on around cold and flu season and also timing of higher promotional spend going on in the year. So really, we are up against a really tough and big comp in Q3 with plus 12% and we're going to see a little bit of decline against that as we comp against it. From a consumption perspective, though, the business continues to drive strong in Canada. The consumer continues to be strongly and highly engaged in the category. They continue to grow the category. You heard in Chris' comments there that we're seeing dollar growth of plus 8% in the latest quarter. We're seeing unit growth of plus 4% at the consumption level and really just seeing that offset from some inventory burn going on in the marketplace. So the consumer is there, the business is strong on the ground. We're comping up against some moving pieces from a year ago as well as a bit of inventory burn going on that you've seen in our guidance around Canada.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

And just as a follow-up on that question. I mean, if you're seeing that in Q3 and I think the immunity shipments and the flu continued in the fourth quarter of last year as well. I mean, what gives you confidence that you can accelerate growth in Q4 to hit the annual target.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

So last year, we saw the Cold and flu order ship a little more in Q3 than historically and a little less weighted to Q4. So we're expecting that to go back to historical norms down. Some of that was driven by the COVID wave that I mentioned going on at the same time as the cold and flu season was starting to kick off. So the anticipation is we're going to get back to more normalized timing in that cold and flu shipments. There will be some in Q3, just not as strong as last year, and some of that shifted into Q4 where we expect strong growth.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

Okay. The other question I had, I mean it's still on the Q3 guidance, but more for Youtheory. If I'm doing some quick calculations, and I just open it up. So correct me if I'm seeing it incorrectly, but around $25 million in revenues for Youtheory in Q3. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about that in terms of -- is that driven by seasonality? What kind of seasonality do you expect in Q3 versus Q2 for your theory? Or was it that you just saw a big sort of rush of orders in Q2 and then you're shipping now instead of Q3?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So if we go back to what we've been talking about the last few quarters, we were dealing with some delayed innovation through Q4 of last year and Q1 of this year. And we also were talking about that SKU that we were launching a new and approved Turmeric SKU that took some time to get to market. We anticipate it to start shipping in Q2, which it did, which was fantastic. It's in market, and we were well within our guidance on the U.S. business. That product, that hero SKU that was new and improved. It shipped late in the quarter as anticipated. So we did show some growth in Q2 in the U.S. But as we flip over to Q3 now, we're going to see stronger growth as that SKU is now in market. Early signs are that it's performing quite well. And we're also comping last year in the quarter where we just bought the business. We were in the middle of transformation. There was a lot of moving pieces, and we feel pretty good about our guidance in '23 and a strong guide in the quarter of plus 40% to 50% or plus 27% to 36% on a pro forma basis.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

Okay. And the last one for me, I'll jump in the queue. But you mentioned you had gained -- or you're expanding your distribution for Youtheory. Can you talk a little bit about the nature, I mean, of this new channels or new distribution that you're having there? Is it where you want it? I mean and how does it compare with what you already had for this line?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. We continue to push for renovation -- or sorry, distribution growth in the year. We talked last quarter and the quarter before about how most of the growth this year will be driven by innovation and e-commerce growth, and we're seeing great strength there. We did talk about picking up some early possible new distribution, and we're picking up some distribution in some of the current customers that the brand was in before. We picked up a couple of new customers that we're starting to roll out some products and we've expanded distribution in some of the natural channel accounts as well. So we are starting to see some of that distribution growth happen. It is early days, as we said, in 2023, and we did see some of that contribute some growth in Q2, and we have it guided for the rest of the year as well.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Justin Keywood from Stifel.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

On the working capital use, appears to be some investments in the current quarter, and that has been the case if we look back in the past couple of years throughout the pandemic. Is there a time frame when we could see the working capital normalized to around breakeven where we see the cash flow from EBITDA converted to a higher rate?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. So as we talked in previous quarters, there's 2 -- 2 things driving working capital investment in 2023. One is the normalization of working capital in our acquired business in the United States -- as we manage that business for more efficiency, both from a procurement and a manufacturing perspective. The second piece is the extension of the order to cash cycle through our acquisition of our distributor in China. Previously, that was a sell into China model at a lower sales price. Now you've got the step up and the sellout. So that order to cash and crude freight as well as terms in China. So those are the 2 biggest drivers. In the base business, we aren't seeing a significant increase from a full year perspective in working capital, but there has been a little bit of timing that hit the quarter. In the first half of the year, you'll see that normalize back down by the second half of fiscal 2023 and as we end the year at likely less than 2x debt to EBITDA.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

And Chris, in the current quarter, do you have that exit multiple on the net debt EBITDA?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. 2.4 times. Yeah, that's the number.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

Okay. And that's down from around 3x the quarter before.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

Okay. And just one more question. Just on the Youtheory, if I understand correctly, it contributed around 8% organic growth in the quarter.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. It was high single digits, Justin, for sure. That's in the range of where we saw growth in the quarter. And then, of course, we talked about guiding stronger growth for the rest of the year now that we've got that product in market and asking some softer periods.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

And that's reflecting the new Turmeric SKU?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

That is correct, yes. The one thing, though, to remember about that new SKU, as we talked about in the last few quarters, is it shipped late in the quarter. So we got our shipments out in the third month. So the first 2 months still had some of that drag on slow selling as we were winding the old SKU down, and then we shipped in the new product in the third month of the quarter, and it's on shelf now, and we're quite pleased with the early days of sales we're seeing off-shelf.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Derek Lessard from TD Cowen.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

I want to hit on Youtheory as well. It feels like you've gotten a pretty good handle on that business or at least better visibility now that you've got a year-on-year belt. I guess my first question is, one, is that a fair statement? And number two, could you maybe just add some color around some of the innovation that you're putting into market since that's one of the bigger growth drivers this year?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I mean I think with 1 year under our belt, we do feel like we have a better handle on the business. We have more visibility. We understand the business. And I think it's a fair comment. I mean, when you buy a business, it takes some time to work through some of the integration bumps. It takes time to really learn the business through you can only learn so much through diligence. So the more time we get under our belt with that business, the more comfortable we'll be with it and the more understanding will have in it. But I think it's fair to say after a year, we have a lot more visibility and understanding of how that business moves, how it sells, the flow of all the products and really just how to best manage it moving forward. And we're quite pleased with the progress we've made from an integration perspective. We now have every single function integrated. We have just finalized the marketing function for the last function, and we're quite pleased with and optimistic with what we have planned for the back half of the year. When it comes to innovation, we talked a bit about a few things. We've talked about the new and improved Turmeric SKU. We will be focused on marketing that SKU in the back half of the year with some investment behind that. We have launched a few of our low-sugar gummies into the marketplace. We are starting to see some distribution on those through e-commerce channels, some of the natural channels, and we'll continue to push for incremental distribution on those products as we continue to settle into the marketplace. You will see a few more low sugar gummies come out in the second half of the year. We also have a couple of other products planned. I really don't want to get into the details of them for competitive reasons right now, but there are a few more products launching that hopefully we'll be able to talk to you about over the next couple of quarters.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

And I guess another question I had was on the -- could you just add some color around to -- around which markets or there's any market in particular that you're seeing more delays in the approval process than others? Or who's the bigger [indiscernible]?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Well, there's 3 markets that are really driving the impact of those delayed registrations. And really, we've been doing business in a couple of these countries for a while. One of them is a new country we had planned to enter. And they're way off the regular time lines in terms of getting things through the system. So all our submissions in, we know how to get stuff registered. They're just sitting in the queue and they're not coming out in that queue as fast as we've historically seen. We are in very close contact with those governments working closely with them to get things through the pipe. I really don't want to call out any countries. Just for the sake of we have good relationships there. We're working through it and they're working with us to try to get it through as quickly as possible. It really is a timing blip. And when those approvals happen that we can get them through. We've got the products ready. We've got them ready to go, and we'll beginning the market as soon as we can.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

And one more for me before I requeue. There has been some chatter around sort of some general economic weakness in China. Just curious if you've seen any -- and it doesn't sound like it, but just what you're seeing on the ground in terms of consumption trends there.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I mean, I think we've all seen the headlines about maybe their GDP not coming in as strong as some of the analysts expected or some of the economists expected. What we do see and what we can see is that, that -- the impact of that is much more, I would say, over on certain categories or certain segments of the economy. When it comes to consumer goods and when it comes to health, the health side of consumer goods, we continue to see growth in China, we continue to see strength in China, continue to see pretty much stronger growth at a category level than any other major country around the world.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Stephen McCloud from BMO.

[Stephen MacLeod, analyst]

Great lots of great color so far. Just wanted to follow up on a couple of things. Just with respect to Canada and the inventory replenishments, I guess, the lack of internal replenishment you're seeing at your customer levels. Are you seeing that across all channels? Or are there any that are more notable? And then do you have any visibility into how long that may persist?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Steve, welcome to your first call. It's a pleasure to have you here. It's -- I don't -- it's hard to call out channels because various channels, even within the channels, various accounts just manage inventory at different levels. So we're seeing it across multiple accounts, multiple customers. When we talked about it last quarter, someone asked a question about it. And we indicated that we're seeing some customers at lower level of inventory than normal, some at higher level inventory than normal, and we're working through at all to figure out where it all goes. And at that point, we felt pretty good that the lower levels of inventory customers that were lower than normal, we could get back up. And really, that's not happening. They're holding pretty hard and saying, we're managing our capital right now. You have a growing category where product is turning. We know we can get inventory and we're going to manage that inventory here where we have some other inventory issues elsewhere. So it's really account-by-account across the country. There's not really one specific channel or account that I would be comfortable calling out. I think for your -- for the -- what was the second question? Sorry, Steve.

[Stephen MacLeod, analyst]

Second question was just how long do you think or what kind of visibility to this --

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So you see in our guidance, we plan to see consumption outpaced shipments in Q3. In Q4, it's going to be an interesting quarter because we'll see cold and flu season really start to kick in and we'll see those shipments happen. We typically see an inventory build in Q4. Coming out of Q4, we'll see where the cold and flu season sits from a strength perspective. And at that time, we'll be in a better position to guide in terms of is there going to be any more inventory build in Q1 and Q2. But right now, we put our guidance out for the rest of this year. It includes the burn that we expect. And we'll guide for next year as we get closer to it and have a better handle on it.

[Stephen MacLeod, analyst]

And then just on the Turmeric that you launched just sort of late in the quarter. When we think about distribution, is that into a specific channel and then there are other opportunities? Or do you feel like distribution for that product particularly is already quite widespread?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

No. So that product, the initial launch of that product was through the club channel. We do have a strategic plan to continue to roll that out across more customers and more channels over the coming months and continuing to improve our Turmeric SKU across the board. So initially one channel, but there are plans and conversations going on about rolling that out more broadly with customers.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from George Doumet Scotiabank.

[George Doumet, analyst]

I just wanted to ask a little bit about the guidance, maybe to Chris, on the lower guidance on the EPS side, it seems a little bit more pronounced than the other categories. Can you maybe give us a little bit more color on that, I guess, versus expectations when it relates to the interest rate piece and the cash flow with the partner in China?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. So it really is a significant increase in our interest rate expectation. You saw the change -- we talked -- we issued a change in interest dollar expense. That was essentially about a $4 million increase at the bottom and the top end of the range for interest expense. That's split between rate and volume as we're seeing both higher rates exiting Q1 as well as continued rate increases into the second half of 2023. And then you've got some timing of working capital as we talked about with incremental investments, both in China and in the U.S. to drive efficiency in those businesses.

[George Doumet, analyst]

Okay. In that context, Chris, maybe help us walk down the EBITDA line to get to the free cash. What would the target be a range to be for the year that you're contemplating?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. So I would expect to generate between $80 million and $90 million of normalized cash flow in fiscal 2023. That includes the -- that kind of the difference between the normalized and unnormalized numbers from a cash from operations perspective. And from that, you're going to invest anywhere between $25 million and $30 million in working capital. About $10 million to $15 million in capital. About $30 million of dividends. And of course, we had the $25 million acquisition of our distributor in China, which closed to net to about 0 from a cash from operations perspective, which then means your proceeds from the DCP transaction become the predominant reduction of debt in fiscal 2023.

[George Doumet, analyst]

That's helpful. And if I heard correctly, you expect to exit next year at about 2 turns?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

I expect to exit fiscal 2023 at 2 turns. And sorry, just to be clear, that doesn't include the preferred share obligation as I'm including that as equity.

[George Doumet, analyst]

And just one last one, if I may. Just wondering, in general, like given the input baskets and your costs there, are you -- how is that trending as a group? And do you feel like you maybe need to take a little bit more price in the second half or into next year, given your inputs? Or has that remained pretty stable?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Well, we have visibility to the rest of 2023. I think from an EBITDA margin perspective, we're on track as we've kind of maintained our EBITDA margin targets, even with the trimming of our top and bottom line expectations from a volume perspective. As you know, we negotiate our final contracting in Q4 fiscal 2023 for fiscal 2024. And at that point in time, we'll be able to take stock of the ups and downs and determine a top in time if pricing will be necessary for 2024.

[George Doumet, analyst]

And just a clarification on the 8% consumption number that you called out, Chris, is that a year-to-date number? Or is that a quarterly number?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

That's the quarter number. For quarter is about 4% dollar on dollar from a POS perspective and about -- sorry, 8% dollars and 4% units.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Sabahat Khan from RBC.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

Just kind of -- I might have missed this in the earlier commentary, but you just guidance for Q3 for Youtheory of $25 million. I understand you mentioned there's some timing going into Q4. I guess, on a run rate basis, when we look at this business into '24 and onward, can you maybe just help us think about what seasonality by quarter typically would look like in a normal year?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. I think we've talked previously about the promotional cycle in the U.S. You have a significant midyear and end of year promotional cycle, which means quarter 2 and quarter 4 significantly outpaced volume in the first and the third quarter. So that will be continued. I think Q4 -- sorry, Q2 in 2024 may not be as pronounced as Q2 in 2023, just given by the timing of shipments in to fill that innovation. But we feel very strongly on a pro forma growth perspective exiting fiscal 2024 -- or sorry, fiscal 2023, as you saw, a very strong guide for Q3. And we expect obviously to continue to hit our established guidance for full year.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

So the one thing to add to that, Sabahat, is when you see the 2 quarters of Q2 and Q4 being much heavier than Q1 and Q3 because of the promotional windows, Q4 is the larger promotional now. So I just want to add that color. Historically, as it always has been, and it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

And then, I guess, just some additional color on the commentary you just shared on the cash flow and some of the uses of cash, I guess. I guess up that $90 million of normalized operating cash flow. So is $25 million to $30 million of working capital that you called out. Is that just, I guess, during the integration process, some of the inflation-related impacts? Or I'm just thinking trying to think how you think about kind of run rate working capital kind of over the next 1, 2, 3 years? Just trying to understand if 25% to 30% is more kind of a...

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes, that $25 million to $30 million is going to be specific to 2023. Certainly, my expectation would be a much smaller double-digit working capital investment in fiscal 2024. I'm not at liberty to guide right now, but you will not see anything close to $30 million in 2024. My expectation would be high teens at this point in time.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

Great. And then just one last quick one here to provide a lot of color on how things are going in Canada, I guess. Maybe just a bit more, if you can just share on kind of the consumer trends, particularly in the Canadian market. I understand retailers might be keeping inventory tighter. But what do you think on the consumer front just in the channel and things like that? Just a little bit, maybe if you can shed some color by food drug versus some of the other channels as well. I'm just trying to understand what's happening on the POS level and that's something that the retailers might be reacting to?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I mean, we do continue to see -- we talked about the numbers. dollar growth has been strong. Unit growth is strong. There's not a lot of CPG categories right now that have dollar-end unit growth going up. So we're quite pleased to see the unit growth at a category level and at a consumer level. We continue to see some, I would say, declines in immunity as we're coming off of a cold and flu season. We're coming out of COVID. You are seeing some declines in those key immunity categories. But what's amazing to see, we talked about it last quarter, it's happening again as those declines are more than being offset by many other categories that are growing, which says that all of those consumers are a good chunk of those new consumers that came in through COVID have stuck with the category and to spread their usage out to more than just immunity. We're seeing continued strength in energy, in stress and minerals in fish oils and sleep aids and beauty from within. So continued strength in those categories we've been calling out for some time. From a channel perspective, you definitely do see a continued shift in growth to some channels like the digital channel, the e-commerce channel as well as into club channel as consumers right now are looking for some value, right? They're looking for some better value on their dollars. So you are seeing some shift in some over-index growth in those channels, I would say. And very much in line with a lot of the earnings reports you've heard from the grocers within the grocery side of things or the food side of things, we are seeing a shift from what would be the conventional banners into the discount banners, which is great and has also given us opportunity to increase distribution in those banners that don't traditionally have the largest vitamin sets.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Tanya Armstrong from Canaccord.

[Tania Gonsalves, analyst]

I think most of my questions have been asked already. But going back to inventory, and I apologize if you mentioned this already, I might have missed it. Where is the current or the new inventory levels for Canadian retailers stock up to, against, I guess, pre-pandemic levels? Are they just going back to, I guess, kind of where they used to be for the most part? And I know you mentioned it differs account by account. Or is this something you expect in for levels to build back up from next year if money supply gets better in the gas?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I think what we're seeing, Tania, is we are seeing some major accounts being lower than pre-pandemic. We're seeing them hold less inventory at this time when they traditionally or historically have held -- and we believe we'll see that trend for some time as the cost of capital is quite high. I do think if we see a return to normalcy in terms of cost of capital and the interest rates are coming down, there is a possibility to see that come back up to more normal levels. But right now, there are a few major accounts that are below historical levels, unfortunately.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

And another thing, Tania is, is we just -- we do not -- we don't represent our share of shelf from a market share perspective. So there's certainly more to be had from a retailer inventory perspective if we were to get an inappropriate share shelf. Perfect.

[Tania Gonsalves, analyst]

And I'm sure you've mentioned this before, but remind me, how do you track the consumption levels in Canada? What data points are you using to get to those unit growth rates specifically?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

So we have very specific data from an account level for all the major accounts, and we have that data at our fingertips. So we aggregate it. We also have IQVIA data, which captures a certain portion of the market that we can validate some of our numbers against.

[Tania Gonsalves, analyst]

And then just lastly, on these registration backlog that we're seeing in those 3 key international markets. Why is this happening now? It seems like a lot of times is passed since the end of the pandemic, are we seeing more competitors enter the market and backlog the system? Or is this -- like is there some other fundamental reason why there's backlog?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Well, I think -- I mean, if you think about government speed and registrations as a whole, even in Canada, not talking about Health Canada, we seem to have that sorted out from a registration perspective in our category. But you've seen a general slowdown even in Canada in terms of government running into backlogs in certain areas. Some of the countries that we're talking about are more developing countries than, let's say, Canada or the United States. And during COVID, some of them just completely stopped registering anything and the backlog built up to the point that we're at today, and they're trying to play catch-up. So it really depends on the resources that each country has applied to the registration system or their regulatory body and how they -- what do they do during COVID? Did they continue to process just at a slower rate? Did they stop and what resources do they have today to get through this backlog.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from John Zamparo from CIBC.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

I also wanted to follow up on the international business, ex China and the approvals. And I just want to clarify, has this been an issue the backlog? Has this been an issue at all in prior quarters? Or is this just entirely new in Q2?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

No. I mean it really is against our expectation, right? So when we build a plan for the year, we had plans to launch products in the quarter based on historical timing of when products are registered. So it's a timing issue and that this is what we have planned for Q2 and the delays now taking us past Q3. We wouldn't have had anything material in the first quarter that this would have happened to. I think the other thing kind of -- just on your question, John, also what Tania asked a minute ago. The other thing is through COVID, there wasn't as much innovation in the marketplace, right? I mean people are really focused on selling the products they had. You saw a general slowdown on innovation across the category globally. And as we come out of the pandemic, there's many more companies, including ours, getting back to a bigger innovation plans and really putting a lot more interstation into systems that are already strained. So I hope that answers your question, but that's why it hit Q2 is because that's how we plan to have those launches in market.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And is it related at all to the ingredient ban in Europe and new products related to that?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

No, not at all and not in those countries. Are we seeing any of the delays.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

John, I would just add to that, that the original -- the original large range for the international guide was with respect to this risk, like the original guide from 5% to 20%, reflected inherently this risk. So unfortunately, we missed that call a little bit.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

I want to move to the U.S. and Youtheory, you gave some good color on drivers of sales growth there. I wonder if you could rank what the 1 or 2 largest were on a dollar basis for sales growth when you're referring to new products, e-commerce, new retailers and new distribution points within existing retailers.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I don't have the specific ranking, but I'm going to say, John, it would have been our new innovations that got to market is #1, followed by e-commerce at which we continue to see strong growth; and third, by some of the new distribution that we started to pick up in the early days here. That's on some big building blocks. We also continue to see strong growth in our Ashvgandha product, which has shown strong consumption growth period after period for the last few periods and the last couple of years is that's a really hot trending ingredient. So that's also been a driver of growth, which was a continued growth vector of a key ingredient.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

And then one final one, just a housekeeping question. There was a comment in the EPS outlook for the year about the timing of cash flows associated with the partnership in China. Can you add some color about what changed there?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

We expected to close that transaction earlier in the year when we first established our guidance.

[Operator]

And we have a follow-up question from Endri Leno.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

The question is when you're talking about China, you mentioned the new distribution as the growth in there. I just wanted to clarify whether this is the one that was already discussed in the prior quarter? Or is this a new one? And as a follow-up, can you like give some -- are you able to give some color on how many stores or how many provinces are cities are you with this new distribution?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So the main increase would be some of the stuff we talked about in the past, Endri. The interesting thing about China as we move forward, it's going to be really hard to talk about specifics because it is a fragmented country with lots of customers. So we have continued to show some increased distribution. Again, it's early days. We've had this under our control in the quarter, about 8 weeks that we've been managing it. So we'll continue to see distribution growth over the next foreseeable future into multiple years and where we can give a little more color on it, we will.

[Operator]

And we have no more questions in the queue. I'll turn it back to Mr. Pilato for closing comments.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Thank you so much, Daryl. In closing, we just want to thank everyone for your participation on today's call. We're very pleased to see our strategic growth strategy working, most notably in China and in the U.S. And we're very pleased to see the continued strong consumption here in Canada. And really, all of these factors continue to drive growth for our company. We're now laser-focused on executing the second quarter of the year. We're doing everything we tend to deliver and have a -- and we expect to have a very successful year. We wish you all a great evening, and we'll speak to you all again soon.

[Operator]

And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.