NewAge, Inc.
Q2 2016 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 25 Aug 2016

[Operator:]

Good morning, and thank you for joining New Age Beverage Corporation’s Quarterly Results Investor Conference Call for the period ending June 30, 2016. On today’s call we will have Brent Willis, Chief Executive Officer of New Age Beverages, Ronil Chandra, sitting in for the Chief Financial Officer, Bob Miranda who is out sick, and Scott LeBon, Chief Executive Officer of New Age’s operating company. On our call, Brent will provide some opening comments. Bob will provide an overview of our first half and Q2 2016 results and then turn it back to Brent and Scott who will discuss status of the integration with XingTea, and progress against major priorities. We will then open the call to questions. We remind you that this conference call contains certain forward-looking statements reflecting management’s current expectations regarding future results of operations, economic performance, financial condition and achievements of the Company. Forward-looking statements, specifically those concerning future performance, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The transcript of today’s conference call will be available on the Company's website, within the investor section at www.mybucha.com. I’d now like to turn the call over to Brent.

[Brent Willis:]

Just a little more than 100 days ago, I was asked to join the American Brewing Company. A lot has happened since then. In those 100 days, we

[Ronil Chandra:]

Thanks Brent and congratulations on a very successful first acquisition, and even more so, the financing of it, which was definitely in shareholders best interests. Versus the small scale Bucha operation of roughly $2.5 million in scale historically, to a new combined entity of now almost $60 million in scale, is night and day and a massive transformation that I am not sure I have ever seen in my career. Independent of the share price movement that has gone from a low of 19 cents in the past 4 or 5 months to now in the $1.50 a share range, the platform that the Company now has

[Brent Willis:]

Thanks Ronil. Our big news for the quarter is acquisition of New Age/Xing. This was a lot of work, but was transformative for the firm. Standalone Bucha was a great fast growing brand, just too small scale, and this merger with Xing/New Age provides a real accelerant to capture the growth potential of this brand. Now that we have completed the acquisition, and frankly putting the one-time, short term integration and acquisition costs that distort the quarter as Ronil talked about, what do we have to work with? Versus where we were 100 plus days ago

[Scott LeBon:]

Thanks Brent, I’ll let you keep doing the strategizing and talking, which is what you’re good at, I’ll stick to the operations which is what I am good at. Just kidding. I’ve been at this a long time, but I have to tell you I am fired up, and our organization is too. We are good operators, and now as a public company, we are increasing our level of sophistication and becoming a more metric and performance oriented organization. I am very excited about the combination and about being a public company. It gives us a chance at monetizing our last 15 years of investment in what we have built, which is why personally – I only took in stock as part of the deal. So – I am in the same position, with the same objectives as every single shareholder

[Brent Willis:]

Thanks Scott. We have talked about our top 10 accomplishments in the past 100 days, the pro-forma financials that frankly show a different picture of profitability versus what accounting rules require us to report, and we have talked about the platform and capabilities we now have following the merger. What I want to add to that is – where are we headed and what are we going to do with the platform. We have 5 short term priorities