Synergy CHC - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered the tenth consecutive profitable quarter: EPS of $0.17 (+86% y/y), net income of $1.47M (+125% y/y), and EBITDA of $3.80M (+136% y/y), supported by high-margin license revenue and a gain on settlement of notes payable.
• Revenue of $8.13M grew 1% y/y but missed S&P Global consensus of $10.80M; EPS beat consensus $0.08 as reported $0.17 benefited from licensing mix and the notes settlement gain.
• Gross margin expanded to 76.7% (+720 bps y/y) on licensing mix; operating expenses rose with public-company costs; operating income ticked up 2.5% y/y to $1.62M.
• Strategic catalysts: $20M debt refinancing extends maturities to 2029 (interest-only through 2025), major retail/distribution wins (Core-Mark national authorization; Walmart Canada Q4 launches), and international expansion (UAE/Turkey licensing; Mexico subsidiary shipping to Costco/Walmart).
• RTD beverages ramp shifted later: Q2 RTD revenue ~$0.15M (Amazon), with broader contributions expected in Q3–Q4 following the refinancing and distribution build-out; licensing revenue likely lumpy near term.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Tenth straight profitable quarter; CEO: “Revenue, gross profit, net income and earnings per share all grew year-over-year…”.
• Margin strength: gross margin 76.7% (+720 bps y/y), driven by $1.4M license revenue and mix.
• Balance sheet/capital structure: $20M term loan due 2029 (interest-only through 2025) enhanced flexibility; CEO: refinancing “extends our maturity profile, enhances financial flexibility and supports our long-term growth strategy”.

What Went Wrong

• Top-line below Street: $8.13M vs $10.80M consensus; product sales down y/y with licensing mix masking underlying softness; operating expenses up 16% y/y on public-company costs.
• RTD revenue below prior commentary ($2M expected in Q2 per Q1 call) as ramp shifted post-refinancing; Q2 RTD Amazon revenue ~$0.148M.
• Higher interest burden ($2.11M) offset operating gains; EPS benefited from a $2.15M gain on settlement of notes payable, highlighting non-operating volatility.

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Synergy CHC Corp.'s financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025. Joining us today are Synergy's CEO, Jack Ross, CFO, Jaime Fickett, and Greg Robles with Investor Relations. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for analyst questions. Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Robles as he reads the company's safe harbor statement. Greg, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, and thanks for joining our conference call to discuss our second quarter 2025 financial results. I'd like to remind everyone that this call is available for replay and via a live webcast that will be posted on our Investor Relations website at investors.synergychc.com. The information on this call contains forward-looking statements. These statements are often characterized by terminology such as believe, hope, may, anticipate, expect, will, and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and the actual results may be materially different from the results implied by forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause results to differ materially from those implied herein include, but are not limited to, those factors disclosed in the company's SEC filings under the caption risk factors. Information on this call speaks only as of today's date, and the company disclaims any duty to update the information provided here.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of Synergy CHC Corp., Jack Ross. Jack?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Synergy CHC Corp.'s performance for the second quarter of 2025. We are very pleased to report that the quarter marked our 10th consecutive quarter of profitability, a significant milestone that reflects our continued operational discipline and focused execution. Revenue, gross profit, net income, earnings per share, all grew year over year, underscoring the strength of our platform as we continue scaling profitability. Before we get into the results, let me touch on a few key developments across our business. First, an update on our international expansion. Following last quarter's announcement of a license agreement for the UAE, we have expanded that agreement to now include Turkey, further extending our global footprint for the Focus Factor brand.

These agreements allow us to enter high-potential international markets in a capital-efficient way, and we expect both regions to begin generating additional revenue before the end of this year. We continue to pursue additional licensing partnerships in markets where we do not intend to establish a direct footprint. We have completed a formation of a new wholly owned subsidiary in Mexico. We are actively engaging manufacturing partners and customers. We expect to be shipping our first two new customers, Costco Mexico and Walmart Mexico, late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. We still plan on entering Australia and Taiwan markets early in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, with Costco being the lead customer in both regions. Next, I would like to update you on the functional beverage business momentum that continues to build both operationally and organizationally.

During the second quarter, we've assembled a high-caliber leadership team to drive Synergy CHC Corp.'s beverage strategy and growth. Their decades of collective experience across CPG, convenience, and global retail development will position us to scale quickly and effectively. In fact, the growth is already translating to shelf. During the second quarter, we secured some of the most significant distribution wins in Synergy CHC Corp.'s history, which will meaningfully expand access to both Focus Factor supplements and focus and energy beverages across North America. A few highlights on the beverage side, Cormark, a division of Performance Food Group, one of North America's largest food and beverage distributors, granted national item authorization for Focus Factor, Focus and Energy, unlocking access to sell to over 50,000 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada.

On the supplement side, Walmart Canada will be launching two SKUs nationally in Q4, marking a major milestone for us. This placement builds on our 18-year relationship with Walmart U.S. and further affirms Focus Factor's leadership in growing the brain health category. In parallel, McKesson Canada, the country's largest pharmaceutical distributor, has signed a national distribution agreement that gives us access to thousands of pharmacies and wellness retailers across Canada. These retail wins are a clear signal that our expanding reach and growing relevance with both consumers and retail partners, combined with strong execution from our leadership team, we expect the momentum to accelerate into the second half and beyond. Before passing the call over to Jaime, our Chief Financial Officer, I want to touch briefly on our debt refinancing, which we announced we completed in June.

We entered into a new $20 million term loan credit facility, of which we've drawn down $17.5 million of that facility to pay out previous facilities. This extends our debt maturity date into 2029, which includes interest-only payments through the end of 2025. The transaction immediately improves our balance sheet by eliminating all short-term debt obligations and providing growth capital to support our strategic initiatives. We view this refinancing as a major milestone that enhances financial flexibility, increases free cash flow in the near term, and better aligns our capital structure with Synergy CHC Corp.'s long-term growth strategy. With those updates, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jaime Fickett. Jaime?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jack. I'll now review our financial results. For the second quarter of 2025, net revenue was $8.1 million compared to $8 million in the year-ago quarter, reflecting an increase of 1%. We also generated $1.4 million in license fee revenue during the quarter. Gross margin for the second quarter was 76.7% compared to 69.5% in the same quarter last year. The increase in gross margin was primarily driven by license revenue. Operating expenses for the second quarter were $4.6 million compared to $4 million in the year-ago quarter. The increase in operating expenses was primarily due to the incremental cost associated with being a public company. Income from operations was $1.62 million, up 2.5% from $1.58 million compared to the second quarter of 2024. Net income for the second quarter was $1.47 million compared to $655,000 in the year-ago quarter, representing an increase of 125%.

Earnings per share for the second quarter was $0.17 per diluted share compared to $0.09 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter, representing an increase of 86%. These increases reflect the successful execution of our strategic growth initiatives and cost management. EBITDA for the second quarter was $3.8 million, up 136% compared to $1.61 million in the second quarter of 2024. Moving to our balance sheet, as of June 30, 2025, we had cash and cash equivalents of $1.5 million compared to $687,900 as of December 31, 2024. Inventory was $2.4 million at the end of the second quarter compared to $1.7 million at December 31, 2024. At June 30, 2025, we had $32.1 million in total liabilities, which compares to $33 million in total liabilities at December 31, 2024, which is a decrease of $869,000 in the second quarter.

Subsequent to the quarter end, we've also reduced our outstanding notes payable by an additional $1.8 million. At June 30, 2025, we had a working capital surplus of $12.4 million compared to a working capital deficit of $1.12 million as of December 31, 2024. For the six months ended June 30, 2025, our cash used in operating activities was $899,700 compared to cash used in operating activities of $1.1 million at June 30, 2024. The decrease primarily reflects higher net income, partially offset by changes in working capital, including increases in accounts receivable and inventory. Now, I will turn the call back to the operator.

Speaker 0

Thank you, ma'am. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, press star one one again. We also ask that you wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. One moment for the first question. The first question that I have today is coming from the line of Sean McGowan of Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed.

Speaker 1

Hi. Good morning, Jack. Good morning, Jaime. How are you?

Speaker 3

Good morning, Sean. How are you today?

Speaker 1

Good. A couple of questions on the RTD. Were you able to book much revenue in the quarter, or is that still to come?

Speaker 3

Mostly still to come, but we did see a significant improvement on our Amazon sell-through, relatively speaking. Quarter over quarter, last quarter, I think we sold $41,000 on Amazon. This quarter, it was three times that. It was $148,000, if you will. As you know, the minute that we closed our financing round, our debt restructure, and then we could utilize the capital to start growing our ready-to-drink (RTD) business in a meaningful way, we instantly switched and started adding team and started signing retail partners. More to come on RTDs, very quickly in a certain quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay. Besides Amazon, what retailers currently have the product on shelf?

Speaker 3

Multiple retailers in Canada. I'd have to get you a list of them, Sean, but multiple retailers in Canada, if you will.

Speaker 1

No, you've listed a bunch of those. I'm just wondering, as, yeah, have we started to see that revenue or is that not yet showing up? I'm trying to get a sense of how much was in the quarter.

Speaker 3

$148,000 in the quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay, thank you on that. I assume that the licensing revenue is basically 100% gross margin?

Speaker 3

Correct.

Speaker 1

Would you expect the licensing revenue to—I'm not sure how the deals are constructed. Is it strictly a percentage of sales, or do you get kind of, you know, steady payments? What should we expect that line to do? Is that going to grow slowly, or is it going to be lumpy?

Speaker 3

Yeah. You know, it's going to grow slowly. We are talking to other groups in other countries again. We only plan to do those deals where we don't intend to put a sales team or our own organization to sell the retail. We are talking to some other groups, but we don't really expect anything in the third quarter for license fee revenue. It might be a little bumpy, if you will.

Speaker 1

Could you, Jaime, talk about any expenses that hit the quarter that you would say are kind of unusual or non-recurring? Is there anything of that nature?

Speaker 2

We did have a lot of professional fees and legal expenses that were higher than normal, again, due to being a public market company. Selling and operations was in line. I would say that would be the only one-timers or unusual in the quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay. Those professional, I mean, the costs of being public are going to persist, right?

Speaker 3

Yeah, correct, but they didn't index against last year. That's all she's saying.

Speaker 1

Right. All right. Mexico, will that be accounted for as a revenue or a license deal? That's revenue, right?

Speaker 3

That's revenue. We have our own footprint there. We have our own company there. Anywhere, really anywhere Costco is, we'll have our own sales teams and all, and have our own revenue, if you will. Was there.

Speaker 1

Were you able to book any Flat Tummy revenue in this quarter?

Speaker 3

Flat Tummy is, you know, is staying pretty steady, but we'll call nothing new to report at this point in time.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Sean.

Speaker 0

Thank you. This does conclude today's Q&A session. I would like to go ahead and turn the call back over to Mr. Ross for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Lisa. We'd like to thank everyone for joining the earnings call today, and we look forward to speaking with you when we report the third quarter results in the middle of November. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.