Good morning, and welcome to Neighbourly Pharmacy Inc.'s fourth quarter and fiscal 2022 conference call. The speakers on today's call are Chris Gardner, President and CEO of Neighbourly, and Terri Smyth, Chief Financial Officer of Neighbourly. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking information and statements under applicable securities laws that reflect management's current views with respect to future events. Any such information and statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information and statements. Also, today's commentary will reference several non-IFRS financial measures. Reconciliations between non-IFRS and IFRS measures can be found in Neighbourly's regulatory documents, which are available on their website and on SEDAR. Finally, the speakers' remarks this morning will align with Neighbourly's earnings presentation for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022. This presentation is also available on Neighbourly's website. I will now turn the call over to Chris Gardner. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin this morning by highlighting Neighbourly's key performance metrics and accomplishments in fiscal 2022 and the fourth quarter. After Terri walks you through our quarterly results in greater detail, I will discuss our pipeline of future growth. Following our prepared remarks, we will open it up for Q&A. Neighbourly's strong fourth quarter capped a tremendous year of growth. Since our IPO, we have nearly doubled in size and look forward to fiscal 2023. Our business has established itself at scale with 275 pharmacies following the acquisition of Rubicon. The strength and essential nature of our business, our financial flexibility and strong EBITDA growth position us well to pursue our robust pipeline of acquisitions to continue to drive future growth. This past year, we exceeded our historical pace of acquisition, expanding our national footprint by 41 locations in fiscal 2022, adding quality pharmacies focused on exceptional patient care across Canada. For fiscal 2022, on a full year basis, we achieved a healthy same-store growth of 3.1% while filling 7.2 million prescriptions. Our revenues were up 40% versus the prior year, while our adjusted EBITDA was up 31% compared to fiscal 2021. We've almost doubled the size of the business since our IPO, with pro forma revenues currently at CAD 798 million, up from CAD 415 million a year ago. We achieved these milestones while successfully managing through the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, and our pharmacy teams continue to provide exceptional service to our patients. In March, we accelerated our growth to a new level when we announced our acquisition of Rubicon's 100 pharmacy locations, reinforcing our position as Canada's fastest-growing community pharmacy leader. Rubicon not only provides us with increasing national scale and geographic diversification, it further strengthens the ability and stability of our cash flow generation. As we've shared in the recent press release, I am pleased to say that we've received clearance by the Competition Bureau to proceed with the acquisition, which we anticipate closing next week. Following the addition of Rubicon, we will have 275 locations providing patient care across Canada. 67 or approximately 40% of our pharmacies are located near clinics or medical buildings, which we refer to as clinical format locations. Given the impact of Omicron in the quarter, there was a slower than expected return of patients to in-person visits, which had a more pronounced impact on prescription volume for this type of store format. Our results in Q4 were strong amid this challenging operating environment during the quarter. Neighbourly delivered same-store sales growth of 2.3%, while same store prescription growth increased 1.8%. Excluding clinic locations, same-store prescription count was up 3.1% in the quarter as the balance of our pharmacies were not impacted to the same degree. We continue to watch closely prescription volumes across our clinic format locations as Omicron wave is now hopefully behind us. However, we do not expect a return to pre-pandemic volumes in the near to midterm. With the ongoing execution of our growth strategy, we have seen consistent double-digit growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA each quarter since our IPO last spring. The fourth quarter was no exception, with revenue up 35% and adjusted EBITDA up 26% versus the prior year. Additionally, in Q4, as a part of the ongoing impact of the pandemic, we continued to face temporary labor cost headwinds associated with COVID-related absenteeism and from the administration of vaccines, which Terri will cover in more detail in a moment. We hope that these impacts are largely behind us now. Before I pass the call to Terri, I'd like to express my appreciation for every one of our team members. Despite Omicron-related outbreaks, which impacted us through March, our pharmacy teams continue to serve their communities, providing seamless access to care. In addition to conducting expanded asymptomatic testing, our pharmacists have now administered more than 170,000 COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as more than 55,000 influenza vaccinations in the past year. The collective team's accomplishments reflects Neighbourly's strong culture and healthcare first focus. In May, we were once again recognized as one of the best managed companies in Canada by Deloitte. This is a testament to the strength of our team. With that, I'll pass the call to Terri. Thank you. Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. A brief reminder that Neighbourly's results for the fourth quarter of 2022 comprise a 12-week period. These results align with our expectations, once again demonstrating the effectiveness of our acquisition and integration strategy. I'll now walk you through the details of our quarterly results, starting with the drivers of our top line. With respect to top-line operational metrics, our pharmacies filled a total of 1.9 million prescriptions during the quarter, a 30% increase from the prior year. On a same-store basis, prescription growth was 1.8% compared to a decline of 0.8% in the prior year. As a reminder, pharmacy services such as vaccinations, booster shots, testing, and other services are excluded from Neighbourly's prescription count trend. Although we experienced double-digit growth in clinical services, this is not reflected in our reported script trend. Were we to include these services, our same-store prescription growth for the fourth quarter would have been 3.8%. As Chris mentioned, same-store sales growth for the fourth quarter was 2.3% compared to 0.4% in the prior year. Revenue for the fourth quarter was CAD 112 million, an increase of CAD 29 million or 26% versus the prior year. This improvement was primarily driven by the 41 pharmacies added to Neighbourly's network over the prior four quarters, which contributed to 93% of the quarterly revenue growth. 80% of our revenue was generated by pharmacy, which comprise prescriptions and clinical services. This is slightly higher than our historical trend, reflecting higher contributions from clinical services related to administering COVID-19 vaccinations, testing, and distribution of test kits. The remaining 20% of our revenue was generated from our front store sales. These metrics highlight the strength, stability, and resilience of our patient-focused strategy and how serving our patients' pharmacy needs is a foundation for Neighbourly's business. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was CAD 11.3 million, a 26.3% increase from the prior year. This improvement was primarily due to our new locations incremental contributions to our bottom line. These contributions were partially offset by approximately CAD 700,000 in incremental spend on wages associated with two key impacts, which we have not normalized in our Q4 adjusted EBITDA figures. One of the impacts was the increase in labor costs due to Omicron-related absenteeism, and the second was increased labor costs of administering COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots, which accelerated significantly in Q4. Collectively, these impacts resulted in the expense ratio of store operating spend to total revenue of 23% in the quarter as compared to 22.5% for the same quarter last year. Despite these temporary labor increases, staffing turnover remains consistent with historical pre-pandemic levels. However, we are noticing a longer time to fill existing vacancies with a higher degree of retirements in the industry. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for the fourth quarter of 2022 was 10.1%, which was slightly below our full-year trend, reflecting the mix of store formats and labor impacts discussed earlier. Corporate, general, and administrative costs were CAD 4.7 million during the fourth quarter, which equated to 4.2% of revenues. This compares to CAD 3.5 million or 4.2% of revenues in the prior year. As expected, corporate costs tended to peak during the fourth quarter due to timing of certain year-end related activities such as inventory counts and audit. On a full year basis, corporate costs as a percentage of revenue were 3.9%, slightly higher than prior year of 3.8%, reflecting the incremental costs associated with becoming a public company. Our G&A costs will continue to increase as our network expands, however, at a lower rate than the corresponding revenue growth. Therefore, with the one-time step-up of incremental costs associated with becoming a public company largely behind us, our G&A as a percentage of revenue will decline as we continue to grow. This operating leverage is one of the key advantages of Neighbourly's highly scalable platform. Before I conclude, I'd like to speak briefly to the company's capital structure. Neighbourly continues to operate from a secure financial position with over CAD 40 million cash on hand and CAD 150 million of undrawn debt capacity at our fiscal year-end. Our pro forma adjusted EBITDA is CAD 98.5 million, which reflects the inclusion of Rubicon, all recent acquisitions, as well as the elevated labor costs we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2022. Our pro forma debt level, including the estimated lease liabilities of our acquisitions that closed following the conclusion of the fourth quarter and the Rubicon acquisition expected to close next week, our pro forma leverage is approximately 3x. At the close of the Rubicon acquisition, we will have approximately CAD 159 million of undrawn debt capacity under our new amended credit facility. This, coupled with our strong free cash flow generation, we will have significant financial flexibility to continue our acquisition strategy. I'll now turn the call back to Chris. Thank you. Thank you, Terri. As always, I'd like to conclude this call by speaking briefly to our acquisition pipeline. In fiscal 2022, we acquired 41 new locations. Even with the significant time, energy, and focus on closing and integrating the Rubicon transaction, we're pleased to share that we've closed on 3 other acquisitions and opened a greenfield location subsequent to the fourth quarter. Even after completion of the Rubicon acquisition, which will add another 100 locations to our network, our acquisition pipeline remains as robust as it ever has been. Looking across the Canadian pharmacy landscape, there are approximately 3,500 pharmacies that meet our acquisition criteria, and we are currently in active dialogue with a number of these pharmacy owners. We look forward to pursuing the most attractive of these opportunities and continue to execute upon our growth strategy. Our criteria for these acquisitions has not changed. First and foremost, a potential acquisition must share our values, placing a priority upon patient-focused care. Beyond that, ideal additions to our network operate within smaller markets or established medical clinics, serve as significant healthcare providers to their communities, derive the majority of their revenue from prescriptions, and possess meaningful scale. Amid the challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we are fortunate to have a business that is not only recession resilient, but a source of ongoing growth. We expect consistent market growth on prescription revenue, with the potential upside that will come from increased amounts of new prescriptions as Canadians resume normal access to primary care. We continue to believe that our pharmacy teams can play a bigger role in expanding access to care and are encouraged that the scope of practice continues to increase. Our Ontario locations will soon benefit from the increased scope of practice as pharmacists will gain the ability to prescribe for minor ailments starting in January 2023. Another opportunity to build trust and strengthen the relationship with our patients. As we grow, protecting and nurturing these relationships will remain our core priority. I would like to close by once again thanking our team members for their incredible efforts in supporting patient care and Canadians' health and wellness since the onset of COVID-19. They have made a real difference, and I could not be prouder of the work they are doing across Canada. I'll now turn the call back to our operator for questions. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Patricia Baker of Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Just, Chris, I wonder if you could talk a little bit. You gave a little bit of color on, you know, the script volumes not having been returned to pre-pandemic levels. They're still at 15%. That's been a number that's been a pretty stubborn number over the course of the past several quarters. Can you talk a little bit of what are the dynamics there, and why is it that you believe that we won't return to these levels in the near to medium term? I guess you don't have a crystal ball, but do you think we will get back to pre-pandemic levels, you know, sometime in the next year or so? Hi, Patricia, it's Chris, and thanks for that question. You're right. We've actually been somewhat surprised by the new prescription volume over the past two years. We have seen certain periods when there's been stability, where COVID has subsided and things have been reopening, you know, only to kind of bounce back through the Omicron wave as well as subsequent waves. Though I would highlight the impact is certainly more persistent and prevalent in our clinic locations, which are, you know, while we've quoted about a 15% kind of reduction versus pre-pandemic levels, which any given period, that can be 10%-20%. Our clinical locations have tended to trend more around 25% versus our community pharmacies, you know, 10% or less. We've seen a greater bounce back of new prescription volume kind of in rural market and smaller community settings and in non-clinical settings. We've certainly still struggled to see prescription, new prescription volume kind of return in any material way in clinical settings. It feels like, you know, every month or two, you know, there's just a restriction around, you know, either capacity or because of COVID impacts, the amount of prescribers that are in primary care settings. That's certainly been, you know, a bit of an impact. Now, that being said, you know, we do anticipate there's a backlog and we are seeing governments take steps in certain cases to encourage primary care physicians to get back into clinical settings. For example, in Ontario in September, there's gonna be a reduction of the reimbursement on virtual care versus primary care. You know, we think that will be, you know, a bit of a tailwind and certain other provinces are kind of following the same lead. You know, again, community less of an impact and has been improving and, you know, in certain times through the past 24 months, you know, we did see improvements and only to be followed by a successive, you know, COVID wave and a bit of a retrench again. We haven't seen kind of any material movement, I would say, over the last 12 months, though some periods are better than others. Does that help add some clarity, Patricia? It sure does. Just in the past, you've indicated that 15% number was pretty much in line with industry trends. Is that still the case? Yeah. We have the benefit of, you know, seeing entire market data and through our. Mm-hmm. IQVIA results, and that's very much consistent to what they're seeing. Again, probably not too inconsistent to what we're seeing. A bit more of an impact in hospital, clinical, medical building type of settings, but still, Shortfall on community settings. It matches pretty much exactly what we're seeing. Now, I would say Neighbourly probably has a bit of an outsized impact versus other, community pharmacy reporters, just given the fact. Mm-hmm. Percent of our network is clinical in nature or hospital setting or a medical building setting, whereas I would say, you know, competitors aren't. That is very consistent with what we're seeing in the industry. Okay, that makes sense. You said something else that I found interesting. You said that you're having it taking a longer time to fill vacancies and there's been an acceleration of pharmacist retirement. Is that just a natural aging, or do you think the last 2.5 years has, you know, put a lot of pressure on, you know, pharmacy operators? Yeah, it's a really good question. I would say over the first 12-18 months of the pandemic, and you saw that, you know, in our prior results, our pharmacists. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We were, you know, didn't have a lot of turnover. Everybody was, you know, kinda heads down, supporting the delivery of vaccination as well as supporting their communities as, you know, one of the only essential healthcare providers that was accessible and as an essential business, as essential service. I would say over the past six to nine months, we've seen a little bit of an elevated level, I would say, of pharmacist fatigue and earlier retirement than we probably would've anticipated. We've seen that, I think, expressly shown across the industry. Pharmacy vacancies are up across the industry, and we anticipate that that's probably gonna remain in place for, you know, probably a 12-month period until we get kinda back to a normal cadence and filled through, you know, the graduating class of the pharmacy schools, you know, that graduate about 1,500 pharmacists each year. For context, there's about 35,000 community pharmacists, you know, that work in the profession on a day in, day out basis. There's about 1,500 graduates that enter the profession every year from the pharmacy schools. That, generally, that equilibrium has worked very well, with enough new grads coming out to replace more—in fact, more than replace the retirement of pharmacists. I would say over the past six months, we've seen a bit of an acute, and the industry has seen a bit of an acute step-up of retirements within the industry, where some people have either faced fatigue or, you know, some people were planning on retiring at 55. Maybe they made the decision to go early, especially, you know, over the challenging 18-24 months that we've experienced in community pharmacy. Does that help provide some color, Patricia? Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for all of that. No problem. My pleasure. Thank you. Your next question comes from Irene Nattel from RBC. Please go ahead. Thanks, good morning, everyone. Just following up on that discussion about pharmacist fatigue. Has this led to an uptick in discussions that you're having with independent pharmacists who are actually looking to sell? Hi, Irene. That's a great question. I would say the answer is absolutely yes. We've certainly seen an uptick in activity. Our challenge will be really to you know, choose the best of those opportunities and really be selective on those opportunities as we integrate 100 pharmacies from Rubicon Pharmacies you know, starting as early as Monday, as well as you know, adding in probably 15 locations for the balance of the fiscal year, you know, four of which we or three which we've already closed on. We definitely have seen a notable uptick, and that uptick has continued. You know, we you know, I did mention the pipeline is as robust as ever, and it continues to be, you know. We've seen a greater uptick of pharmacists that are starting to engage in those discussions around retirement, around selling their business and around succession planning. We think Neighbourly's in a really good position, you know, to be able to capitalize on that. Labor constraints aside, we've been through this wave before, and you know, it does self-correct over time and especially with a very predictable level, you know, of pharmacy grads coming out to the market, which, you know, equates to about 3% of the workforce being added in. As well as, you know, we're gonna start to see and anticipate an increased level of international pharmacy graduates through immigration, which, you know, virtually dried up, I'd say, over the last two years through the pandemic. We're starting to see that kinda pick up, as well. You know, long answer to your question, yes, we are seeing an increased amount of activity of pharmacy owners that are facing, you know, that challenge of, you know, "I'm tired and I would like to, you know, start talking about selling my business, and would Neighbourly be a good partner for me to sell to? That's really helpful. Thank you. You mentioned Rubicon. Obviously, we are less than a week away from the closing. Can you walk us through any updated thoughts that you might have on the integration process and how you actually balance integrating Rubicon with potentially, you know, integrating other small acquisitions? Yeah, it's a great question and obviously top of mind just given the fact that, you know, we plan on closing on that acquisition on Monday. With 100 pharmacies spread out across four provinces, we're putting in, obviously, a lot of time and effort into ensuring that it's seamlessly integrated and really do no harm to the great work that the Rubicon team has done and the great level of patient care that they've been putting in place. Fortunately, you know, with this acquisition, we're adding a lot of scale, and we're adding a lot of operating scale, as well as infrastructure and capability, that we think actually positions us better to accelerate growth coming out of the pandemic and coming out of the acquisition, given the fact that we will have greater geographic diversification of our network, a greater diversification, geography-wise of our operating infrastructure, our finance capability. So, you know, over the next year, certainly, you know, we would say we probably wanna do, you know, 15 stores on top of the 100, you know, that we're gonna close on Monday. Four of those we've already closed on, and we've got active dialogues happening across Canada that we feel, you know, 15 is very doable, and if not, you know, we could certainly overshoot that if we chose to, just based on the level of dialogues that we're having. Making sure that we're supporting, you know, our 100 teams, 100 colleagues, 100 pharmacies' patients and ensuring that that's done in a seamless way is our number one priority. We'll be very thoughtful about when we time and slot in the balance of those acquisitions for the balance of the fiscal year. That's great. Thank you. It's too bad, like, you can't see me because I'm sitting here nodding. Then just one final housekeeping question, if I may. You know, at the end of the prepared remarks, Terri, you were talking about borrowing capacity. What is your current cost of debt? You know, anything you can share with us about what might be reasonable to expect. We're on a variable cost structure right now, and it really is based on the BA rates, which I know are increasing. Right now, you know, we have an added margin to that number. It's in and around the 2-ish%. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Derek Lessard of TD. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. I was just wondering if maybe you can comment on efforts to delever post Rubicon and maybe just how you see it unfolding over the coming quarters towards your, I think it's 2.5x target. Yeah, that's a great question. As I mentioned, at the close of Rubicon, we'll be in around the 3%, and our target does remain to be 2.5%. As we've discussed previously, we do have a high free cash flow conversion rate. With that cash flow conversion rate, we do expect to delever ourselves at our historical rate, continuing with our historical rate of acquisitions pre-Rubicon, within the four to five-year timeframe. If I could just add to that, Terri. You know, Derek, our goal is obviously to continue to grow, and you know, just given the level of acquisition opportunity and the robustness of our pipeline, we would wanna continue to grow. But if we were to stop growing, we could get back to that 2.5x, you know, roughly within a year, just based on the high level of free cash flow that Terri mentioned. But obviously we wanna feel like a good use of that would be delivering over time and continuing to grow our robust network. That's very helpful. Just maybe a follow-up to that and just maybe your thoughts on your acquisition opportunities, you know, given, I guess a still relatively high leverage profile. I mean, we still feel like we were gonna continue to grow and have no reason based on, you know, the robustness of our pipeline that we wouldn't be continuing to grow at 40 pharmacies a year. We exceeded that, you know, last year. We're certainly gonna exceed that, you know, in fact, you know, do 2x-3 x that this fiscal year. We have enough free cash being generated as well as enough acquisition opportunities that we feel like we can continue to safely grow, you know, in that 40 range. Now that being said, if there were other larger strategic opportunities, we'd certainly be open to that. You know, as you're aware, over the past number of years, we've done a really good job of consolidating, you know, some of those larger regional players and, you know, so every time you know, we buy one, there's a little bit less in that pool. You know, we certainly feel safely and very optimistic that we can continue to grow at that, you know, historical level of around 40 pharmacies per year post fiscal 2023, which we think will be around the 115 mark, given the fact that we're doing 100 pharmacies plus 15 other tuck-ins along the way this year. Does that make sense, Derek? Yeah, it does. Thanks for that, Chris. That's it for me. Thank you. The next question comes from Peter Sklar of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Chris, with these staffing shortages that you had to deal with, you know, during the quarter and previous quarters, how do you staff up? Like, do you use agencies to recruit pharmacists, or do you transfer people, you know, within your network where there's a surplus and put them where they're, you know, really needed? If you do use agencies, how do you ensure the quality of the personnel and, you know, that they're maintaining the standards that you obviously set within your network? No, it's a great question, Peter. You know, given the nature of our business, we obviously wanna continue to provide access to service and ensure that our pharmacies aren't closed, when there's an acute, you know, COVID outbreak in a location. Over the past two years, we have built up a bit of an internal relief pool, which we primarily go to dispatch, you know, when there is an outbreak or when there is a shortage or when there's, you know, any kind of acute staffing issues. We also do rely on relief agencies, that, you know, we build relationships with, that we typically are drawing upon the same resources where we, you know they provide consistent quality of care, and have, you know, proximity to or relatively close proximity to the pharmacies if possible. In the worst case scenarios, we're, you know, flying people in to be able to support a network. Now, we did see, I would say an increased amount of COVID-related absenteeism in the last quarter for actual days coverage. However, the mix of coverage slightly shifted from, Q3 was probably a little bit heavier pharmacy. Q4 was a little bit more of a mix of pharmacy front shop, and front shop a little bit easier, you know, from a coverage point of view. We'll generally run short-staffed if necessary or just call in staff that may not be working that day. It's really pharmacist specific, where, you know, we tend to have more of a challenge, either relying on our own internal relief network, which we wanna build up over time or leveraging, you know, that of third parties. Does that make sense? We've certainly, I'd say in Q1, you know, we've seen less absenteeism as a result of COVID and, you know, we certainly hope that will continue and that will be a bit of a tailwind, you know, as we go forward. Our reliance on third parties and contract employees will diminish. But we do feel we're probably gonna have a little bit of a staffing challenge, certainly recruitment retention, for the next 12 months until we kinda get through, you know, this cycle as well as the next cycle of graduating pharmacy classes. Okay. No, that's good. That's good, Chris. Thanks. There's just one other topic I want to address. On the Rubicon Pharmacies, now that you're getting closer to closing and you become more involved, I assume, with the company and learning a little bit more, on the CAD 2.5 million synergies, do you mind just reviewing again the buckets where that comes from, and then do you have any update on the CAD 2.5 million? Sure. Yeah. I can provide some commentary and Terri, feel free to add if I'm missing something. A good portion of that is coming from you know, corporate rationalization and you know, the specific administration at a senior level of running both organizations and the benefits of putting both organizations together. You know, as we mentioned, when we announced that acquisition, Rubicon is a very optimized network with great performance and well-established market share with great optimized performance. A lot of these synergies come from corporate cost rationalization versus kind of sell side or increased you know, selling or cost synergies or others. You know, we still feel pretty confident about the CAD 2.5 million of synergies and the timing of which we previously communicated and articulated, you know, when those synergies would kind of layer in. I don't know that, now that we've had more involvement and timing, our view has changed per se on synergy value of putting the two organizations together. Is there like, is there some synergy in terms of, you know, generic drug acquisition from McKesson and others? I mean, you're now combining two substantial organizations, or just they were both big enough on their own that they were already realizing their, those economies of scale. Yeah. I think it's probably more towards the latter than the former. You know, again, they had you know good procurement scale. We had good procurement scale. You put that together, it gets a little bit better, but not monumentally. However, the gap you know towards an independent operator you know certainly is meaningful, and we think we can continue to leverage that you know as we continue to grow. Good. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. The next question comes from Zachary Evershed of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Hey. Good morning. Congrats on the quarter. Just a follow-up on your commentary around deleveraging and the pace of acquisitions. In your financials, you do state that, through a combination of free cash flow and available credit, you'll be able to fund acquisitions at your historical pace for 18-24 months. Can you square that with your commentary around being able to delever while maintaining the pace of acquisitions? Just with the free cash flow. The comment in the MD&A was surrounding our ability to fund our historical pace of acquisitions for the next 18-24 months. At the same time, given the free cash flow generation, we will be able to delever over time as well. Gotcha. Thanks. If you do come across a larger acquisition, given where the stock is trading today, how are you feeling about your various available sources of funding, be it equity markets, debt markets, or talking to the syndicate about a larger revolver? I think, well, I mean, I'll speak first to, you know, the acquisition pipeline and the availability of larger, you know, chunkier targets. There is no other network of the size, let's say, of Rubicon, right? That will be the, you know, likely the single biggest transaction and certainly has been the single biggest transaction, you know, that our company has undertaken since, you know, its infancy and is the largest acquisition target that's out there. The majority of targets that are kind of in our wheelhouse as well as, you know, in our pipeline, you know, tend to be in that, you know, 30-pharmacy and less, with a heavy weighting to single 1-3 pharmacies and a lighter weighting to kind of, you know, that 20-plus, pharmacy group. We think we'll be able to, you know, not necessarily go back to market based on the high level of free cash flow that's being generated as well as the additional debt capacity. That being said, you know, if we had to, we certainly feel we could. I mean, given the highly resilient nature of community pharmacy, the highly defensible nature of community pharmacy, and the predictability of revenue and the predictability of growth, you know, this is a, I think, a very conservative business, you know, with the tailwind of a high-growth profile, given the level of M&A activity that we can do. We certainly would have the ability, I'm sure, to upsize that facility. We don't see the need, anytime in the near future, to have to do so or to go back out to public markets to raise funds. That's very clear. Thank you. On the need for additional staff and just the broader inflationary environment, do you expect you're going to have to materially raise wages to attract talent? You know, on an acute basis, obviously, we address it market by market. We have other levers, you know, wage is obviously one lever, but that's not the only lever. We have seen actually average wage rates across our network stay relatively consistent. However, that is being boosted up a little bit by just the amount of temporary relief coverage, contract staffing, you know, that we've had to do on an acute basis. You know, we've seen rates stay relatively stable. You know, we are always looking at the attractiveness of our overall compensation offer, as well as quality of life, work-life balance and operating environment. That's something that we will always continue to review. We're not seeing a tremendous pressure, I would say on pharmacist rates. It's really, you know, we've been able to strike, I think, a really good balance around great work environment, great professional clinical environment, provided the capacity to be able to do so, operating in, you know, either medical locations or community settings right across Canada. We're not seeing a whole lot of wage inflation pressure. There is obviously, you know, pressure from, you know, minimum wage increases across Canada, especially on, you know, kind of our front of store staff, you know, that's 60% of our locations that are a little bit more community-focused and, you know, that provides some pressure. I would say average rates over the past, you know, 12 quarters have been up, you know, 2.5%. Nothing I would say that's completely out of line with, you know, what we've seen historically, and you know, we don't anticipate anything kind of on the near term that's gonna change that. Great color. Thanks. One last one. Just in terms of what you're seeing in the cadence of COVID vaccine administration, and how do you think that'll impact clinical services revenue this year? That's a really good question. As you can imagine, fiscal 2022 was quite busy. I mean, with over 170,000 COVID vaccinations, with the majority of those being done, you know, in fiscal 2022 versus what we're experiencing in the first quarter. Vaccination pace has slowed considerably, even through booster shots, fourth dose, second boosters, which have been primarily concentrated around high-risk groups. The volume is significantly under that of what was experienced kind of during the start of the rollout or during first dose, second dose or booster, as they've been rolled out across Canada with the various risk groups. Volume will be considerably under from COVID-19 vaccinations. However, we're seeing a return to normal and a pickup on base clinical services, you know, where our pharmacists really haven't had the ability to do that because they've been so focused and primarily focused on vaccinating Canadians and helping bring an end to the pandemic and protecting Canadians from COVID-19. Now they're able to kind of reset and get back to, you know, other value-added services, you know, care plans, medication reviews, minor ailments in the provinces that we can do it, prescribing, and other clinical services in provinces, depending on the scope. We've seen, you know, I would say in the first quarter, we're anticipating volume year-over-year to be slightly down, just given the high level of COVID vaccinations that were being done in the first quarter. We're budgeting, actually, an increased net-net on clinical services year-over-year on a same-store basis. Right now we're tracking pretty close, I think, to that assumption. The only thing I would add to that is, in the last two years, the other services that we tended to provide, that being patient consultations, et cetera, were on a decline and then overcompensated by the vaccinations and booster shots. As the booster shots or vaccinations start to normalize, we should see an uptick in the other services that were down in prior years as well. Great. Color. Thanks. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Zachary. Thank you. The next question comes from Chris Li of Desjardins. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Chris and Terri. Thanks for all the useful answers. Maybe just a quick follow-up on the last one. Am I right to assume just from an earnings perspective the decrease in COVID vaccination volumes should be more or less offset by the return of other clinical services? From a, maybe from an earnings perspective, it should be largely neutral for the current fiscal year. Yeah. I think that's a really good assumption, Chris Li. I think that's our assumption, that's our impression, and that's what we're seeing happen as COVID-19 vaccinations have rolled off. We're seeing a corresponding increase in base clinical services, so we're anticipating it to be effectively net neutral, you know, on our performance. Okay. That's very helpful, Chris. I know you guys recently closed the books on Q1 last week. I was wondering if you can provide us with a sense of, you know, how Q1 performed. It sounds like from all the answers so far, it seems like many of the trends that you saw in Q4 likely continue in Q1, maybe with some modest improvement in, on the wage side. Yeah, anything that you can provide will be helpful. Yeah. I think your assumption is largely right, you know, largely kind of in line with what we saw through Q4. Definitely some notable improvements, I'd say, in wages and some other trending with some kind of acute, I'd say, clinic, you know, we're still seeing that trend of shortfall and, you know, probably will see it, I would say, through the summer, maybe until back to school season, where we might see, you know, hopefully in a bit of an acute step-up, as well as the return of Ontario physicians to more in-practice care. I would say, you know, that will certainly, you know, be prevalent, I'd say, for the next quarter or two. I think your assumptions are right. Okay, that's helpful. Maybe just quickly, in terms of drug reforms, any sort of new updates that you have come across, I guess, since our last earnings call, back in March? Any new updates on that front? I think the only kinda notable update, obviously, there's always provincial negotiations happening on pharmacy reimbursement, you know, depending on timing of pharmacy associations contract. Most of those I think are largely signed and pretty stable. I think the only notable change that happened since the last time we spoke would have been the update of eight molecules from pCPA. So there was an additional eight molecules that were deflated by 3% in reference to their equivalent brand pricing. So that would be kind of the only notable. I think since we last spoke, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board changes were already announced and enforced. Most of those, though they're minimal, will likely impact in January when they come into full force and the reporting compliance is implemented. That being said, you know, we are. The new changes around the eight molecules that moved down by 3%, that's already kind of reflective in our Q1 result, and we're not seeing any kind of material deflation as a result of that, largely just because of increased genericization, increased amount of molecules that have come off patent that are being dispensed. We're not. Despite the fact that 8 molecules deflated by 3%, our average retail on generics is actually you know, slightly positive, you know, whether it be based on the dispensing mix or the prescribing mix or new generics that are kind of offsetting, you know, some of that incremental deflation that hadn't necessarily been anticipated. Okay, that's very helpful. I guess no new updates on the generic drug price agreement. I guess it expires next year, but no new updates on that side from the government yet? Yeah. No public updates that have been provided. That existing framework expires in April 2023. Yeah, we're anticipating some tweaking likely of that framework. What that looks like, we don't have, I would say, any line of sight. I know it is, you know, it is actively being negotiated between the generic industry as well as pCPA right now, just given, you know, that it will come into force in less than a year. But we don't have anything really to provide on that side. Okay, that's very helpful. Maybe a question for Terri. Your fiscal 2022 adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.7%. You know, based on your updated pro forma figures, the EBITDA margin is expected to be closer to around 12%. Is the step-up mostly a function of having Rubicon and the synergies and also the scaling of the CG&A costs that you talked about in your opening remarks? Is that what's really driving the increase in EBITDA margin? Chris, you're exactly right on that. The Rubicon acquisition, given it's predominantly in the province of Saskatchewan, which has a higher frequency of dispensing, does have a higher EBITDA margin rate. The only thing that I do wanna point out is what is not included in the pro forma EBITDA margin figure is the step-up in corporate costs. Right. We pro forma the four-wall EBITDA of the upcoming acquisitions. However, in that pro forma, that said, in that pro forma number, we did pro forma the corporate cost of Rubicon because they will be substantial. With our other acquisitions, the pro forma corporate cost step up is not included in that number. Gotcha. Okay. Maybe just a last modeling question on Rubicon. I think the latest last twelve-month figure revenue EBITDA that you provided for Rubicon was as of September 30, 2021. I was wondering if you had more recent LTM figures, or is that including that updated pro forma figures that you provided in the slides today? No, the pro forma figure included in the slides is still that one. At this time, we don't have an updated figure to share. Right. Post-close. Yeah. We're closing on it next week. Don't anticipate any kind of material shift, positive or negative, towards that pro forma number. For all accounts, it's in and around that number. Great. Thanks very much, and all the best. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. The next question comes from Chelsea Stehlik of iA Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Good morning. I just have a question on, sorry, on the greenfields opportunity that you had or that you announced this quarter. Any color on that? You know, do you think you'll have any more greenfield? Where is it? Or also, you know, product mix, time to stabilization, that kind of stuff. Yeah. No, thanks, Chelsea. Happy to kind of just provide a little bit of color. Greenfields are not an active portion of our strategy. We did have an RFP that we did win with a hospital in Ontario to open an outpatient pharmacy, you know, in a clinical setting, in a hospital setting, which we did open. It's in Southwest Ontario, but again, in a hospital setting. We don't have any other pure greenfield retail locations that we have in the pipeline. However, we are opening up a BC central fill pharmacy. This is not open to or not necessarily patient-facing, customer-facing, but will be supporting our BC locations through central fill of compounding as well as central fill of compliance packs, which is, you know, very manual, high labor intensive. We're trying to centralize some of that activity through automation, you know, higher accuracy as well as less labor burden. We will be opening that up, you know, probably mid-July-ish. That would be the only other net new pharmacy that would be, you know, on the pipeline from a new pharmacy perspective and don't anticipate any others, you know, through the balance of the year. Now that being said, we are opportunistic. You know, we are approached often by, you know, commercial landlords, medical developers. You know, if we do feel there is an opportunity for a greenfield location that is co-located with medical practitioners that are working in sight and not virtually, we would certainly be open to those, and we look at those opportunistically on a site-by-site basis. We have nothing kind of in the hopper, you know, that or in the pipeline that we would be opening for the balance of the year. Okay. That makes sense. Just sort of like time it takes to become a stabilized pharmacy location. Depending on the location, you know, given that this one is in a clinical setting, you know, we would anticipate, you know, probably takes 12 months to become viable. You know, just there is a bit of a slow wrap-up obviously. Mm-hmm. Given its proximity to being in a hospital and being, you know, really an extension of their service when it comes to outpatient activity, and some of the specialized services that are required from that pharmacy, we would anticipate, you know, kind of in and around that 12-month mark. Okay. Perfect. That's all for me. Thank you so much. Perfect. Thanks, Chelsea. Thank you. The next question is from Irene Nattel, RBC. Please go ahead. Thanks. Just one follow-up around the clinical services question and the staffing issue. As we head into the fall, normally you get the uptick in vaccines once again. How are you thinking about the possibility of demand for labor and clinical services around, you know, normal flu vaccines, around, you know, possibly more boosters, possibly boosters for young children, and like how that plays into thinking about staffing levels on a go-forward basis? Sure. That's a great question, Irene. I'll tackle the flu side first. I mean, we did 55,000 flu vaccines on top of doing ordinary course, which I'm doing ordinary course loosely. COVID-19 vaccines, which were obviously very fluid. That was probably comparable or actually slightly down versus the prior year on a comparable basis as people prioritized getting a COVID vaccination versus getting a flu vaccine. I would anticipate through our third quarter, we will probably have a record flu season. But I will be honest with you. We will be able to administer that in normal course of work with our existing staffing without I would say any incremental concern or challenges around our ability to be able to deliver. Delivering a flu vaccine is much less cumbersome. Much less cumbersome than delivering a COVID-19 vaccination. COVID-19 vaccinations have additional paperwork, sometimes different systems, bill and track inventory, depending on the province, as well as different booking tools sometimes and screening and just given the level of cold chain requirements and having to, especially in the case of the Pfizer vaccine, you know, add the diluent, have a very specific time where you need to, you know, have every dose dispensed without having to dispose of the vial. Flu vaccines, just the nature of viral vector vaccines are much more stable, easier to administer through regular workflow. We're not anticipating any challenges or issues, even if flu vaccines uptick in a big way. I don't have a crystal ball on what the future, you know, of the COVID-19 vaccination will be. I mean, it will really depend on, you know, how the virus evolves and what tweaks may be happening and what comes out of public policy around protecting, you know, higher risk groups. You know, fortunately, we're in a situation where the virus has become much milder and much less, you know, risky to the population and has varianted its way into a less virus of concern, I would say. You know, that's always subject to change, right? You know, we'll obviously watch that and keep close eye on that. At this point, I really wouldn't be able to give any guidance on to what we think is going to happen around additional boosters or additional qualifications or different tweaking to the existing vaccine. That's helpful. Thanks so much, Chris. Thanks, Irene. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any further questions, please press star followed by the one. Your next question comes from Derek Lessard. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks, guys. Just one quick follow-up for me. Just curious on the performance of the front store and how you've managed passing on inflation to consumers. Yeah, it's a good question, Derek. I mean, front shop is obviously a much smaller percentage of our business, say, than other retailers. You know, 80% of our revenue is pharmacy, 20% is front store. However, we are not immune to inflationary impacts on the front of store, and we've certainly seen costs increase from CPG companies, from wholesalers, from suppliers. We've seen additional fuel surcharges and we have a regular cadence of updating pricing and really ensuring that that's being passed on to the consumer. I would say we were probably a little bit behind on that in Q1, or sorry, Q4, but have caught up a little bit on Q1 and ensuring that we've got a regular cadence going forward. We haven't seen material inflation, you know, in compared to, I would say, grocery retailers, which, you know, obviously wheat, dairy, meat, produce have all been really highly impacted. Though we have seen inflation certainly in our business. I think our average cost of a good is up about 3.8%, but some of that has to do with the mix of what we're selling. We saw, you know, a higher shift of cough and cold categories, which have a higher average retail. We've implemented a number of initiatives, you know, in our network over the past year, which have brought up the average retail naturally just with, you know, our Hallmark store-within-a-store expansion in a couple locations, as well as the addition of M&M Food Market express locations, which have a higher average price point. You know, the 3.8% average cost increase is certainly not all inflation, and we're doing a pretty good job of ensuring that prices are being updated and reflected. We're not seeing any, you know, inflation kind of creep through on pharmacy, just given the nature of the regulated, re-regulated cost structure. That being said, we are seeing average retail go up in pharmacy just because the mix of what's being dispensed and prescriber trends as well as the mix of pharmacies that have joined our network. We're not seeing kind of any impact on the pharmacy side. Does that help your question, Derek? Yeah, super helpful, Chris. Thanks for that. No problem. Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star one at this time. There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the conference back to you, Mr. Gardner. Great. Thank you, operator. So this concludes Neighbourly's conference call for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022. For those of you who joined us midway this morning, I'd encourage you to revisit our remarks at the beginning of the call related to forward-looking information. A replay of the call and the accompanying presentation will be available via our website, www.neighbourlypharmacy.ca. Thank you again for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you all again soon. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for today. We ask that you please disconnect your lines and have a great day.