Good morning and welcome to the Neighbourly Pharmacy Inc. Q4 and fiscal 2023 conference call. The speakers on today's call are Skip Bourdo, Chief Executive Officer, and Billy Wong, Chief Financial Officer of Neighbourly. I will now turn the call over to Skip Bourdo. Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I would like to begin by briefly discussing Neighbourly's key growth drivers and my focus areas as I am emerging from my first 90 days as CEO. I will review the performance highlights for the Q4, and Billy will walk you through our quarterly results in greater detail. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Our ability to address the unique needs of independent owners and a strong track record of completing transactions promptly have cemented Neighbourly's reputation as the acquirer of choice. As we look ahead, one of our strategic priorities is to infuse a "best-of-both" mindset into our acquisition opportunities. This involves protecting what makes each local pharmacy unique while simultaneously layering in Neighbourly's best practices and scale to drive top-line growth and improve profitability. Prescription demand increases meaningfully after age 45 and even more significantly after age 65. It is estimated that by 2035, the population aged 65 years and older will exceed 10 million people, a 50% increase from the 2020 level of 6.8 million. While we may not experience the same level of prescription growth as urban areas, we benefit from higher prescription values per patient, which drive our same-store pharmacy sales. As we look into fiscal 2024, we believe we can grow same-store sales in line with the growth rate delivered in fiscal 2023. Partially offsetting our top-line growth will be continuing labor headwinds. We anticipate these will negatively impact EBITDA margins in the first half of 2024 and will gradually abate by the second half of the fiscal year as we onboard new graduates. Realizing our full potential will require us to continue attracting, developing, and retaining top talent while fostering a performance-focused culture across Neighbourly. One thing I can attest to firsthand is that we have a tremendous foundation upon which to build. We have included a full summary of our strategic priorities in the earnings presentation for your reference. Having someone of Alicia’s talent and expertise advocating for the pharmacy profession is critical to our future success. Regarding talent management, we have introduced our pharmacy partner model to several existing locations in Alberta and Manitoba. This model allows pharmacy operators to own a minority stake in our pharmacies, rewarding them for driving performance by sharing in profits with Neighbourly. We currently operate 19 partner stores acquired through previous transactions in Alberta and British Columbia. These locations are consistently among our highest performers in the network in terms of both revenue growth and EBITDA margin. In fiscal 2023, revenue at existing partner stores increased at a higher rate than our overall network, and EBITDA margins at these locations also exceeded our network average. I see these enhanced business reviews as playing an important role in driving improved performance. The increased operational focus will drive conversations regarding accountability and action planning at the region, area, and store levels. A third area of focus is improving communications with our patients by testing and launching technology solutions. These are designed to enhance the patient and team member experience through text-enabled pickup and refill reminders. We recently announced the acquisition of 10 new locations through two separate transactions in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Ontario, with an estimated annual EBITDA contribution of CAD 6 million. The purchase price multiple for these transactions was consistent with our historical averages for deals of this scale. These locations serve as essential healthcare providers within their respective communities, and we look forward to welcoming them to the Neighbourly family. At times, when we complete multi-store acquisitions, there could be stores that don't meet our profitability threshold or may not be an optimal long-term fit. With a view to optimizing the health and efficiency of our store network, we made the decision to close 2 locations and consolidated the script files of another 2 pharmacies into existing stores that are in close proximity. The anticipated impact of the 2 locations we rolled into our existing network will be minimal, as we anticipate retaining at least 90% of the script files. As for the locations we chose to permanently close, their revenue and EBITDA impacts are not material to our overall results. Following the recent acquisitions and operational enhancements at our store network, our pharmacy locations have now grown to 291 from 284 locations last quarter. During the quarter, we completed the sale of the real estate acquired through the Rubicon transaction. The CAD 12 million in proceeds were used to deleverage the balance sheet and fund our newly announced acquisitions. I am also pleased to report that the final step in the integration of Rubicon and Neighbourly is complete, following the transition to a common payroll and financial platform. This year, Neighbourly was recognized as one of Canada's Best Managed Companies for the third consecutive year. This designation reflects our exceptional culture and commitment to serving the healthcare needs of patients across our nationwide network. I will highlight several key figures for Q4 before Billy reviews the financials. Over the course of fiscal 2023, over 79% of our revenue was derived from prescriptions and clinical services, reinforcing the essential, economically resilient, health, and healthcare first nature of our business. Our EBITDA margin dollars in the quarter were just shy of CAD 20 million and topped CAD 79 million for the full year. Our full year EBITDA margin rate was 10.6%, a rate which reflected continuing headwinds on the pharmacy labor front, impacting us by 80 basis points and even a margin throughout the year. On the labor front, we are still actively recruiting talent and still continuing to mitigate the current labor environment. Geographically speaking, most of our challenges are concentrated in Western Canada. As communicated previously, we have pre-hired approximately 20 newly graduating pharmacists who will join Neighbourly following the successful completion of their exams and licensing requirements in early summer. Our new talent acquisition team has performed excellently in forming and strengthening relationships on key university campuses. Thank you, Skip. Good morning, everyone. I would like to start by highlighting our continued revenue growth, driven by the execution of our acquisition and integration strategy and the predictable nature of our underlying business. Revenue for Q4 was CAD 191 million, an increase of CAD 78 million, or 70%, relative to the prior year. Our pharmacy revenue increased 1.5% in the quarter on the back of a 0.6% decrease in Rx count. This sales performance was somewhat shy of our trend in the last couple of quarters due to a billing of certain high price molecules that took place in the fourth quarter. We expect this billing timing issue to smooth out over future quarters. Excluding this impact, our pharmacy same-store sales would have been 2.4%. Front store sales continued a strong growth trend with 3.9% increase in the quarter. We saw strong demand for over-the-counter cough, cold, and flu medications, as well as health and beauty products. Clinical services declined 20% on a same-store sales basis against 46% growth in the prior year, which was driven by elevated COVID-19 services during the Omicron wave. Excluding COVID-related impacts, clinical services grew by 7.4% in Q4. With a few weeks remaining in Q1, our same-store sales are trending between 2.6% and 2.8%, which is in line with Neighbourly's long-term trend. Our adjusted EBITDA benefited from the incremental contributions of our new locations, with the Rubicon acquisition driving approximately 49% of the total. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.3%, a 20-basis point improvement relative to Q4 of the prior year. As noted in Q3, the beginning of the calendar year is when our payroll deductions tend to peak. Corp G&A expenses came in at 3.8% of revenue, only a touch higher than Q3. As noted last quarter, payroll deductions tend to peak in Q4, and that, along with the additional costs related to inventory counts and audits, result in a higher Q4 Corp G&A rate than Q3. Corp G&A rate was significantly better than the prior year level of 4.2%, an improvement of 40 basis points. This is due to the scale and synergies realized in our Corp G&A expenses with the addition of Rubicon's pharmacy network. As our network continues to expand, we expect our annual Corp G&A expenses as a percentage of revenue to continue to decline. I will conclude with an update on the company's capital structure. Our pro forma adjusted EBITDA is CAD 99.3 million. This reflects the inclusion of the 10 new locations we recently announced, as well as the labor headwinds we have experienced this past year. Our pro forma net debt level is approximately CAD 352 million. This results in a pro forma leverage of 3.5 times, and it is at a level in which we feel comfortable to continue executing on our M&A strategy. Our pro forma EBITDA, along with approximately CAD 130 million of undrawn debt capacity, leaves us well positioned to continue our acquisition strategy. With that, I will turn it back to Skip. Thank you, Billy. I would like to conclude by briefly discussing our acquisition pipeline. In fiscal 2023, we acquired 12 pharmacies in addition to the 100 locations added through the Rubicon transaction. This was on track with our target of 10 to 15 acquisitions for the year. We have had an active start to fiscal 2024, with 10 new stores and a brand-new greenfield location coming on board. First and foremost, a potential acquisition must share our values, placing a priority upon patient-focused care. Beyond that, ideal locations, ideal additions to our network operate within smaller markets or established medical clinics, serve as a significant healthcare provider to their communities, derive a majority of their revenue from prescriptions, and possess meaningful scale in terms of generating revenue and profitability. I'll now turn the call back to our operator for Q&A. 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 1 on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to withdraw from the polling process, please press star followed by 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you outlining your strategic priorities in detail. One of your comments resonated with me, Skip. You mentioned a performance-driven culture and referenced operational excellence on slide 8. Can you explain what that looks like and how we, as investors, will see that reflected in your financial statements? Thank you, Irene. Good morning. I appreciate the question; this is an area of passion for me. I grew up running pharmacies and drugstores, and I believe the best ideas come from the field. When we share those ideas across the scale of Neighbourly, there is a significant opportunity to unlock value. Because of the frequency of these meetings, we always begin by reviewing the previous meeting's action items. These action plans are simple, actionable, and measurable. We discuss the progress made, and during those conversations, we can unlock ideas that are then shared across the network. One of the things I'm wondering about is the degree of variability in the performance of the pharmacies in the network, and sort of what opportunities you might see to enhance the profitability of the underperformers through this sharing of best practices. You know, again, sort of like, what's the timeline for that? Just, are there expenses that we need to keep in mind as you execute on the priorities you outlined? Yeah, excellent question. The way I think about that is, you know, some variability is good, and other variability causes us to think about, you know, you know, reducing that variability and improving overall performance. One example of variability that's actually positive variability, which I actually think we have opportunity to look at, is pricing. In some of our stores, we have single price zones, just based on the acquisitions that we've done, including Rubicon. We're looking at enhancing that and increasing the amount of price zones that we have available to our stores to better fit the competitive nature of the communities that we serve. Our pricing initiatives are underway. We've already begun to execute on those. Another area of opportunity where we'd like to decrease variability is the way we manage inventory. That's the idea of freedom within a framework. We're working on building standard operating procedures and leveraging our systems to be able to implement things like minimums and maximums on key items. We ensure that we have, you know, very consistent way that we manage inventory, high level of availability for our patients and our customers, but also minimizing the ability to kind of have overstock. That way, we can redeploy that working capital to fund other activities, including acquisitions. That is very helpful. Finally, I have one last question regarding your priorities. You mentioned the front-of-store offering. What is your assessment of Neighbourly's current front-of-store selection? Where do you see opportunities to enhance and drive more sales in that area, or is that your primary objective? Gemini said We want to ensure we focus on our key categories. Many of the front-of-store offerings remain the same as they were at the time of acquisition, whether through single or multi-store transactions. By bringing Neighbourly’s data, expertise, and scale to the table, we can optimize these selections. That's great. Thank you. I'll hand it over to someone else and get back into the queue. Thank you, Irene. Thank you. The next question comes from Derek Lessard of TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks, and good to hear from you guys. Skip, I just wanted to maybe hit on the pharmacy partnership again and the plans maybe for, you know, timing to roll it out. More specifically, would you be using this as an incentive to attract the talent from the universities that you got coming on? Thank you for the question, Derek. I will answer your second question first. We believe this is a fantastic recruiting tool, particularly for experienced pharmacists already in the market. Often, these individuals have established relationships and reputations within their communities and may have built up personal assets. This demographic is our primary target for attracting talent—recruiting pharmacists who have established themselves and are seeking the opportunity to own a pharmacy without carry the full financial risk on their own books. Thanks for that, Skip. That's helpful. Maybe switching gears a little, I did wanna talk about the new pharmacy strategy and that professional affairs role that you've created and appointed Alicia to. Just wondering how you see that role evolving and how you see it driving the business. First of all, we are so proud to bring Alicia onto the team. She, you know, I've had a chance to get to know her over the last couple of months, and she is fantastic talent. Has been a leader in Canadian pharmacy for several years across a couple of really good organizations and has a fantastic reputation. She's on the board of NABP, and we're really pleased that she'll join us just in a couple of weeks. As it relates to the role, so I see this as really critical to ensure that we, you know, drive incremental improvement as it relates to our, you know, continuing expanded scope of practice in the clinical services space. I also see it as a critical role, kind of external facing, and really being the voice of community pharmacy, in these really critical discussions, both on the national and provincial level. Kind of ensuring that community pharmacy has a voice at the table. You know, who best to provide that voice than Neighbourly? Really excited about both kind of the internal value, that Alicia will drive, but also, externally as well. Thanks for that. Maybe just a follow-up to that, and it's more related to that increased scope of practice. Obviously, more powers have been granted in Ontario and more recently in BC. Just curious if you guys have seen any incremental momentum from that and what we should expect kind of going forward from here. Yeah. As it relates to Ontario, we have three-quarters of our pharmacists have already, you know, fully participated in the expanded scope of practice with minor ailments. We see that number continuing to rise. Just in the early months, we feel good about our ability to educate and get our pharmacists comfortable with providing the expanded scope of practice. In British Columbia, we got a further head start, talking about what was coming and leveraging the learnings from Ontario. It's still too early, right? It started June first, as it relates to the minor ailments. We were using similar reporting and tracking and communication and training that we did in Ontario. You know, the other thing to mention is we have really experienced pharmacists in our network in Alberta who have been doing this for several years. Leveraging those best practices, the confidence that our pharmacists have built over time there, to, you know, to spread again, that experience, that knowledge and that confidence across our network is very, very helpful. Thanks for that, Skip. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from George Doumet of Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, Skip and Billy. Can you talk a little bit what's driving the higher pharma same-store sales Q1 to date? Maybe how should we think of the front end same-store sales over the next 12 months, given, I guess, the tough comps from the cold and flu? Sure. You're talking about the pharma side specifically? I have two questions. First, regarding the 2.6% to 2.8% same-store sales growth you identified for Q1 to date, could you provide more detail on what is driving that performance? Second, regarding the front-of-store, could you discuss the expected trajectory for that segment over the next 12 months? Okay. given, I guess, tough comps. Yeah, thanks. Sure. Like, we still anticipate overall same-store sales to grow at the long-term trend of Neighbourly's growth rate. What you saw in fiscal 2023, we grew at around 2.9%. We continue to see that as our long-term growth rate for all of 2024 as well. In terms of what's driving the Q1, really, it's getting back to our regular growth that we see in pharmacy, that we've seen in a number of quarters. Like I said in my commentary, Q4 was a little bit of a blip just because of the timing of billing. Without that, it really smooths out, and our long-term run rate ends up being 2.5%-2.9% in the full year of 2023. 2024, sorry. Yeah. Got it. Yeah, thanks for that. Can you give us an update on the the 60 vacancies you guys called out last quarter? Where are we today? Billy, how much of that kind of 80 basis point headwind due to labor, do you expect to capture exiting Q2, I guess, on a run rate basis? In our vacancies, we mentioned about 60 last, we're around 54. We're improving slightly and getting better, but we don't anticipate to be out of the headwinds as our commentary until that cohort comes in the end of Q2. Out of that 80, we don't expect any of that to really be abated in Q1, Q2, but in Q3, Q4, we're anticipating a good portion of it to be abated. One of the things that we still have to be mindful of, and we're not ready to say it yet, is just how much of this abatement we can achieve given that labor rates have been increasing steadily. We'll be ready later in the year to provide you more information. Okay, thanks. Just a quick clarification, and thanks for the color on the foreclosures, but, looking ahead, should we expect more closures as part of the optimization initiative, eventually? We will be reviewing that on a regular basis. These 4, like we mentioned, it's 2 roll-ins, which we thought we could just generate substantially more profit just 'cause of the close proximity of the 2 pharmacies, and the other 2 were immaterial. We'll review it on a regular basis, but at this point, we don't see any other ones that we're looking at closing. Great. Thanks for the comment. Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Stephen MacLeod of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Good morning. Lots of. Morning. Lots of my questions have been answered, so thanks for the great color. Just wanted to follow up on a couple of things. The first one is, you cited an additional CAD 500,000 in Rubicon synergies that you've identified or the team has identified. Just wondering if you can give a little bit of color about where those synergies have come from? Thank you for the question. There are two primary areas of focus for these additional synergies. First, with a larger combined team, we are able to insource many functions that were previously outsourced. Consequently, we expect to realize savings in professional fees. When considering future synergies, do you see opportunities for them to exceed the current CAD 3 million run rate? This isn't something that we've looked at this moment. As we keep moving and learning and growing, especially now that our systems are in place, it's something that we will continue to monitor and identify. Thank you. You announced a greenfield location in Kingston, which is an interesting opportunity. You mentioned it will be branded as Neighbourly. Can you provide more color on how you intend to drive customer awareness and traffic to this new location, given that you are starting from a standing start? Well, actually, this greenfield location was in the works with the Levels acquisition. We have really good relationships, that have, you know, resulted in this greenfield location, kind of in a really robust medical, brand new medical complex. We feel great getting, kind of out of the gate very strong in this particular location. That's the color on that one. That was actually in the works with Levels prior to. Oh, great. We have, you know, we already have the relationships with the doctors and in the community. We feel really strong about getting out of the gate with compounding and pain management as well as, you know, standard pharmacy and front store services. Great. Okay. Thanks for that color, Scott. Appreciate it. Yeah. Maybe just finally, you know, the whole tailwind of expansion of services, do you have any sort of insight into the progress of expanding services for pharmacists in other markets beyond the provinces that currently have rolled this out? We actually feel like the momentum is better than it ever has been. You know, we've seen a lot of movements. Obviously, you know, we've talked about Ontario and BC already, Newfoundland. You know, within additional provinces coming on board, we're also seeing, as we've seen in Ontario, adding additional minor ailments just in a few weeks or a small number of months' time. Pharmacists are absolutely showing their value in the communities they serve. We already, you know, serve as a healthcare hub in the communities. Pharmacists are, you know, one of the most, if not the most trusted healthcare professional, especially in the smaller communities that we serve. I feel really good about the momentum, and bringing Alicia on will only accelerate our strength in that area. Great. Okay, well, thanks, guys. Appreciate the color. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Chris Li, Desjardins. Please go ahead. Good morning, Skip and Billy. I will start with a question on M&A. I noticed that the EBITDA per site for the last 10 locations you are acquiring is in the CAD 600,000 range, which is significantly higher than some of the acquisitions from last year. You mentioned previously that given your increasing scale and the vast opportunities available, you can be more selective in targeting the best sites. Is that what is occurring with these latest transactions? I have had the opportunity to attend several industry conferences over the last few months and speak with leaders across the Canadian pharmacy landscape. Neighbourly has a strong reputation as the acquirer of choice. I can say firsthand that this is a significant strength for us; we are being approached with numerous opportunities. You are seeing the results of that strategy in the most recently acquired locations. I anticipate that we will continue to seek strategic opportunities, considering both geography and the individual size and scale of the stores. In a multi-store acquisition, you may acquire two high-volume locations and one that is smaller but growing. That is very helpful. From a liquidity perspective, I know you have significant capital to fund future deals. I am curious if there is a pro forma leverage ceiling that you do not want to cross. While 3.5x may be relatively low compared to others in the industry, is there a specific threshold in terms of leverage? Four is the threshold we do not want to cross. Okay. like what Skip said, and we've said in prior calls, really, like, we're in a, we're in a really good position to be a lot more stringent in our evaluation process. in addition to, you know, we can be very picky in making sure that there's no short-term labor challenges, and we are consistently testing lower multiples. I feel that we're in a very good position to continue our 35-40 and really staying under that peak. Okay, that's helpful. Billy, maybe just clarification on your comment about where you expect EBITDA margin for fiscal Q1. Just want to confirm, you're saying that Q1 EBITDA margin should grow at around 20 basis point compared to last year, which is a similar growth rate that you saw in fiscal Q4. Did I hear that correctly? That's correct. That would imply an overall margin of approximately 10% in Q1, which is down slightly on a sequential basis versus Q4. Is that primarily due to seasonality, or is it a function of the temporary wage headwinds you expect to continue for the next one or two quarters? It is a combination of both seasonality and the temporary wage headwinds we anticipate in Q1 and Q2. That is very helpful. Skip, regarding your earlier answer about implementing multi-price zones, how easily can that be executed, and how soon can you implement that strategy? It's not, it's not particularly easy, but we're, we are working on, you know, streamlining and simplifying our systems. Thomas has been leading our IT function since the beginning of the year and has done a fantastic job. We've already begun implementation, but we expect that to continue, you know, throughout the first half. You know, like I said earlier, it, a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy is good for maybe a smaller group, but as we, as we expand and, and leverage our size and scale, you're not gonna wanna have the same pricing strategy in Banff as you do in maybe rural Saskatchewan. That is, you know, that is definitely one of the areas of opportunity to improve our margin, and we've begun the execution. That makes sense. Last one from me, just are you hearing any updates at all on the generic drug reform side? You know, the updates are not as robust as I would like. It's one of the areas, again, as I talked about Alicia kind of having a seat at the table and being part of the discussions, you know, that's definitely top on her list. You know, we do believe that the pCPA agreement will be finalized shortly, and hopefully that agreement should bring some predictability to the market. You know, we're very hopeful that the generic drugs currently in the market will remain at their current present discount to the reference brand equivalents. We're also hopeful the new agreement will allow for generic drugs entering the Canadian market to be priced at a discount to the brand that stimulates that multi-source manufacturing activity that actually drives additional value, as you know. That's, that's the update at this point, but more to come. Like I said, you know, we hope to be more involved in those conversations and help shape the future by having a seat at the table. Okay, that's great. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. The next question comes from Kyle McPhee, Cormark. Please go ahead. Hi, everyone. First, regarding the income statement, line item you call Acquisition, Transaction, and Integration Costs, that figure for Q4 remains elevated, despite no acquisitions in Q4 and no closings in the subsequent Q1. Can you explain what went into this line item for Q4 and maybe also guide us to when drag from this line item should fade away or what the spending should be here for this fiscal year? Sure. What goes into the line item is also when we spend time and effort on acquisitions that are upcoming as well. That's what you're seeing there partially, and there were transition costs related to Rubicon in particular, things like system transitions, people transitions that end up showing up in that line. As for future forecast, it's largely dependent on how many acquisitions we have on the pipeline, that's something that in the past we have not provided guidance on. Right now it's hard to predict with. It's really all dependent on where the pipeline is going. Okay, thanks. Regarding that CAD 2.5 million of synergies from Rubicon, was that full synergy run rate realized effective for the entire Q4, or is it effective heading into Q1? It's effective heading into Q1. What we quoted before was that we found the CAD 2 million. The way you would think about it is that the CAD 2 million we've achieved in 2023, and really that remaining CAD 500,000, we should get the annualized effect next year, so in 2024. Got it. Okay, thanks. Then last one, just to follow up on the partnership model, can you offer any details on the economics here? Like, what is the size of the minority stake you're offering, and how do you price that stake, that you sell it to the pharmacist? How is the pharmacist getting their return? Is it just a% of the store level cash flow, paid out in a periodic manner? Any color there would be appreciated. Sure. We can provide you a high level. Each partners, while we do have a framework, will be unique to the individual partner and the store of how much percentage they want. Each of them will only have a minority interest in the store, so it'll be less than 50% of each store. Where we are sharing is in the profit. If you think about it would be about the EBITDA. That's where we're doing the profit share. The economics in terms of the multiples, we anticipate it to be similar to the multiples we pay, but it really is dependent on each individual store and partner. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Zachary Evershed of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Great colors so far. just a couple from me. In your internal modeling, how are you bridging the current leverage level and maintaining the 35 to 40 per year acquisition pace versus the long-term leverage target of 2.5 times? I think Terry mentioned getting to 2.5 times within about 4 to 5 years. Is that still how you view it? We think it'll take a little while longer. It just really depends on how quickly the interest rates are dropping. In prior models, up until this rate hike, the long-term interest rates were dropping quite substantially in just even fiscal 2024. The way we think about modeling that leverage is that we are seeing opportunities in improving working capital and also making and our cash tax really is gonna continue to be lower, substantially lower even well into fiscal 2025 because of our of the cash tax losses that we've had previously. When you think about modeling it out, we, like, we've modeled it out so that the interest rates drops in fiscal 2025, and then it continues to drop to a much, more, steady run rate in the next couple of years and continued improvement in working capital. On the one hand, as the quality of the acquisition seems to be going up, one could assume that comes with a slightly higher price tag. On the other hand, you mentioned you can afford to be picky, which may counterbalance that. Can you give us some color on which way multiples are skewing in your recent transactions, and where do you see that going in the years ahead? They're relatively in line, but we've been testing lower and lower multiples. Not that this is typical, but we were in a competitive process, and we put in a quite low multiple, and we ended up being picked because we're the acquirer of choice, and we have the ability to close. As you think about the long run, we're gonna be testing lower and lower multiples, not only this year but in future years as well. Great color. Thanks. I'll turn it over. All right. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Derek Lessard, TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Thank you. I have a few follow-up questions. I noticed an improvement in your prescription same-store sales volumes, specifically on a sequential basis over Q3 and Q4. Is that improvement tied to the recovery in in-person physician visits, and how is that trend reflected in your clinic-adjacent locations? We have seen some improvement, especially in the Ontario prescription trends. As we've mentioned in prior quarters, as we have more in-person, as we have more in person, we tend to see that's the area where script trends are getting up. The other piece of this is what we're hoping for is that the other provinces follow suit and then really lower the reimbursement rate for virtual visits, that will continue to help our prescription trend. Okay. maybe just one, housekeeping, and, you talked about it just, on the earlier question, but can you just, Billy, give us a sense of what we should be modeling at for your tax rate and cash taxes, for that matter? Our tax rate is gonna be roughly around the 25%-30% over the long run, but our cash taxes will be generally in line with this year, for 2024 and 2025, roughly. Okay. Thank you. Without new acquisitions. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Irene Nattel of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks. Just one follow-up for me on the, pardon me, the M&A situation and higher rates. Just wondering what you're seeing out there in terms of what others are willing to pay, and even for yourselves, you know, to the extent that you're funding with variable rate borrowing, you know, above and beyond your internally generated free cash flow, how are you thinking about returns and multiples at this point in time? Hey, Irene. Thanks. Right now, really, then we've mentioned this in prior quarters. A lot of the time there are other competitors at the table, but they don't have the scale and size and reputation that we do. When we go into a competitive bid process, like the one I mentioned earlier, is that we keep testing new lower multiples, and it's something that we'll consistently do. We've stated previously that our multiples are around 6 to 7, and we're constantly testing the lower range of that. Trying to be lower than 6 is definitely an aspirational target of ours, but really, it just depends on how competitive it is and how much we can test. We are definitely testing it in every single acquisition we do. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Irene. Thank you. There are no further questions. I will turn the call over to Skip Bourdo for closing remarks. Thank you, operator. That concludes Neighbourly's conference call for Q4 and fiscal year 2023. Thank you again for joining us; we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.