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Alcanna Inc
TSX:CLIQ

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Alcanna Inc
TSX:CLIQ
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Price: 9.05 CAD -1.2% Market Closed
Updated: May 17, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2018-Q3

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Operator

Good morning. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Alcanna Inc.'s Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Results Call. [Operator Instructions] A copy of the company's earnings press release and management's discussion and analysis is available on the website and includes cautionary language about forward-looking statements, risks and uncertainties, which also applied to the discussion during today's conference call. All amounts discussed today on the conference are quoted in Canadian dollars, with the exception of U.S. same-store sales, which are quoted in U.S. dollars. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. James Burns, Alcanna's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Thank you. Good morning. Appreciate people calling in and your interest in our company. We announced our third quarter results yesterday and we are extremely pleased with how things are going and the strategy that we had started less than -- little less than a year ago of changing, transforming our business from a slow growth company with a failed U.S. strategy to growth-oriented company in multiple brands, strategically targeted segments of the liquor industry in Western Canada, hopefully soon to be in Ontario as well as a cannabis retail sector as of a few weeks ago as everyone's aware of. Our same-store sales growth was achieved with margins better than we had hoped for, given the necessity of strategic pricing in order to get that growth where we need it. Cannabis launch has been very, very positive for us, busier than we expected. And we announced yesterday a new strategic partnership with Ace Discount Liquor, which we believe is -- comes as a direct result of the strategies we've put in place since January, when we are very confident that with the learnings we've had already in the discount business with our 10 Deep Discount Liquor banners that this is a very legitimate and tremendous business and tremendous growth opportunity. First and foremost in sales and market share and then in margin. As well, we announced some significant progress in securing locations to build Wine and Beyonds, which is our large-format brand which makes 4 as a rule, 4x the revenue of a Liquor Depot and 5x the EBITDA, and we're very encouraged with that. We have 3 coming in, it will be opened in 2019, and sites for 6 to 9 more shortly thereafter, possibly in 2019, more like throughout 2020. And this is before Ontario comes along with its proposed changes to liquor retailing in that province, which we're anticipating to hear something early mid-2019. And with that, I'm just going to keep my opening remarks very short. I have with me here today our CFO, David Gordey; and the President of our Liquor Division, Paul Reid, to answer your questions. Over to you operator.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Kyle McPhee from Cormark Securities.

K
Kyle McPhee
Analyst of Institutional Equity Research

Just hoping we could get some color on profile of the Ace stores being vended into the new partnership. Stuff like average sales per store, gross margin, the OpEx they run with, any color would be appreciated, even it's just qualitative stuff maybe relative to the average Alcanna liquor store.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Kyle, it's David here. The average sales per their stores are roughly 50% to 100% higher than our average. We'll disclose more details once we get the definitive agreements done. And then margin profile is in the mid- to high-teens in terms of gross margin.

K
Kyle McPhee
Analyst of Institutional Equity Research

Okay. Is it fair to say they run their -- the staffing and the OpEx over their stores similar to you guys or would it be more bare bones?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes, it's a little bit tighter than us. They obviously don't have all the overheads that we have and they've been very entrepreneurial, and so they run a little bit tighter than we do. Different philosophy in terms of how they manage in the stores, which we are very impressed with and excited to learn from. So focused on a discount consumer and then the discount segment, and so the stores represent that as well. Having said that, they are very nice stores. They're very comfortable environments.

K
Kyle McPhee
Analyst of Institutional Equity Research

Okay. And then, on the similar note, can you just speak to the type of stores that Alcanna will be vending into the partnership? Are these kind of average stores? Or maybe these are underperforming stores that can benefit from conversion to the discount banner?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Sure. Again, I guess we better not do specific numbers until we get the definitive agreements done. But on a -- just a qualitative sort of level, yes, the stores -- I mean, you can do the math, given that we're putting in, give or take, 50 and Ace has 12 and the math doesn't quite fit. So obviously, if it was -- they were all more or less equal in terms of EBITDA contribution. So ours are -- tend to be stores in -- that have not performed as well and that have either lower sales profiles in their areas or have had intense competition from other newer retailers and they're making what we call some of these landlord stores. We're sort of paying the rent and paying the employees, but they don't really contribute a lot to the bottom line. These stores were selected very carefully by us in conjunction with Mr. Vander by -- there are none, for the most part, pretty well none, that are really going to be directly competing with other remaining liquor depots and -- as well as there maybe Alliance, the new partnership will have certain markets that will be there since certain smaller communities or relatively segmented sections of larger cities. So that will be there to run. So we've been very, very careful of -- about how we picked on a variety of factors.

K
Kyle McPhee
Analyst of Institutional Equity Research

Okay. That's good color. And then I just wanted to make sure I understand the proposed deal structure here. So this is just the 2 parties vending in stores to the partnership. There's no capital changing hands, and then the CapEx going forward is just split based on ownership of the partnership?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

So at this stage, we haven't signed the definitive agreements, Kyle, but there will be a change in capital structure. There will be some cash going from us to the Ace ownership, but we'll define that in the coming...

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

To make sure there's clean title of all assets coming into the partnership to the extent that there was working capital loans and so on, on some of the Ace stores that will have to retire that before the partnership then refinances as a stand-alone entity.

K
Kyle McPhee
Analyst of Institutional Equity Research

Okay. Got it. And then last question for me on separate topic here. On the CapEx, you're spending to build out your first 37 cannabis stores in Alberta. It looks like you lowered your guidance to $20 million to $25 million instead of $35 million to $50 million. So big change there, just wondering what the change is driven by?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

When we got our first 5 stores opened and as Jamie mentioned, they were successfully launched, but over the last number of days, we've been launching and learning how the customer's shopping these stores, looking at customer patterns, understanding who the demographic is that is entering those stores today. And we see an opportunity to lower our CapEx investment in our stores going forward with some slight changes and modifications to the store design. So again also wanting if there is opportunities to lower CapEx, that can return -- raise the return on that investment.

Operator

Your next question is from George Doumet from Scotiabank.

G
George Doumet
Analyst

Congrats on the -- I guess, the early day strong performance from the NOVA stores. My understanding there is that we're running margins in the 20s and the competitors are kind of closer to 30s. So just wondering if that's the game plan over the next 12 months? And maybe can you talk to where you see the margin evolving over time?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

I'll answer the last part first, George. Over time, who knows. It's so early days. There are significant supply issues developing that everyone's well aware of. But from our panel's perspective and for our NOVA cannabis brand, we will -- we've studied the markets where cannabis has been retailed -- recreational cannabis is illegal in The United States, including Alaska, where we have our liquor stores for 2.5 years, the cannabis has also been side-by-side with us. So it's relatively clear where the market for the current products that we allowed to sell, dried flower essentially and then a little bit of oils and capsules is going to go. And we just didn't see any reason to take advantage of limited retail outlets or shorter supply in the short term and gouge people. As we don't have artificially inflated margins that we've been raising stock -- raising prices -- money from investors to justify pretending to get totally unsustainable margins in any, but the long term. So we price really very simply, Kyle. We've just priced according to the AGLC, the government online store website. And we are just a little noticeably different than theirs. So they're $10.95, we're $10.45. If they are, who knows, $9.96, we will be in $9.95 -- $9.45. So it's just a little bit lower and just within range of that and we have our black-market buster always 1 strain at $6.95, which is marketing, but it's also has taken the ground. But this is about the black market, the other so-called retailers are not competitors, the black-market is the competitor. And that's what we're after and that's the long-term success or failure of this policy initiative is getting the black market out of this product. As -- edibles and topicals and other products come online, we do still see margins longer term in this business in the high 20s, low 30s, somewhere in traditional type retail for this.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

When the other products are coming on...

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

exactly. But for this, for the stuff that's here now, no.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

That's right. No.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

No. And to pretend otherwise is silly. Misleading, in my opinion.

G
George Doumet
Analyst

That's helpful, guys. You guys spoke to earlier about the Ace partnership and just again on margins, I'm just wondering to what extent you guys think this partnership will improve overall gross margins over time?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

So there's significant upside in a couple perspectives. One is obviously, as they look to grow the alliance and build on that business and gain market share, there will be an opportunity to potentially improve margins and pricing as they go forward. Two is, we plan to provide them access to our private label product, which is something that the Ace stores haven't been able to have access to this point just because they can't -- they don't have the big enough volume to support a program like that and so we see significant opportunities on the private-label business.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes, exactly. And I think, we'll let Paul expand on what we've learned in the discount business and we can learn a lot from Tank, Mr. Vander, particularly. But Paul, why don't you just explain some of the learnings we've had in terms of how margins can really be raised, margin dollars.

P
Paul Reid

Yes, I think that in the end, driving market share, increasing footsteps, driving sales is first and foremost the paramount concern. And over the last 5 months, we've spent those 5 months testing different initiatives and different ways and marketing strategies to drive traffic. And pretty confident in what we've seen out of results and pretty happy with the results that we've seen, certain marketing tactics driving 3x the sales revenues, 3x the traffic drivers in stores. And at the same time, driving traffic, well, was the big concern and we have proved that we can drive traffic in these stores, we can drive volumes. Driving margins, obviously, is another key consideration. And employing tactics such as bundling items, or employing tactics such as grouping products together, both with our private-label products and national brands gives us an opportunity to drive margin at store level in a significant way, and again provides products to consumers that they might not have had access to in the past. But first and foremost, it's about driving volume and getting those footsteps in the door. That's the challenge in this market to be quite honest. I've got a lot of experience in retail and driving margins. There's lots of ways to drive margins and lots of ways to build the basket in stores. I'm pretty confident that for the most part, those solutions are low-hanging fruit. Driving traffic was the big challenge and we were able to do that. And the test that we employed over the last 5 months are tests that we're going to continue to use and leverage into the back half of the year, into next year.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

And a lot of those learnings we're going to take and implement in the Alliance as well to drive market share with that group stores as well.

G
George Doumet
Analyst

I think the traffic point is probably a good segue to my last question. Just looking for some context around the 1.9 -- positive 1.9 comp number for Canada. How much of that was, I guess, the result of more aggressive promotions? How much of it was a stronger Alberta? And any factors that could have maybe led to the lift?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes, I think that -- I'm not sure we're seeing any kind of movement in the Alberta market, to be quite honest. I think the...

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

A royal $16 dollars, George. Meaning that much improvement in the Alberta economy. Now this is at...

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

The traffic driving was, in my opinion, solely a result of the marketing tactics we employed there and put into the marketplace. And those marketing tactics, once again, not only drove footsteps and good comp results, I think, they were -- those tactics, for the most part, in a small store counts, in many ways, really drove market share and drove the opportunity to gain market share in the environment. So -- and to be quite honest that needs to be our go-forward plan. And growing market share, growing our comp store bases, comp store sales is a significant focus for us. And the tactics that we've employed, once again proved that we can see success and we're going to continue to grow that market share and employ those tactics.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

It's always tough because there's no publicly available information around the total size of the industry, but for year-to-date, it appears and we're pretty confident based on vendor data that the market has shrunk overall. But while the market is shrinking, we've been gaining significant market share against our competitors through both all of our channels frankly, one is beyond Liquor Depot and then the Deep Discount Liquor. And vendor data shows that some of our major competitors are down high to double digits.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

20%, one 30%...

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Yes, so we're very confident with the strategy that we've employed.

Operator

The following question is from Derek Dley from Canaccord Genuity.

D
Derek Dley
MD & Consumer Products Analyst

Just wondering on the 50 stores that are -- and sorry, you may have mentioned this. I did hop on a bit late. The 50 stores that are going to be going into the Ace partnership, are those existing locations within Alcanna's liquor network?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

That's correct.

D
Derek Dley
MD & Consumer Products Analyst

So then, can you explain to me the combination of you're going to have the partnership with Ace, but are you still planning to further develop the Deep Discount Liquor brand? Or is that just going to be 10 stores?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

All of our Deep Discount stores will be rolled into the new partnership. That will -- the new partnership really will operate the discount banner and operate in the discount segment, while we focus on the Wine and Beyond and Liquor Depot segment of the market.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

We don't -- and to be really honest, we haven't decided and the new partnership, Tank Vander and Bobey from -- who will be moving to the partnership from Alcanna, have not really decided yet store by store, which banners are going to Ace and some may remain as Deep Discount Liquor. It's literally store by store. There may be a few that actually stay as Liquor Depot for a variety of reasons, but they will be under their control. They'll be owned by the partnership.

D
Derek Dley
MD & Consumer Products Analyst

Okay. Okay. So the discount, your guys' assorted discount footprint will be 50 stores, not 50 plus 10?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

No, it will be -- well, the partnership -- the Alliance will have -- will be running discount side of the business for our group. We will retain no discount stores in the Alcanna group of stores.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Exactly.

D
Derek Dley
MD & Consumer Products Analyst

Okay. I got you. And then can we talk about just -- in terms of your sales increase, and I appreciate the commentary just now on market share and traffic. Is it possible to break out how much of that was -- came from those discounted sales? And how much of it was increase in the legacy network or an increase in Wine and Beyond?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Yes, we don't talk about it publicly. But obviously if you do the back-of-the-envelope math with the information that we provided in the MD&A, telling you that the 10 Deep Discount stores were up 110% over the last year and using kind of average store metrics, you can do the back-of-the-envelope math to tell you a fairly significant portion of our increase came from there. The Wine and Beyonds were positive this quarter, and then the Liquor Depot side of the business while down is still growing market share at this stage. But there is no doubt that Deep Discount stores were positive contributor to the positive same-store sales increase.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

And the Wine and Beyond.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

And the Wine and Beyond, yes.

D
Derek Dley
MD & Consumer Products Analyst

Okay. And then just last one from me and this will be a tricky one. But just -- given -- and we've talked about this before, but given Aurora's ownership in Alcanna, when are you guys expecting some clarity from the Ontario government as it relates to LP ownership, whether that be a minority interest of LPs and retailers and what that's going to look like going forward?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Well, I think, they said, by the end of the month. So it'll be where it'll be, Derek. The -- I heard that they're accepting license applications starting December 17. So presumably, they want the retailers to know the rules for a few weeks before that, so people can get their plans in order before they start applying for licenses. And we are not overly concerned by this. It'll be what it'll be and we will comply with whatever -- we don't have any doubt, we'll be able to participate in the market. As to exactly how or what structures that we will use to do that will depend on the rules that are put in place and we'll comply by the rules.

Operator

The next question is from John Zamparo from CIBC.

J
John Zamparo
Associate

You guys touched on it a bit on a previous answer, but going back to the Ace partnership, you've already converted 10 of your own stores. It sounds like these are going pretty well. What's the thinking behind adding them as a partner to the mix rather than, say, converting these 50 on your own? Is it just you'd rather direct -- redirect your attention to the Wine and Beyonds and the rest of the network in cannabis? Or is there some element here?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

That's partly it, for sure. There is just bandwidth and we can do so much, but it's probably a little more fundamental than that. We've learned that the discount business, it's a different business. It's a different way to think. You run the stores differently. I mean, from an outsider, it's shelves of liquor and shelves of liquor, but that's really just at one level, that's true. But how you approach the business, how you merchandise, how you select inventory, how you price, how you go-to-market and various promotions, it's quite a different philosophy. And to try to do them both from the same office, the same marketing team, the same operations team, it's -- we realized that while we did our experiment with just 10, and that was okay. To do it on a more comprehensive basis, we really would want to have it standalone and focus on its business and really innovating and driving in that business alone. And we've been very clear since I got here anyway in December, January, that our objective is to -- we're not letting these discounters, the newer ones, sit and take our market share away with impunity anymore. We're taking them on head-on, and I believe without getting into over details, you can figure it out that the reason we now have a partner as a discounter is that our strategy and positioning of ourselves in the market was very effective. And we have what we believe is the best of them, exceptionally talented, impressive individual, Mr. Vander, to come and be our partners. And I will also say without spelling it out, the name, the Alliance is chosen for a reason and Alliances tend to have more than 2 partners, so I'll leave it at that.

J
John Zamparo
Associate

Okay. That's helpful. Maybe we could pivot to renovations. I know you gave out a number for the capital required, but did you disclose the total number of renovations you expect in 2019 or in 2020?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

So we didn't. We haven't given any guidance on 2019, 2020. As we sort of mentioned in the MD&A, we're saving our gunpowder for all of these initiatives. We really want to see how Ontario shakes out in the next month on the cannabis side, and we believe in the coming months on the liquor side. Obviously, there will be some renovations that we do in the Alberta and BC markets and the Alaska market where it's necessary or where we see opportunity. But for the most part, we're going to hold back our capital until we know what Ontario looks like.

J
John Zamparo
Associate

Okay. Understood. On the cannabis front, this might have been in the MD&A, so I apologize if I missed it. But when do you expect you'll have your 37 up and running? And I know there's still a ton-up in the air, but is it more likely to be by the end of Q4, by the end of Q2 next year? What can you say there?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

The real answer is we are not sure. We have many sites ready and we are being a little careful how we're building out at the moment because a number of our sites, and mostly they were the better ones, were initially rejected at the municipal level for proximity to parks and things that we challenged and have taken to the SDAB, which is the equivalent of here of the OMB in Ontario when we've appealed 3 so far, and 1 of 3 batting 1,000. And so we're switching which sites are which in terms of some of the ones we might have done like a B site, let's call it. Now, we got some A sites. We're getting these appeals successfully processed, and that with the supply constraints and the forecast of supply being spotty at best. It's bit of a euphemism for the next few months. We'll most likely continue to build our stores and we may be slow in opening them. There's not much point opening a store if there's nothing to sell. But we definitely -- this supply thing is a short-term thing. It's a blip. Maybe it's 2 months, maybe it's 4, it doesn't really matter. And then we're in the grand scheme of things, it won't be -- we'll all forget about it. When the supply catches up, it'll be nothing. It's just a little speed-bump teasing pain. So we'll be prepared for it, but we're also cognizant of making sure we're responsible to the customers and to our employees in the meantime until it's ready. So -- and the Q2 would be still -- that's what we're always aiming at and that's still pretty good target. Little earlier or little later, maybe. It depends on all sorts of stuff, not just supply. It's really DPs and these appeals are changing how we're thinking of which ones we're going to do, that sort of stuff.

J
John Zamparo
Associate

Right. Okay. Fair enough. I guess, last one from me. David, you mentioned it earlier, you've been watching cannabis consumers and how they behave. What can you share with us in terms of lessons you're learning? Or maybe a better way to phrase that is, what surprised you most so far for the launch?

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

I don't know if there is anything that surprised us, maybe Jamie has something that he can point to. But for the most part, the current consumer base in the early days, the ones that wanted to wait in line were existing users. They wanted to participate in the legal market and they came out and rose as you probably saw in the media. But what we are seeing today is a transitioning of that consumer base. A lot of new consumers, a lot of people that may have used it a number of years ago or haven't used it at all are starting to come into our stores. Given that there is no supply, there's no line-ups, and they're coming in to get educated and to learn about the product. And so it's going to be interesting as it take shape as we get new products coming in the fall. I think those new users are going to be much more receptive to using edibles and topicals. But what we found in the existing user base is they definitely want an in-and-out experience, and so we're designing our stores to make sure that we have expressed lanes for those individuals that know what they want and they want it fast versus the others that want a sale cycle that might be 20 to 30 minutes long, so we're incorporating that in our designs going forward.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes, yes, I think, that's exactly what I would agree with all of that. We -- I don't know if it's a surprise, but the fact that so many -- and the target's the black market and these customers were black-market customers on October 16, and now they're all coming to the legal market as well as a surprising number of medical cannabis customers, consumers who are coming to the legal stores just because it's so much easier to get there, the products they need medically and have medical prescriptions for it, but they'd rather buy it straight off-the-shelf and not have to go through some of the -- all the hoops that are required to continue to get medical marijuana prescription. So both of those are very encouraging for the long run. New people, again just smoking is not -- whole lot popular and a lot of people are waiting till the rest of the products that are widely retailed and -- but make up a bulk of the market now in the American states where it's legal by quite a substantial margin are waiting until those come onboard. People aren't going to wait in line 2 to 3 hours to come and ask a few questions and go home. Now that the lineups have abated largely because there's nothing much to buy in the stores, give-and-take on and off. We are getting curious people and people who are coming in and just having a chat and exploring and trying to understand the product. So that -- and that will evolve more as time goes on.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Yes. And I can just emphasize something, as Jamie said, I don't know that was surprising, but it was a great confirmation. There is a high degree of willingness for people that are in the black-market today to come to the legal market and pay more than what the black-market is charging today. And so that was very encouraging for us, and I think bolsters our resolved to enter this space in a big way.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes.

Operator

The next question is from Robert Gibson from PI Financial.

R
Robert Gibson
MD, Head of Research & Consumer Products Analyst

Last quarter, you mentioned that you could put a Wine and Beyond into a smaller footprint. Just wondering what these new 4 stores maybe as far as size?

P
Paul Reid

It's Paul speaking. Yes, I think the Wine and Beyond footprint is an interesting footprint. And we've talked about market share, and we've talked about driving traffic. And I don't see, to be quite honest, market share and driving traffic solely in the discount area, Wine and Beyond is a significant opportunity. I've been in this industry from a traditional retail environment for the last 5, 6 months and I truly see an opportunity as a disruptor in this business and the liquor retail business is right for a disruptor. I see over and over, again, the same kind of liquor stores in a convenience model, in a traditional small footprint with racks of liquid and stacks of boxes. And Wine and Beyond gives us an opportunity to provide a new experiential retail concept, a retail concept that truly provides knowledge, experience that's unique to the business and gives customers an outlet to try new products and be able to leverage those new products in the different occasions that they find themselves in their life. I think that, on the whole, retail has seen disruptors over the last 10 years that have really positioned them in the marketplace as market leaders, by creating the retail concepts and building out that experiential retail end. And we see Wine and Beyond is that opportunity. Can it be done in 10,000 feet? We've seen success in conversions out of our Liquor Depot stores on our self-gate location to convert it to a Wine and Beyond and seen results that truly have blown away my expectations. I think the footprint fits better into a larger footprint. It gives us an opportunity to create those unique experiences in this environment. The traditional liquor retailing just can't compete with, to be quite honest. So we do see our Wine and Beyond stores growing and that 20,000 footprint. That said, we're certainly not going to pass up opportunities of high-performing Liquor Depot's, where the branding might represent well to look to build out in that smaller footprint size.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

The 2 sites, Bob, that we specifically called out that we've done deals for in Lethbridge and St. Albert. They're really new markets for us and so -- and we see those markets as 1-store markets, Lethbridge and St. Albert. So we're going to put our best foot forward. We found some great real estate, so sometimes the real estate in the area dictates the size of the store. And in those cases -- because they're both about 20,000 square feet. But as we look to some of the other cities, as we look at bolstering our presence in Calgary, we do see opportunities to fill in with 12,000-foot stores as well.

R
Robert Gibson
MD, Head of Research & Consumer Products Analyst

Okay. And just quickly switching to cannabis, I was just wondering if we could get any color on the real estate in Ontario and what it's like to try to grab leases?

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes, well I can say right off the bat, we are not trying to grab leases. We'll wait for the rules, and personally, I note with some amusement at the same people that grabbed leases and built stores out here, they're now sitting on a whole bunch of fully built-out dead space are doing it again in Ontario, and they're more than welcome too. We have discussions with our landlords, the ones we've been dealing with for decades and we've got many sites, 91 trade areas identified. We will then see what -- how the rules work. And at the end, there is no supply, so there's no particular panic to open on April 1 to empty shelves. If that's the case, we'll get our sites signed when the time comes, when it makes commercial sense to sign them. And what we don't see -- Ontario is a very different real estate market than Alberta, where it is dominated by 2 big cities with very concentrated retail nodes, frankly places that are zoned. Ontario is very different, where the cities were built differently and zoned differently. And with the Ontario government having legislated out the municipalities of Ontario taking away any ability they have to impose their own restrictions in radiuses, which is what happened here in Alberta. And I'm sure the Ontario government was very cognizant of the issues in Alberta and took very, very -- if well advised, in our opinion, step to make sure it didn't happen in Ontario, especially given the -- it's a little behind in terms of timing in order to be able to get their legal retail system into the marketplace quickly and take the black-market on. We're just not concerned whatsoever about -- there's a lots of real estate in Ontario, so it's very different than here.

Operator

And this concludes today's question-and-answer period. I'll now turn the meeting back over to Mr. James Burns. Please go ahead, sir.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Yes. Thank you, moderator. I'm just going to turn it over to our President of Liquor, Paul Reid, to just provide a summation and our vision of our liquor business. Paul.

P
Paul Reid

Thanks, Jamie. I -- it's been a relatively short period of time. It feels like I've been here almost a year or longer, but at the same time, I can't highlight the opportunities I see in the business and where we see that business going. The discount, as I said before, the discount banner isn't the only banner we see as opportunity to drive market share. Wine and Beyond presents a significant opportunity to not only drive market share, but bring to customers a very new way and different way of retailing alcoholic beverages. And I think that, in this day and age and the general trend that retail is on, customers will like that concepts. And as we've seen over the last 5 months in some of the tests that we've done, have proven to vote with their wallets and have visited those Wine and Beyond stores and we've been able to drive significant sales, significant traffic and increased margin out of those boxes. Providing new retail experiences isn't just about bricks and mortar, it's also about providing opportunities like delivery in markets, where we see significant opportunity. Vancouver markets, we just launched yesterday our delivery service. We've been delivering products in markets in Alberta, Edmonton and Calgary for a period of time. It's been successful in that environment and I'm confident with some enhanced marketing support and focus and infrastructure, that business and our online business, our Ecom business as we will build out will continue to drive awareness to our brands and gain significant market share in this environment. There is a lot of tools that we can employ to drive margin. And as I said earlier, I'm pretty confident and very comfortable in that area in driving margin through many different initiatives. In the current economy that we see ourselves in, where Alberta is in a depressed economy, where we've seen quarter-over-quarter decreases, we posted positive comp result last quarter and it really highlights the initiatives that we are working on are resonating with our customers. We continue to take market share and see that our competitors out there are losing ground in the same way that we're gaining ground. Building out significant retail opportunities on the Wine and Beyond, enhancing that brand, cementing those relationships with our customers are significant opportunities as we go forward. In the end, retail is retail. And we're all competing for the same share of wallet. And I think the way in which we go-to-market and relate to our consumers, touch base with our consumers, will take on certainly a new and interesting way and successful way of driving business into our stores.

J
James Franklin Charles Burns
Vice Chair & CEO

Thank you.

D
David Nathan Gordey
Executive VP & CFO

Thank you, everybody.

Operator

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