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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MAV Beauty Brands Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, November 3, 2022.
I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Craig Armitage with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Just a quick note before we get started, that our remarks today may provide certain information regarding our expectations, future plans and intentions that may constitute forward-looking statements. I refer you to the most recently filed AIF and the MD&A for the third quarter, which are available on our website and on SEDAR.
These include a summary of the significant assumptions underlying these forward-looking statements and certain risks that could affect the company's performance and the ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. You'll find the Q3 earnings release, the financial statements and the MD&A on the IR section of the website as well.
Lastly, I'd highlight the financial discussion today we compare -- generally compare Q3 2022 versus Q3 2021, unless otherwise stated.
With that, I'll turn it over to Serge. Go ahead. Please Serge.
Thank you, Craig. Good morning, and welcome to MAV's third quarter conference call. I'm joined by Laurel Mackay-Lee, our Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I will comment on the overall performance for the quarter and update you on our brand plans and our progress in operational execution, the combination of which we believe will position MAV for improved sales and profitability. Laurel will go deeper on the financial results after commentary included the noncash impairment charge.
While adjusted EBITDA increased 6.5% in the third quarter, it was a challenging period from a sales perspective as weaker results from 2 of our brands, Renpure and The Mane Choice, continue to offset the performance of Marc Anthony and Cake.
In line with consumption trends, net sales for the quarter declined 9% year-over-year to $22 million. These sales trends are directionally in line with the quarterly run rate from the first half of the year. As mentioned, adjusted EBITDA increase in the third quarter reflect an improved gross margin and savings from operational initiatives, which Laurel will expand on.
There are two main factors impacting the sales this quarter, consistent with what we discussed both with Q1 and Q2 results. One, we're continuing to see the impact of net distribution losses that occurred earlier this year. It's difficult to make up ground in the year, given the most -- that most retailers shelves reset annually.
Second, we're seeing the impact of inventory tightening in response to reduced consumer spending. On the second point, I would emphasize that inventory tightening is not a unique headwind for MAV as this trend has been disclosed by other CPG companies this quarter.
In terms of benchmarking mass performance, the U.S. mass haircare category grew by 4% in dollars for the third quarter, mainly reflecting price increases across the industry. Over the same period, units decreased 6%.
MAV's portfolio underperformed the broader market with consumption down 9% in the quarter. Partly offsetting this, we continue to show great progress in e-commerce, highlighted by double-digit growth with Amazon for the year-to-date period and accelerated growth in the third quarter.
As we work to stabilize and improve our results, we are executing on specific plans for each of the brand, emphasizing 3 main areas: innovation, premiumization and awareness building. Marc Anthony remains the largest and best-performing brand in the portfolio, with results exceeding the category for the year-to-date period, reflecting distribution expansion in U.S. [ mass ] and double-digit growth in e-commerce.
To sustain growth from our company, innovation remains front and center, focused on two strategies for 2023: entering new segments driven by salon and prestige trends in [ bond repair ], leveraging the brand's professional heritage, and in the second half of the year, strengthening equity in our Strictly Curls franchise with light extensions into more customized and targeted solutions.
We believe this innovation, combined with investment in influencer campaigns, digital marketing and traditional PR, will set the [ breadth ] up for growth in 2023.
As for Renpure, we're excited for the brand to relaunch in the first quarter of 2023. The rebranding efforts span from improved formulas adhering to evolving elevated new standards for Clean Beauty to first-to-market sustainable packaging and entirely new design.
Renpure's mandate is to offer high-quality products with naturally inspiring regions that really work, all while respecting our planet. We recognize the opportunity to make Clean Beauty accessible and affordable to all families.
Renpure competes in an attractive segment, poised for long-term growth, and we believe this brand positioning is more relevant than ever. Based on consumer and retailer feedback on this relaunch, we believe 2023 will be a better year for the brand from expanded distribution in Canada and from improved on-shelf velocity performance.
The Mane Choice underperformed in 2022, based on log distribution and velocity declines. We continue to believe in this category and similar effort towards Renpure, we have plans to include this franchise across its touch points. This work is underway and will carry through the coming quarters.
E-commerce has always been an important channel for this brand, and we're evaluating opportunities to reinvigorate the D2C results while also ramping up the 1P store on Amazon. Together, we believe these initiatives should enable us to improve the brand performance in 2023.
As for Cake Beauty, the brand had a better third quarter as we moved past the supply disruption from the first half of the year. E-commerce sales have been strong throughout 2022, offsetting modest declines in store.
Our growth strategy for this brand includes bringing new on-trend innovation and driving awareness through activation and collaborations that align with the unique essence of the brand. We look forward to sharing progress updates in the coming quarters.
Our team has also put significant effort into a highly detailed brick-by-brick plan to tighten all areas of our operations to improve execution and efficiency. We're seeing encouraging results. [ All this ] includes improvements to our distribution network, which have allowed us to diversify and rebalance the U.S. network and generate measurable annual cost savings.
We're gradually reducing noncompliance charges by remediating [ good causes ]. In addition, we implemented a new automated process to identify industry deductions and improve our recovery of charge-backs. As a result, we believe noncompliance charges will be reduced in 2023 relative to 2022.
Lastly, we are mitigating the impact of inflation on our input costs through select price increases and by comprehensively assessing opportunities for cost savings across components, fills, labels and shippers.
This is generating near-term results as evidenced by gross margin improvement in Q3. Managing the effect of inflation is an ongoing effort, and we're confident that the processes we have put in place will benefit us over the medium to longer term as we aim to show steady margin improvements.
I will now ask Laurel to cover the financial highlights in greater detail.
Thank you, Serge. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. As Serge highlighted, net sales decreased from $24.1 million last year to $22 million this quarter. In North America, revenue decreased to $20.4 million, reflecting the previous net distribution losses, along with inventory tightening. For the International region, revenue decreased modestly to $1.7 million in Q3 2022 from $1.9 million last year.
As a reminder, under IFRS 15, we are now classifying noncompliance charges that were previously recorded in selling and administrative expenses to revenue. That's worth noting as you're looking at our quarterly run rate for revenue and gross margin over time.
Q3 2022 gross profit was similar to the prior year at $9.7 million, and we're pleased with the margin expansion this quarter. Gross profit margin was 44.2%, up from 42.4% in the second quarter and up from 40.3% at this time last year.
The improvement is primarily attributable to a more profitable sales mix, reduced markdowns and operating cost savings initiatives, partly offset by the continuing impact of inflation on cost of goods. We believe our cost improvement initiatives will yield more measurable savings in 2023.
Excluding share-based compensation, selling and administrative expenses for Q3 2022 were $6.5 million compared with $6.6 million in the prior year. I would highlight that this line item decreased from $7.3 million in Q2. As a percentage of revenue, selling and admin increased to 29.3% in the current quarter from 27.4% in Q3 2021, driven by the lower sales base in 2022.
Going forward, we'll continue to balance increased investments in marketing with a continued focus on cost control. Q3 adjusted EBITDA increased modestly to $3.3 million from $3.1 million in the same period last year, with higher gross margins offsetting the lower revenue level year-over-year.
Each quarter, as a standard practice, we assess whether there are indicators that goodwill and intangible assets may be impaired. In the third quarter, the review of several factors led to a noncash charge of $89.9 million. The Q3 impairment analysis considered multiple factors and inputs. Our share price declined to $0.50 at September 30, 2022, from $1.15 at June 30, 2022.
Interest rates have been increasing faster than initially anticipated, which will impact future expected interest payments. The analysis also considered our internal revenue outlook, taking into account the latest in-store retail consumption data, planogram decisions for 2023 as well as the revenue decline in the third quarter of 2022 compared to [ FY ] '21.
As a result, we reported a net loss of $93.5 million in Q3 2022 versus a net loss of $103.1 million last year. Adjusted net loss of $0.2 million compared with a modest adjusted net income of $0.3 million in Q3 2021. Adjusted earnings per share on a diluted basis was a loss of $0.01 compared with a gain of $0.01 per diluted share in Q3 2021.
Q3 cash flow from operations came in at $0.9 million versus $1.9 million in Q3 2021, and we reported adjusted free cash flow of $0.8 million, down from $1.8 million in last year's Q3. On a year-to-date basis, adjusted free cash flow of $5.7 million is comparable to $5.7 million for the same period last year, mainly driven by improvements in noncash working capital.
We continue to use excess free cash flow to reduce debt. As such, the company made an incremental debt payment of $1.6 million in Q3. At quarter end, net debt was $116.7 million, a decrease from $117.5 million as of June 30, 2022 and a $5 million decrease from $121.5 million at year-end. At the end of the third quarter, our cash position was $10.4 million.
Before we open up the call to questions, we want to thank the entire MAV team for their efforts and our shareholders for their support as we work to stabilize the business, gradually close the gap with market performance and generate improved sales and profitability.
While the macroeconomic conditions may remain challenging in the near term, our core categories, hair care and personal care, have shown resilience through past economic downturns. Over time, we believe we can regain organic momentum and properly leverage the MAV operating platform. Dan, would you please open up the call for questions?
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Matthew Lee with Canaccord.
Maybe just start with the housekeeping question. Can you help us understand how much the retroactive charge-back recoveries were in the quarter and maybe what your gross margin would have been without the recovery?
The recoveries in the quarter were about $900,000, and that's recorded in the revenue line.
Perfect. And then maybe you can talk more broadly about what SKUs and brands you believe are succeeding. And what maybe needs some more work as well as any changes in customer behavior you are seeing, given the softening in macroeconomic environment?
Sorry, Matthew, I don't hear the end of your question.
Just any changes that you're seeing in consumer behavior, given the softening macroeconomic environment?
So we mentioned that we saw in the first [ of ] third quarter, if you look at the total market consumption, the market was up [ 4 ] in value, down [ 16 ] units. So we've obviously seen a slowdown in terms of velocity, in terms of units.
As far as the categories are concerned, I think we haven't seen a major shift into the subsegments. And -- so we probably see some new trends coming up at the beginning of next year as innovation of all the major players hit the shelves.
Great. And then maybe on that note, on the 2023 planogram, it looks like retailers are shrinking their SKUs, given the inflationary environment. Can you maybe help us think about how your distribution growth will look into 2023? And then maybe talk about if the economic situation is preventing retailers from wanting to buy into innovations, for example.
We did not see a pattern of change of like purchasing patterns from the retailers with innovation next year. And as far as we're concerned, we've seen like there are puts and takes by brands. And so on Marc Anthony, we have some innovation that has been very well received. But again, it's puts and takes by brand and by retailer and by geography, and all the awards are still coming in as we speak.
[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Ashley Hogan with Jefferies.
We'd love to just hear a little bit more about your innovation pipeline and your plans for next year.
Sure. So going to Marc Anthony and I mentioned, so we're going to have two-pronged strategy in the first half of the year. We have what we consider a major innovation in the bond repair category that we will be shipping at the end of next month, that as I mentioned to [ Matthew ] [indiscernible] ago, well received.
So -- and then the second part of the year for Marc Anthony will really work on expanding our footprint in this critical franchise by really recognizing the subsegments of Curls.
When it comes to -- I'm just going to focus on 2 largest brands. Renpure is a whole renovation that really -- across all touch points, so new and improved formulas with elevated standards of clean, new sustainable packaging, new design, new scent, so we can consider that all of Renpure is [ NPD ] at this stage.
And from what we hear from consumer and from retailers, it's very positive feedback on the brand. Now, of course, rolling it out would be gradual because we'll address one category after the other. We're starting with hair care.
Okay. Great. And then we're starting to see some indications of a trade down within the channel. So from prestige to [indiscernible]. Just curious if you're seeing any of that within your own data?
It's difficult to capture. We have heard such I think, feedback, but we were not able to quantify it at this stage.
Your next question comes from Nick Corcoran with Acumen Capital.
This is Megan Bergen on behalf of Nick Corcoran. We had a question regarding the price increase. Is this something that you're looking at on an ongoing basis? Or do you have a schedule for these price increases?
So we constantly monitor our products and the marketplace and the opportunity to -- for select increases. So we have identified the opportunity for 2023 across the brands and really by product. So we think we'll see some additional price increases in '23, but not at the same magnitude as what we saw in 2022.
And can you provide any additional color on the line reviews that you typically conduct in the fall?
I just mentioned. So we're seeing really -- there are puts and takes by brands, by geography. On Marc Anthony, the bond repair launch has been really well received and should be an important factor in terms of our growth next year.
Comments on Renpure have also been -- feedback has also been positive, specifically in Canada, where we are seeing some -- expect some substantial growth in our distribution. We also have some indication of loss of PODs with uncertain brands and uncertain retailers. So puts and takes by brands and some data still coming in on many retailers as we speak.
[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.
Thank you for joining us this morning, and we appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.