Earnings Season - BrickTalk - Prescribed Growth

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Nobody thinks about how the medicine gets onto the pharmacy shelf until it isn't there. On this week's BrickTalk, Randy Rowe (@RTRowe) is joined by Audley Reid, Chief Executive Officer, and Don Smith, Financial Controller, of R.A. Williams Distributors (RAWILL), the pharmaceutical distributor that gets medicine onto Jamaica's shelves, to talk about where the business is headed and whether its growth is the kind you can count on.Recorded live on X Spaces on 25 September 2026.Listen to the original Space: https://x.com/i/spaces/1qKDzWQyNEQJVBrickTalk is the weekly Jamaican markets conversation from the Earnings Season podcast. ★ Support this podcast ★

Test test, test. Good evening, everybody. I hope you guys can hear me. And for you guys are here on Twitter, welcome to the early warm of another week, another brick talk. We have something hopefully nice and special for you guys this week. A nice double interview, if you will, with two of the team from Ari Williams. And as usual, I'm Randy, I'm RT, and as usual, I am starting out making sure that our sound is fine and everything is going great before we get started with everything else. No deny this week. No, I think Shale's on, but we couldn't get it all lined up this week. But no than I this week, he'll be on hopefully next week. Everything is going right.

And if you give me one moment, you should be able to be both our gentlemen and we'll get going right away. So hold on for me one sec, everybody. Okay. All right. I'm hoping that everything goes fine at us, and we should be good. So as always, I'm going to start off with a nice disclaimer

that I have to do every week. I'd have to do that choose through every week. So, hi, everybody, welcome to this week's Brick Talk. I'm Randy, as usual. And this week, we have two wonderful guests,

in addition to everybody else who always joins us and the questions I'm sure you guys will have. But we have two wonderful guests from Ari Williams, which is a dynamic, If you're a dynamic distribution, medical distribution company, I'm sure they'll describe it better than I just describe it. On the market, one of the youngest listings on the market, I think. And those are you listed in the big talk over the last few weeks

might also know how we feel about our audience on the show, especially now, especially recently. And I figure it's a good time for them to come on and talk, and they think it's a great time to talk because they just completed. Actually, today, fresh, fresh, they did their AGM today. So they're on. And as always, I start off, I remind everybody that nothing I said on the show should be taken as investment advice, especially because Dana is in here this week. Dana is usually the only license to investment advisor and he's not giving advice on the show. I'm definitely not an investment advisor. You guys are aware of that. So don't bar to sell anything just because somebody on the internet talk about it.

All right. Having said that, welcome. And I'm going to immediately go into talking to our two guests that we have here. and that's Don Smith and Audley Read both from Ariel Williams and of course we always encourage you guys to send a speaking request if you're on Twitter if you're on YouTube you can throw something in the comments and we'll try and get to it

but if you really want to ask a question to any of these gentlemen tonight about the company is a great chance to do it and if you didn't get to go to the AGM today might also be a good chance to do it so without further ado I'm saying welcome to them

and you guys can hit the hands up button as soon as you're ready to ask your questions, anything you want to ask them about, get the hands up button and we'll get into it, right? And of course, along the way, I have a bunch of questions to them. So with all that said, welcome gentlemen, Audley and Don, Don Smith. Can you both hear me? Yes, I'm hearing you. Thank you for having Randy. Thank you for having us.

Don, I see you un-mused it just now. Are you hearing me? Yeah, are you here? Yes, I'm hearing you. Yeah, okay. Just give you the heads up. This happens all the time. It's not you guys.

It's almost certainly my sound. Okay. To give me one moment. Yeah, let me go again. Are you guys still hearing me? Don? Yes. Yes, I am.

I'm hearing you as well, Randy. Can you guys hear me? I'm hearing you all. I'm not sure if Randy is here enough. I have done. I actually know how to navigate the time while I start this out. out because I don't have them tonight it is on me but I'm sure that you guys are hearing me the issue is me so give me one more sound check all right check in one

two perfect I'm hearing you clearly here we go shouldn't have awesome awesome all okay again good evening gentlemen how are you doing and done let me ask you early is it done or is it done mark boy you start talking I get the rose out the tongue I guess a rose off the tongue better which one done or done mark done No, so I'm saying, Mark is my middle name, but most people call me like, newer person that call me Denmark, but like our original friends, but only know Don, because it's not until I, in a professional career, most persons know my full name.

So for them, Dan just seems too short. So they say, okay, Denmark rolls off the tongue better, I guess. So most people are at Denmark, but I'm good with Dan. All right, all right. Most Jamaicans would be good with the Don. Well, that's in the current dynamics of all things are happening. Maybe I should job, it probably does use Mark. We work with Denmark.

We work with on Mark. And oddly, I have your name perfectly right. That is oddly, oddly, oddly read. Yeah, man, A. Right. All right. So you gentlemen are both from Ari Williams. Oddly, I am not incorrect to saying you are the founder,

one of the co-founders of Ari Williams, right? Yeah, that's right. I am one of the founders. Company was started by my myself, my sister and my mother. All three of us are registered pharmacists here in Jamaica. Yeah, I like that. It's a real family company. I remember when you guys were IPO in two years ago, and I found that I liked it. I like I like the very clear set of you, your sister, your mother, so it's a family company. I like family companies. I like seeing family companies list.

And I did mention at the start there that you are one of the youngest listings on the market. If I have that right, you're certainly the youngest distributor on the market. It's certainly the youngest farmer distributor. Farmer distributor, okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, I like that. And people started off the same way every time, you know, what I've found is I spent a lot of time talking to investors, people getting into investment, and I'm always surprised at how little people actually know about the companies listed. No, not to any other company with GK, separate, Everybody know the big names, NCB.

So I'm sure you might be sick at this, but how would you guys describe yourself? How you describe Ari Williams? We describe ourselves really as a mainstream distributor of health and wellness products, distributing products across the length and breath of Jamaica. Our main core products right now are in the pharmaceutical segment. But we have started a sojourn into,

the health and wellness categories and most recently onboarded some products in the maternal care lines offering products from the trade love life limited suite of of products all right so what are the one of the things I tell people are all the time that I try to do with finance is that you know in finance which this stuff isn't finance you being a little company people get overwhelmed sometime with the with the terms and the thinking, so I try to get them down to the reality of what you do. So what you really do is you distribute medication, but not just medication you say no, because it's medication adjacent products now.

Yes. So apart from conventional pharmaceuticals, you know, everybody's into health and wellness. People want them skin to look good. They want their skin to glow. People are focused on immunity. They don't want to be catching colds and flus and all the bugs that going around. Some people are focused on strengthening and building immunity. So we're into all the full wellness categories of products. You know, everything that to do with health, that's

where we are. And you guys started off as pharmacists. Strictly pharmaceuticals. Yeah. Yeah. But you started off as pharmacist, so you said you, your mother, your sister are all actually licensed pharmacists. Right, right, right. So you know the market from the ground up, which is a, which is, I think, a major major thing. And then going into distribution then, I should ask what made you make that lead then, because I think the pharmacists have an easier job than the, than the distributors. You can tell me because you've done both now. No, both jobs are pretty tricky. And that's the beauty about pharmacy, right? It's what we think is one of the most, if not the most dynamic professions that exist.

You know, there are so many areas where you can practice and use your expertise and training. You can either be behind the counter in a community pharmacy. It can be in a clinical setting in a hospital. It can be in a warehouse as a distributor, in sales and marketing as a marketing expert, detailing doctors about drugs and nurses and on, you can be in education, just so many ways that are practicing pharmacy, but we decided to zoning on the distribution side of it because we think that's where we could have the most impact and that's where we saw an opening and we took it. I like, I like that.

I don't know, for me, I just, I find, I always think of the distribution business itself as being so one is a difficult business anyway because it's a difficult business um and it's a highly competitive space in jamaica that you're going in right so you always have to try and find ways to to you know make the business really work for you are not just for you right now so it's not like oh we get a one shipment and we can get it out no and we go but you know you're looking for really that that true long-term throughput if you will right so so finding a way to get yourself really entrenched in a certain way in society, you know, known for certain things. In fact, my personal or my personal investment, Max, I'm looking at distribution companies,

I look to see what is their, what is their water? That's what I think of it has. You know, for Wysenko, their leader is water, and then the water gets them in everywhere else. Do you guys have your own water yet? What is the water of R.A. Williams? The main line right now, I think the line, built us and propelled us is the optimal margin line from Arista Pharma and that's the line that started the company and really put us on the map and it has continued to grow year on year

despite us adding other lines than heading into other distribution of other products from other sources but that is our largest our flagship company and set of brands that we distribute from Arresta Arista Farmer. Arista Farmer. It's a huge conglomerate out of Dhaka in Bangladesh. So they make mainly generic products and they supply all over the globe on every continent you find Arista Farmer products. Okay. Okay. I like that. Especially somebody who wear glasses, I certainly like that. So you go to the, you find a good line coming out of India, which India is known for pharmaceuticals. You get the good quality and then you bring it in and you know, you keep going again and again and again and again.

And so what I've said I've looked out for is I look for the water in a company. So something that you're well known for and then you can use that almost like, you know, you establish your whole days with that and then you can spread from there. Yeah. And you have certainly done that. So as much as I said that you guys are a young company on the market, which you are, you know, relatively speaking, you are a young company on the market. You are trying my, I'll tell you the truth.

I try my best to not call you a young CEO. I'm sorry. I'll take you, man. I'll take you. Trust you. It's a blessing. It is a blessing. It is a blessing.

And I'm happy to see, I have to see and highlight young leadership teams on the market, you know, because you know, young. people, you know, we need if I can still qualify for the young people tag. We still need to see people doing it, right? And you guys have been doing it. Um, see IPO two years ago and I use another truism here. You know, I tell what I, when I also teach, I tell people, you need to separate the share price from the company.

So the company I like, company I like. And for some reason, I have you guys in starting in Spanish stone? Yes. We started in Spanish tone. I was still operating in Spanish town. I just want to touch on something you said earlier because I've been reflecting on it, you know, how you said, distribution is not an easy.

And you're perfectly right. I think a lot of the new investors in our stock, not everybody understands the nature of the business. Not everybody understands how to be. how the business operates and some of the nuances that we have to face on a daily basis. So, you know, I think this platform gives us an opportunity to kind of explain how the business operates. It's a mainly import driven business. So we import drugs that are made, drugs and health and finance products that are made overseas. We bring them in and we supply them to the healthcare system locally here.

most of our business we supply on private market to retail pharmacies and the retail pharmacy chains like the fontanas and so on right across the island and of course you guys other pharmacies too but you can supply fontana yeah ma we supply all pharmacies across the island um and then there is the side of our business that has to do with public tenders So we also do major business with the government health system, supplying them with several categories of drugs. But what I want to highlight about the distribution business is the major risk that we face right now is with logistics and trade. When we have to organize off that system of coordination, placing orders, tracking them, moving them from one port to another port then to the port of Kingston then having to clear the goods from the port and take them to our warehouse where they have to be checked and just ensure that everything is intact and everything came as quality finished goods then we have to offload them and separate them and store them in the warehouse and that's how we made them ready and available to send out to our customers

so that they can be available on shows. All of that process is not a simple one to us, especially against a background where you're combating global geopolitical situations that are big logistics and trade, environmental factors that are impacting logistics and trade. Every step of the way, something keeps coming up that we have to factor majorly in our business. So whether it's the war, Trump and so on, that affecting trade routes, with the closer of the straight to Pormuz or whether it's been able to plan sometimes that I think precisely around your pricing yeah yeah you know so we literally have to have something

similar to our war room set up in our offices where our team is constantly in there looking at the various metrics studying them on a day-to-day basis we can know what is happening and we can respond real time to all of the shifts and change that really, really happen on a daily basis. You know, so you'll have a plan and you, Friday, Friday, you plan is intact by Monday morning, things have shifted so drastically. You have to huddle with the team and you have to come up with a new plan and update and, you know, the newness for us having listed

was the, or is the accountability of having to report to the public. keep them abreast of the financials, how all of these external factors are impacting your financials and explain them away and so on. So it's all been new to us and we spent the time, I think we're in a place now where we're ready for this kind of accountability. And that's why you're going to see us turning out our numbers on time. You're going to see us reporting and engaging in platforms like these more consistently so that we can keep in touch with the invest in public and persons can know what's happening with the company. I like that. I like that. If I can, and if I could also add to that as well, you know, one of the, always people are from a press,

but I've been coming from a financial perspective, I don't think people understand the timeline to having goods here and already. Because drugs aren't made and put down. They are made based on an order. Just in time. If we look at our life cycle, When we put in an order, the manufacturing of that product takes two to three months. And then if it's coming from India through shipping, that's another two to three months. But that's six months.

You finally get the goods and you sell it. When you sell it to a customer, obviously people want credit. So you're looking at another month and a half. So the life cycle, and for most of our supplies, you have to pay. Some of them require 100% payment up front. I can imagine. So can you imagine paying 100% up front. and collecting what could be eight months later after you've already paid because you get it in six, seven months, and then you sell it and then there are still time.

So these are some of the intricacies of the business that I think people don't really understand that we have always been managing and that is how we bring service. But it's healthcare and the foremost thing is ensuring that it gets here in time to keep our healthcare system sustainable. And that is, you know, one of our commitments. Which I think you've been fulfilling well and I'm glad that you mentioned that, Dan, because it's about to bring you in because I understood what Andre was saying from the perspective of the logistics and being able to manage that logistics properly. He was nice. I thought he must skip over the local side, which I know is another thing after you land and you have it in your warehouse, right? As we found, sometimes you land in a warehouse and then it seems to pick up legs and walk on its own. But

when you get these products and you're handling this long six to nine month chain of, supply chain, pricing also tends to go variable on you. So done from your perspective, I mean, how well do you, how do you manage that? Because, you know, yes, you paid the guys and them say it three months and then it was ready in three months for them so them not shipping it because trumps a tariff now, so they need another 20% and that eats into your margin. How are you guys managing that? Honestly, he knows exactly what this happened. And that's true. What we, so what we've engaged with our team and what we've done, the collaboration of the, with our sales team who is keeping abreast of everything happening is once that is done we have a seamless

process of making an assessment and we do a pre-costing sometimes i've started to kind of say okay when these goods arrive what do we expect the projections in terms of the cost will be once it hit us and it's not they're moving it from the port locally to here come at a cost and all of that so we have to be constantly checking maintaining or looking what the margins will be also keeping abreast of the market because one of the thing is we don't want to price ourselves out I mean we have different customers want to keep our customers you know you know we have very loyal customers I would say but once we are we have to be mindful also of the economy of Jamaica and other things so there

are a lot of times when we have to observe any change that happens sometimes we just have to observe that additional cost that comes with it so there are many at times that we and that is why margins will you know margins will fluctuate every now and again we try to maintain a core set and establish amount but there are things that will happen so even recently with the because of what was that with the war and oil prices etc a lot of our goods that needed to be now come by air that is a cost obviously when you do a budget from some time ago you wouldn't have anticipated this and then at this stage now to just put on that cost to customers so a lot of times we have to absorb that and managing those are some of the things that we have to do and

a daily basis with every shipment. I mean, we have what 15 different suppliers. All is about like 10 of them from coming out of India. So most of our supplies have this length of transit time. And these are the things that we manage in terms of margins and other and otherwise. That also because as I also know if you're managing the business, you might be able to eat the cost once or twice, but you do increase profit by eating the cost, right? Exactly. Correct. All right. Yeah.

What we like about all businesses and what we have it have been able to do is we have a lot of systems built in. So we're able to use predictive analytics to see based on all developments what's kind of happening, how it impacts prices down the road, how it impacts supplies down the road and we're able to adjust in real time and pivot for a lot of these things I mean yes not spoke about the price absorbing that we do from time to time but separate and apart from that we are also able to adjust prices based on how we see things going and if it's not a price adjustment we're also able to negotiate with our suppliers and lots of the times but all in on I think what's what the picture

we're trying to paint is that the distribution business is not simply just buying a product and just selling to a customer. The nuances that go behind all of that is highly complex. It involves a lot of systems, a lot of planning, use of a lot of technology in order to be able to predict things and come out at the right outcomes at the end of it. So, you know, we've built all that. Now, you're talking my language. You've built all of that. You said, that's the question I'm about to ask. You guys built your own, your own predictive engine, if you will. Internal. You supply chain. I'm making it sound fancy and I know it sometimes is when you're building,

but yeah, something that can adjust it. But what we've done is really integrated all our systems. So our ERP system that we use in terms of sales and forecasting and so on, we integrate that with a lot of the other sheets and spreadsheets that we develop internally in terms of forecasting and data tracking and so on. Just to ensure that we're able to look at very, very, to look at various models that we have and try to predict best outcome. And this helps us to keep a very tight line in terms of our inventory management. Don would have explained how the cash scenario works with the business. It's a credit operating business.

So clearly if you don't have proper systems in place, you're going to end up in problems. So we put the systems in place and started managing things in an appropriate way. I think we're seeing the results of it. So we're really, really happy to see the results. I'm happy to hear that as he said, the results. I mean, it's no secret if you follow the market. I will follow the market a lot here and break talk. You follow the market, you know, you guys had a rough,

I'd say a rough two years, a rough start. Um, we had some challenges, yes. I think, you know, and I don't want to be overly, what is the word, optimistic, sound like somebody's speaking hyperloated and gleefully but while we understand that we have had challenges we really want to talk about the successes that we've had as well if you look solely on the bottom line for last year you'd say lad it was a tough year because profit was low but really buried our head in the sands and focused on the fundamentals of the business because the truth is

we don't see this logistics and supply chain issue going away at times soon even if the war is end and there's peace we're still going to have to grab with how do we resolve the environmental impacts the low water levels in the Panama Canal how do you stop a El Niño from happening these things are totally outside of our control and they are impacting not just logistics and trade they're impacting how pharmaceuticals are stored because in transporting goods from point A to point B across the globe, some drugs require special storage conditions.

And if you have temperatures rising, you then have to think out of the box how do you maintain temperature control for some of these products while they're in transit from a port in Chittagang in India or Dhaka in Bangladesh to get to Kingston. So, you know, it's a lot of technicalities and things that we have to think about. We need it to ensure that this business that we're seeing expanding so rapidly, it had to wherewithal to handle all of these complex challenges that are coming at us.

Because, you know, truth be told, Arey Williams industry is a very exciting company because of its growth trajectory. And this is me, you know, talking about persons who are in the industry and experiencing the growth firsthand because these are customers, these are the health professionals who we interact with on a daily basis. They see what is happening. So they know the company is growing. They know it's a good company.

But outside of them and their understanding of the business and the pharmaceutical sector, it was about how do we get this message out so that others are. understand that it's not solely about the bottom line but it's also about ensuring that you have a business that can survive any sort of external shop that may come. Not saying we're totally here yet. There's lots more work to do to strengthen the business. We're still at one of the smaller ones in the pharmaceutical space. We have lots, lots more room to grow.

In preparing for this growth that we're seeing that is coming, it was important for us to strengthen some of the fundamentals of the business. Make sure that our logistics and supply chain departments is strong and adequately able. Ensure that our finance department is adequately staffed. Members are trained and exposed to various elements of accounting standards and reporting requirements of the JSC. Ensure that our marketing teams are adequately staff. and trained and ethical conduct and everything that needs to go into that, you know,

and ensure that the warehouse space that we came into, that it was properly laid out optimal storage, that we can facilitate the growth that we're talking about the IPO. Because we kept saying, you know, the funds from the IPO is going to be used to put us on a platform for growth. And that growth has continued. You know, I think at IPO, we ended that year at 1.6 billion. The year after that, we went to last, it was at 1.9 billion, almost 1.5 billion. Almost 2 billion.

So we are seeing the growth. Right. So we are seeing the growth. And we're looking at the other side to ensure the operational efficiencies there that we're managing our expenses, doing the adjustments that need to be done on. we're starting to see the results so all right i like i like it i agree with you that it's it's been um clear i mean i am biased in that i i i've been watching since ipo but i didn't i didn't dip my toe in the waters until relatively recently um i'm very biased because since i've bought it

has gone up wonderfully over the last few weeks i mean here today you guys are here today you guys are up a hundred and five percent and i're taking a hundred percent of credit for that but But outside of that, outside of, even the share price is good, but like I say, I'm always cognizant even more so of the difference between the company and the share price. The share price is good and I like that both of you are aware of it. But the share prices, I always say I want my CEOs to be aware of the share price. It needs to be in the back of their mind. They need to consider the shareholders. But it's not everything.

Like you don't get up every day and go to work for the share price, right? you go to work every day to run the business and the share price. If you run the business correctly, the share price will reflect that level of work that you put in. And the business itself is nice in that, I mean, I'm biased. My watermark for a company that is like 2%. I know a distribution company, 2% margins. I think you guys are at 9% net profit margins, 11% operating.

But you know, Randy, just backtrack a little bit on that share. price issue. You know, you're absolutely right. How I saw it initially was don't pay the share price anybody. Focus on the business. Focus on the business, focus on the business. The share price will improve over time. But having interacted with some of the, some of the investors in the streets, and you know one of them, I should talk to you. That's when I realized, yeah, You have this completely wrong. Yes, investors want you to focus on the business. That's what they've invested in for.

But they need you to pay attention to the share price. Yes. You know? And so we take it seriously and we've been looking at it. And, you know, we can only commit to, I mean, we laid out a full plan for this year. We've activated all of the public relations. and marketing efforts behind it, and we have a plan to continue afterwards,

and we're hoping that the results will continue to be positive in terms of our engagement. I mean, when it comes on to the business, we're just positive about that. But in terms of our investor relations and how we engage with the investing public, we have to step our game up and we realize that, and we definitely intend to.

Well, again, I might be biased, but I'll say that doing like doing something like this is a key thing in that. And speaking, yeah, speaking directly to investors, being open to hearing from investors. And I said, everybody, you know, nothing has changed with this episode. If you guys want to hit this, hit the, hit the, hit the, hit the, hit the, hit the, speaking requests, hit that button and I will, yeah, we'll have, I'm sure you guys have questions you don't want to ask. It's a wonderful opportunity.

You guys, while away on that, I know, you guys have also had today your AGM. So, you know, you say you set the theme for the. I'm assuming that someone that came out to the AJM on World Pharmacists Day too. So you know nice to synergy there. I don't know if you had if you had anything along those lines before I touch where I think I'm going next. So if you launch anything or it was just a thank you to shareholders and this is the way forward. What did you guys do today? Like what was the what's the big theme that you had for today? Um, you know, today was a really wonderful day just just spending the time

in a very structured way updating or investors about the happening in the business and yes it wasn't where a pharmacist day big up to our pharmacist across jamaica because we are pharmacists and poor of who we are at our redoubts and if you know anything about a pharmacist you know that we give up ourselves a lot and delivering results and excellence in terms of service that's really highly important to us and so we kind of use the agm to kind of showcase or transparency, or willingness to share detailed information, or willingness to accept questions from investors and media

and members of the general public to provide information about how the business is being operated. And frankly, to take suggestions too. In what ways can you improve upon and build the business to ensure that the results are coming for all of those who have invested. Right. So at the AGM, we kind of gave some insight of how we managed last year, the factors that led to our growth, including our onboarding of a new supplier, Rivas Pharma on the mainstream pharmaceuticals line, introducing the health and wellness category into our overall operations, started with the Sir Henry tumoric shots, which is a locally blended

tumoric shot for immunity from Virginia, Jamaica Limited. Those who made available in all pharmacies island-wide and were also in the wholesale clubs as well with those. And then we onboarded absolute skin, dermatological line formulated by by local dermatologist Dr. Romario Thomas, and all of those things contributed to our continued growth. And what you see continuing is that we're gonna be diversifying our product offerings, you know, and this year,

we onboarded just a few weeks ago, prayed love life, and we're gonna continue on this kind of strategy as we move forward for the rest of the financial year. Yes, so I, maybe Dan can answer this one. I think, again, I'm going off my own understanding of distribution companies, you really get a winning a distribution company when you have one exclusivity of a product that is well wanted. And two, distribution of a product that is local to your market, meaning you're not being import duties and stuff to bring it in, right?

So is that part of diversification that you guys looking at? Why I see, I noticed the two signings that you mentioned. One, I remember seeing in the newspaper, the makeup line, and also the skin care. Don't call it makeup. Cyncare. Sorry. I only take care. I don't use all the paper.

So I call it. I know, but I'll show you. Yeah, man. I don't need. Yeah, but in the end, we have to invest in Jamaica and build brand Jamaica. We're a local company. Obviously, we don't have the capacity to develop all of these drugs that were imported, but we can still help with the,

other aspects of wellness and that is why onboarded these local companies as you said strategic and otherwise it helps because it as you mentioned there is no input cost for those so better management quicker come to us quicker is out to the customers and also these types of products are products that can be used you don't need to be you don't need to be alien to use it you just need to use it so you know prescribed drugs are you go for it because you're alien obviously for absolute skin everybody wants to have good clear skin so everybody can you know get out by you know buy something from the absolute skin line also with immune booster and also the credit of life are expecting mothers that is something that is important so that we can offer products

from local persons here who are now expanding their breath and that is always why it's important to us so invest locally and grow and it's it's all are just a bigger part of the strategy to get us to continue improving value for the shareholders. Yeah, as a shareholder experience in some of that value, I really happy really. Let me say again, something that I want to point out and I'm proud of, even though it's not me I'm proud of it, I am very happy whenever I see like your shareholdings look like this, right? Meaning everybody on the board own shares, every one of your managers own shares.

So everybody on the team is seeing both the paycheck. and also understanding the benefit of their work, you know? I'm sure when the time come to pressure you guys for dividends, which is maybe never too early, the pressure can come internal and external, right? Everybody wanted. Don, I think, you have up your shares, you know? Yeah, so, right.

So, yeah, no, so incidentally, when the company went to IPO, so I wasn't with, you know, ARIA at the time. I was two years ago, I was elsewhere. And I always, you know, I just said, okay, let me touch a piece of it. And then things kind of, you know, I guess I got distracted with doing a lot of other things and never got back to it. And then here, you know, two years later came the opportunity to join because there's what, just about a few months I've been here, had an excellent time learning and also on the business.

But I find the importance of it. But, you know, I've set my goals and I've said that I've seen, if I didn't see the potential I wouldn't have invested from that time. But definitely, you know, I would invest my investment in it is no double because I want to continue to see necessarily. I know that I'm here and can not just for my share-holding benefit, I can contribute to the success. And I'm happy to have that opportunity.

Yeah. I'm happy for you to hardly pay the first dividend. I wouldn't see how much him could I get. He want to spend some money and buy. But I'm happy with that. And of course, before we even touch dividends, because, you know, the dividends is the benefit from the bottom line where the top line gets you there. You guys have had good top line growth.

Even the bad year, quote unquote bad year, you had good revenue growth. And the turnaround that I see, it's now looking to me like it's coming in profitably. So how do you guys balance that pressure? Because that pressure meaning do we continue to grow the business? Or as you said, you've realized, oddly, you know, the need to give back to your shareholders. and not we love, I don't think we love more than the cap gains is some dividends in our hands or both. Well, all you manage that cash meat.

I think we have to focus on both. But the key, as I say, is continuing to grow the top line and we're bullish on that. Because we're one of the smaller ones still in the industry. So we have so much more room to grow. And we've laid the foundation for it. So we're just seeking out the opportunities now. And it's going to be important to just keep the shareholders abreast of what's happening. I'm hoping in another, you know, not hoping, because we do have some drugs to launch.

And we spoke about that at the AGM as well. And those are going to be real nice news, put it that way, coming out in the pharmaceutical industry. Because persons are going to now have access to some generic products. that there's no generic alternative available for it. Okay. So right now when doctors prescribe those kind of drugs, some people go to the pharmacy, the price of prescription,

and then the wheel and turn and go right back home. Because when they hear the prices, they're like, yikes, I'm better my buy a loaf of bread. Yeah, you know. So the opportunities are there. And again, because of our training and background, it puts such in a very unique perspective, to be able to see all of these gaps in the market

and move at them pretty, pretty quickly. Believe me, the training as a pharmacist gives us a very distinct advantage in this industry. And that is why we've been able to see the double-digit growth since conception, really. We've been growing double-digit year over year. Yeah, in fact, I don't know if people, sorry to cut you down, but it's a point I want to before I forget it,

you know. One of the edges I think you guys have is that people don't, get that you guys being pharmacist. The key thing I get there is that your customers who became suppliers. Precisely. Yeah. When I go to the doctor, I don't know the doctor. The doctor tells me, I can't even read it. It writes on the paper, right? I don't have a choice in it. And then I go to the nearest pharmacy to me. And the truth is generic or not, if they have different generics, I don't really have a choice in whatever the pharmacy have, if the pharmacists say, this works. It works. So I'm out of the choice. I have the choice in which doctor to go to and at the

choice which pharmacy to go to, but I don't say give me this instead of DPH. The pharmacist makes that decision. So you guys really have a hell of an advantage because you know the inside of that. Precisely, but I'm going to put out my pharmacy at Randy when I're responding to that.

It's just a passion coming out for the profession, you know, and for the practice. The truth is that as a patient, we do have choice. And that's where we come in as pharmacists. We have to educate you as to what the options are that are available

for each prescription that you take to us and hand to us. But one of the reasons where you are of the mindset that you are is because you trust and believe in the pharmacists that serve you your medication so much. And I think that speaks and bows well for the profession on a whole. because Jamaican people trust them pharmacists you know bro from you put on the white suit when you put on the white long

problem in here anything you said go yeah anything you say go you know what the doctor can tell you otherwise and the truth is in some things the like the doctor does I speak sometimes to the pharmacist

more than I speak to the doctor yeah if the pharmacist say you know if the pharmacist tell me the doctor I tell you this no but this is better I believe the pharmacist I don't know that you guys have you guys have the grassroots and the prestige of it.

You know, it's a part of the practice, you know, because that's part of our role. Are there alternatives that we can suggest to the patient? We call them non-pharmacological therapy that could be just as effective as a prescription medication that a patient can take precisely. Don't see what to go back to your larger point, though. it does give us a unique advantage in this space because we're able from how we were introduced in the

industry our mother was operating a retail pharmacy in chapit and clarendle at that pharmacy we used to fill prescriptions and supply the neighborhood community with with various prescription drugs one of the things interestingly that we notice is that even though we stop the most affordable generics largely in the pharmacy, members of the community still could not afford their medication. And we had enough space on that property and that led us to formulating the idea of going into distribution. So the entire business was conceptualized to bring forward solutions in healthcare to provide affordable alternatives to expand the reach and access of the various communities across Jamaica to quality pharmaceutical products.

But now we've evolved a little bit beyond just pharmaceuticals to quality health and wellness products is what we're calling them. We're no longer about just treating sickness, but we're about preventing illness and maintaining health and extending life. Hmm, I like that. I like, I never realized that, but I like it. You said fancy, let me say for people who might have been confused. Tell me if I'm wrong, by the way. You guys figured out that you could get better medication if you buy it in bulk. But you didn't have, you didn't have the customers to buy them up, but you say you have the space.

So you said, let me try to buy it in bulk and see where else we can sell it. Yeah, man, that's it. I can spend some more money buying your shares. Don't disappoint me. I like, I love a business that's built and passion. Maybe that's just because that's how I've always built my businesses and business I like, and passion will carry you through the days when you hate it. I should ask, I should ask both of you individually.

You'll ask you first oddly, what, if you could model your company after any other company, which company would it be? If you look like, I want this to be the thing that we are in five years. What would it look like? Like that. Dan, you want to go first? I'm going to say if I'm going to muddle it, I'll say I'm muddle it of ourself and improving. I've been there, I've been around and seen a lot of things.

I've, when, you know, when you come into our business, it was a new, and I love going to new industries. And when you learn and you see how people operate, we have the, I mentioned foundation. We have the prescribed foundation to continue strengthening our foundation to remain disciplined enough. to be the name of choice. So in five years time, R.A. Williams is what we want to be. But does R.A. Williams recognize at a bigger scale.

That's why I respond. You see, it's very interesting. Why I asked him to go first? Because I like when we can showcase how somebody new or external of us who started with the business, just came in, assimilated in the business.

and just latched on to the vision and the mission of the company in such a way that the man can't even find nobody to compare us. No, no. But the truth is that there are several persons who would have gone before us. And we've tried to emulate a lot of them who have done well. I mean, I did my internship out of school and that was deliberate at Caramed Limited. because at the time Karimed was the best and if you want to be the best then you want to learn from the best. That's true.

Massi distribution was also a very big one. It's a regional conglomerate and my sister did her internship there as well. Because again, we knew where we were going. We wanted to learn from the best if you want to be the best. You know, but there are other local powerhouse. The Muslim group has two companies apart of that group. The TIGER is and the basic commodity. But they also purchased the AS Bryden conglomerate,

which has pharmaceutical presence regionally. Yes, in Trinidad, yes. Right. And beyond Trinidad, because they're in part of the... Trinidad and Barbados also, yeah. Right. And so if I were to choose somebody who I would want to emulate in terms of our locally originating entity,

that probably would be one, particularly because at this time, we're looking at expanding our footprint regionally, and they've done it and they're continuing to do it. Yeah, I see. Okay, I like that. Good, good bias on the show, you think, you're, talk about anything PV Scott related, we tend to like it. It's all the people who are the market, we have a lot of respect for.

We like the Massey stuff. Let me ask you the hard question. Massey, link you, you get letter. I'm saying we're cutting the check. You, your sister, your mother, everybody, sell us the shares, take 80% and we take the company private. You take it? Sadly, the growth trajectory of where we see ourselves, we're going to surpassed Massey.

I mean, Massey even had to sell their local conglomerate and move out of Jamaica because of the competition that we brought today. You know, we do co-distribute two of their their lines. MSN, sorry, not MSN, but Indus Life Sciences and Ipka, they were with Massey. They came to us and said, hey, we like what you're doing, and we want you to represent us here in Jamaica as well. And we've grown their portfolio so significantly

that Massey's market share started to fall. And, you know, interestingly, others have taken a look at us. And they've said, hey, we see what you're doing with these guys. What can you do for us? And that has opened up several other doors. Like, you know, we have so many proposals in Paris that we're evaluating. Because we're doing so well, but we have to ensure that as we take the steps, we're doing them in a measured way and a way that is well thought.

out so that we can deliver for shareholders. All right. I love that way. It's even so on media train, but the answer, the answer makes sense. I mean, I don't think you're like. It makes a lot of sense, especially along the lines of you say you're expanding. So I've been watching it, like I said, very closely. I know you guys started doing a lot more business with, I think,

Yu-I, I know you've definitely done a lot more G-O-J contracts, but I believe up to a week ago. I almost feel like I can't say it, but I don't work at Ari Williams said, I can say. I think up to how you guys knocked off a big contract. You got a, what did you get granted recently? You got granted, I checking my notes here. No, it wasn't, we didn't have a contract recent.

But I think we got some drug approval recent from the Ministry of Health. But our contract with the National Health Fund. The National Health Fund, correct. Right, it was a three-year tender contract. So that contract, a new tender is open now and being evaluated. So we'll see if we were able to to land a bigger contract with NHF. I think they'll make their announcement soon. Well, you know what?

I might have to check my notes. My notes say that you've got granted it. I hope you're hearing it for the first time now. But my notes say that you did get granted it on the 15th of September, which is just 10 days ago. But maybe I read wrong. I don't think I read wrong, but let's see. Yeah, let's see. We expect the results to come out anytime now.

So we'll definitely update shareholders. That's something we're looking forward to updating shareholders too as well. The last contract we signed, which is about three years ago, was $3.2 million US. And, yeah, we're hoping that we can land a much bigger contract with them. let's see. All right. I like that. And is there anything along the NARA lines for you guys? Meaning in the recovery efforts, because I know that a lot of the, if my read of what, what's happening with NARA is right. You're out there the noise and the news. A lot of it is

health center, refurbishing and fixing a lot of supply lines. Yeah, but I know there's also supply line cementing, if you will, for a lot of the island-wide health. facilities? Well, I mean, we are monitoring the narrow situation and see if we'll see if they put anything out for tender or if they have requests for proposals that come out. Our product offerings are expanding. So there will be products that will have in the near future that we can offer that are used in health centers along the lines of disposables and those kinds of things that they use in those health settings. Clearly though, if those facilities need pharmaceuticals and so on, it is the National Health Fund that supports them. So our NHF tender contract would lend us into

supplying those vis-a-vis the NHF. Okay. Okay, well, I'm hoping, as a buyer shareholder, I'm hoping, all right, I did promise people to jump in whenever they want and we'll have a couple of people who I want to hear from who sent a speaking request. So I saw one being Diane but I'm not I'm not hearing him now while we're going to come back on maybe this one might be even better Dr. Brick himself. Phil Berg What are you doing Phil? Phil can you hear of? I heard him for a second.

Yeah, you hear me? Yes, yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, man, not bad, not bad, not bad. Nice, nice, nice. All right. I feel them. I have some guess on. Yeah, the connection, the connection pretty bad Phil.

I'm not hearing it clearly at all. So it sounds like you're in the middle of work. Actually at home, but I know this is if I'm giving in trouble. Okay, well, no, you sound clear now. So yeah, will you? Yeah, man. Well, before, if I'm in trouble again, yeah, man. Congrat's coming in late congratulations on listening.

As a fellow healthcare professional, I'm happy to see healthcare professionals listing on the stock exchange, right? yeah yeah that's the oddly and done yeah you know we're yeah we're just saying

congrats to you guys because he's also okay thanks okay thanks yeah thanks appreciate you man thanks

sending you guys customers I'm sure yeah but what I did want to ask I don't know if I'm again problems with my line again but

you spoke to the um sometimes times the, well, the nature of the business, distribution from supplies far and wide, is there a role for, I don't know if you're actually using it, but for, you know, I know that it may cut into the margins a bit sometimes, but for financing, for like receivables financing or some form of factoring when it comes to your, you know, getting the money up front, managing

the receivables. Yes, yeah. Well, I think, I think oddly, Ardley's going to jump back on, but it's a perfect question for Don who is on now. So, yeah, so Don, I don't know if you can catch that one. Yeah, man, I heard what he said in terms of manager-receivable. The truth is, if you take a good look at our receivables, It is with the level of revenue that we have, our receivables are in line with what you would expect.

And based on the time and based on the nature of the business and the nature of the business and services that we provide as well. Because if you look at the opposite side, if you look at a pharmacy and other places of health, how do they get money? they get paid by persons who go and fill a prescription who pay a percentage if they have a health card and as such there is also that timing issue that you have to be understanding to your customers as well so as it is currently we have looked at it but we've never said okay yeah we need to definitely go to having some level of financing from the the collections because if you analyze our numbers our collections in our collection days are

are reasonably in a place that you would expect as it relates to our business and the life cycle of how we manage our customers. So we have looked at it, but we never give it to say, okay, yes, we're definitely going to do that. Because, again, it's a cost. You mentioned financing, but that also comes to that cost. So as you did mention, it does come with a cost, but at this stage, we don't see where it is where it's necessary at this stage.

Okay. I mean, we're still, I still want us to maintain a level of discipline. We're still maintaining a level of discipline. They are still used that word quite a few times, sometimes I've got to, and we even have the conversation to be disciplined in our approach and continue to strengthen and grow. Yes, Aldi. You guys can hear me now? Yeah, my way.

Yes, yeah. Okay, perfect, perfect. Yeah, I mean, factor financing is, you know, as Don said, we're trying to maintain financial discipline. So if we don't need to put. or incur finance costs at this time. We're not going to do that. But from what we're seeing,

the business has so many tremendous opportunities in front of us that we're evaluating. Once we finalized a particular direction on any one or two or three of these opportunities, and we see that it requires financing, but the financing is an option for us. So we're not close to it. As a business, we have to contemplate all the various suites that are available and certainly that's one of them. I mean, we've gone as far as to have

discussions with financial institutions about factor financing. We've studied it, we've looked at the various rates and we've had information from various financial institutions as well. So we know who has the more attractive options available to us and so on. Or we know who has attractive partner financing arrangements, but other options available as part of their offerings as well in the finance industry. So, I mean, you know, when you're operating a business that is as dynamic as ours, you really have to take all of the options available and into consideration. But as to when and what trigger we pull at what time, that we will do when the circumstance arise

and it is absolutely necessary to do so. But we have an obligation to you and the investing public just to remain financially product. And as we speak right now, there is no need for financing. But as I said, and I'll continue to hammer it all. We are evaluating a lot of prospects. And as soon as we finalize, I think we have something that is real and something that we can execute on, we'll consider all of the options. All right.

I mean, I respect that. I feel how you feel about that, because to me, that's a perfect answer. I want them to use the receivables financing as I want, not as I need. You get me? Yeah. Right.

No responsible way. And I mean, this is not just from the executive management level. At the board level, there's an audit committee, and they'll tell you plain and straight. In fact, one of the measures talking about the fundamentals of the business that we've embarked on is to develop a document that outlines how and when we activate these kinds of financing. And that is very integral in that in terms of draft. these documents and submitting them to the audit committee for review. Because when we look at the history of the business and finance past, that was a challenge.

And when we sat down and we look at, you know, how are we going to optimize the efficiency and ensure that we bring the greatest value for shareholders? We had to look at that and look at it seriously. And when we sat down, we decided, you know what? when we pay out these facilities that we have, let's not put ourselves in a position and we're just drawing down on them to pay for inventory or whatever the case is

in an ad hoc fashion. And because you're in a situation where there is the impact of global trade and logistics and receivables might be delayed for a little bit. Focus on leveraging your relationships. Go and have the hard conversation with, your supplier and say, hey, listen, payment is due now, but give me until two more weeks when my receivables come in. You have those kind of serious and responsible conversations

because you are building trust and credibility in the international market as you trade with these international players. And it only benefits the business and shareholders once we continue to strengthen the relationships and we're able to leverage them in that fashion. that's lovely I like that Phil when last to hear a young CEO or so

man I was going to right man I was going to say I feel like I feel like I feel like how lady is not

when the pharmacy you're training yeah like you actually you get it and sound like a shrew business man you know but listen guys let me tell you

I've benefited from sitting at the feet of who took me under his wings since I was in six farm at JC. Mm. And he was right there with me and I was right there with him until he passed. And one of the things he always stressed was, don't come around and learn nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't, you can, people can be associating you with me and you're not learning things and so on, and putting them into practice. And of course, there's John Bailey, our current chairman. There's just a lot that you're able to learn and absorb from all of these persons who've gone out there and they've done it. They've achieved success in business and then they know how they don't know everything and they tell you that they don't know everything. But the key is, but the things that you don't know, that's where people like Don coming.

you hire people have the expertise. You know, because I'm a pharmacist. Accounting isn't my strength, but you know, you rely on persons who are trained and have the experience. And you seek the proper guidance where you need to. And not to say that we're not going to make mistakes, we know, but you try to mitigate against those because you have such a serious responsibility of running a business

and being accountable to shareholders, you know, so you try to dot all your eyes and cross all your T's as best as possible. Oh, I love that. I love that. Phil? I like that, man. I mean, if you, if you guys continue to execute as well, the beauty of, of course, the beauty of being a listed company, when you're ready to make that big acquisition,

you can always come back to the market for a rights issue because your existing shareholders will be very happy. Yeah. you know, to put a little money, a little more money into the, into the company, you know. Yeah. And so that's,

that's another benefit of the, both being listed and maintaining that, that discipline and that trust. And the trust of the shareholders. Yeah. In fact, to give you, I call it free work,

but it's not really free work, but just hearing what you guys talking about there, I mean, the factoring is great because it gives you the space, but the downside is a cost. seeing margin, right? So you're giving up seeing margins for that. But so the ideal factoring partner for you is somebody who doesn't want as much of your margins and is more than willing

to wait. The market is that, right? You guys could put a bond. With how you're talking, no. I mean, I don't want to lose my mind, but the whole are you talking, no, if you keep this up for a year, if you come back to us and say, listen, we want, instead of going to a factoring partner, we want to put down half a billion in a bond and have that bond work as a factor in and you know you put a rate on it up two three years whatever it is would you write financial partner blah blah blah I would be more than willing to buy a bond like that for me and that's it you know when you're when you're in a space like this and you're evaluating so many opportunities you really have to take into account all of these various options that are available.

But the key is to continue building credibility in the market. Just kind of not just talking to talk and saying, hey, we're going to grow by X percent and so on. You have to really deliver on what you're saying. And one of the things we are cautious about is how we talk about growth. And that's why I would say all the time. We're evaluating opportunities, you know, and when it comes, we'll talk about it. Because we don't want to be out there saying we're going to be doing this acquisition

and this acquisition is going to add X percent to our bottom line and X percent to our top line. You have to evaluate it properly. But the truth is from our experience, even when you do all this evaluation, the proof of the pudding they always say is in the eating. is the output of the actions that will be the true measure of success. And you can't know until they start executing on these plans. And then you realize, oh, there was a gap here, you have to plug it. And as it go along further, you realize, oh, there was a gap here.

Because you're just not going to see everything. The most perfect plan will start falling apart as you start moving on the plan. when you have a robust internal operational mechanism, you're able to identify those gaps quickly, plug them quickly and put the corrective action plans in place. And so one of the things, I didn't mention it at the AGM today, but I can talk about it here.

Internally, we've started along the journey of implementing a quality management system that fundamentally guides how we operate and how each department integrates because of the linked systems that we have. How finance links to purchasing and how purchasing links to regulatory, because we have to report the Ministry of Health for each shipment that we're bringing and so on. And how all of that will affect the profitability and revenue generation of the company. And so we've started to implement the ISO 9,000, 2015 quality management system. But the good thing about the system is that it is so entirely risk-based. Yep.

So what it focused on is identifying all the risks from the various elements of the business, logistics and trade, finance, warehouse and distribution, order fulfillment, customer satisfaction, and all of these things. All of these things coming together is what is going to help. us to achieve our top line growth and ultimately the bottom line growth. When we started along the journey, it has been easier telling you to try to develop and implement this quality management system and we're in the early phase of it, but we're already seeing it paying off where we, you know, when it started, we identified several gaps and

we've started all out the journey of plugging a lot of it. So I think that's something key that investors can pay attention to because we're highly focused on just trying to find where the gaps are in the business and not just finding them for finding them safe but implementing the corrective action plans to really plug these gaps and make the business strong and robust as we move forward. All right so I'll ask you well the bad and the good in terms of looking back over the last two years since you've been listed what what are maybe some of the mistakes you think you've made? I'm not sure, well, we didn't maximize our data analytics infrastructure early enough.

So in terms of responding to somebody and mitigating some of the impacts of the global trade and logistics, we didn't have those gaps early enough. And so if you look at our numbers, you realize that we've had. had, even though we've stayed within the, what is an acceptable limit for the pharmaceutical industry, we've still had adventure obsolescence to the tune of about $13 million. Just straight right off, just product line. Okay. Right?

13 million? 13 million. That's your biggest mistake? No, no. I list in a couple of them. Okay. Because some of them have about the same size in magnitude. because of the impacts on your bottom line.

Logistics and trade again has to be strengthened. Had it to be strengthened. Because when you've got auto stock of products, it affects your sale. So you have missed sale. And when you have missed sale, clearly, you know, to your bottom line. Yeah, precisely.

So you had to strengthen that. And I don't think we did it in a fast enough way that would have mitigated against some of the last sales that we had and one other mistake I would say made is we didn't develop an early enough strategy to manage and monitor the impact of finance costs and the business I mean sure we looked at it and so on but it was more along the lines of this line looks good this is the amount of money that we need to onboard this line and this is what it will cost.

Can the business afford to pay, what we focused on was just meeting our obligations with the financial institution and growing our top online, but not looking directly at, you know, okay, so if your finance costs increases by X. What does that look like? you would have listed right around the time when

ECLs, when their finance rules change, so you start after booking the ECLs, have you. Precisely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and so we started to learn all of that. Don, but. Credit loss and those kind of things. Yeah.

So, Don, your work is cut out for you then, man. Yeah. He's done a pretty good job. And the truth is, our previous financial controller also did a good job in laying a good foundation. And once Dan came on, you know, Dan looked at it and he, with his agility and thing, he was able to run with it.

So, you know, we're sitting down, we're looking at the gaps, as I said, and we're plugging them. But this is your area, so. I mean, there's that much more. I mean, you really, you really said it. The foundation is there. It just that now there is a lot of changes. changes happen over time and you have to be flexible and provide advice and that is what we do under the board you know and we I'm happy that we have a board that responds to that response to us and believe is what we're doing and we have a management team a girl that does the same so once we

we start assessing and looking at things viably and so for me it's a doing a lot of because risk space I do a lot of assessments I've been doing a lot of assessments helping to ensure that we make the right decisions at the right time so that we can be physical disciplined to have the benefits that we need to get the benefits that we need yeah and focusing on the changes as well recently we're looking at another changing the accounting standard well yes there's a presentation the introduction of the new IFRS 18 that we already started making our suspense and already we've had the conversation at the audit committee level so it's been as

head looking ahead looking where we will be ready to you know at what point do we say okay let's implement it here so that we are ahead and don't have to be buck shuffling so you know even if I find the finance team everybody has been made aware of what is going you know what potential will happen and knows their part in it in having a conversation you know start the conversation with the auditors to manage that process as well so it's you know looking down the road having access to all information on conferences so we're ready yeah and from and one other thing I'd say Randy I think one of the

things we knew we had to meet reporting obligations after we listed on the stock exchange. I thought we were ready, but it's not until they get into it, you realize that, listen, because some of the things are external

of us to know. It's not only, I mean, in the accounting world, there's a shortage of good accountants now. So when you book up and we've been so fortunate to have been blessed to have really great financial control. But when it comes on to reporting into the stock exchange and you know you have to work with your auditors in a very serious and close way and you have to monitor the things. Whilst I would say by and large

we've met our reporting obligations I think we only had to ask for an extension once within the two years I don't think we're really estimated the volume of effort that it would be required to meet these reporting obligations. Yeah, yeah.

But we've taken the past two years to kind of just make sure that we adjust and recalibrate and so far so good. They've been turning out our reports on time and each time we learn something new. So we're able to come back better in terms of our reporting. And that's something that we take very seriously.

The meeting the regulatory obligations of turning out reports on time, part of our mistake was thinking that once we're publishing all of these on time, investors will be satisfied. But no, investors wanted to come into spaces like these. True, true. But I'll tell you this. Most the numbers that you've put out. True, yeah.

Because we want to always have a feel of the business. But you're giving us a great feel of the business. here and I'll tell you, I'm always going to push for the highest quality. So I don't ever want you to be late with your results. But I, you could be worse. I don't want it to be worse, but you could be worse. I like the improvement that you've had there. And I just say to keep it up. Not that I think you guys have this problem, but I'll say because of other shareholders and other investors say it all the time, never have an issue putting out your numbers. Good, but or ugly. Granted internally you guys will have your own decisions to make.

I can say anything I'm Monday morning quarterbacking, but never have an issue putting out your numbers, even if they're bad. I'd rather they're bad and I hear about it than they're bad and have to wait and hear about it because that uncertainty destroys the trust. And honestly, you've built to me, honestly, as I've been in the market, I've been investing for years and years and years, right? I could, I would have given, if I could give any listed company the road to travel, I'd give them this road to travel.

I wouldn't give them the 2015, 2016 road where you list the IPO. I know you guys would love it, especially you, um, oddly with the amount of shares you have. If you list it on day one, day two, fly 300%, 200%, that's great. But I think maybe the initial drop in share prices, as much as it might bother people, it is part of being on the market. If your share price is always up, it creates a shield where you don't face reality. But I think the share price has been there,

what I'm hearing now is that it kind of force a company to face the reality of the business and then fixing the business first and then coming out and speaking about the fixing you've done and then looking at it. And as I've said, hey, literally look at the share price. The share price has moved up 105%. percent from the start of the year until no.

And it's not back to IPO price yet. So by the time it gets back to IPO price, given enough time, what I like is that just like the warehouses, it's not that you want to get a big contract. And when you get the big contract and tell you, they don't have a minimum order quantity of X. I don't have space to put it. I want you to do exactly what you've done.

You've got the space first. Then you get a big contract. And when you get the big contract, you have the space for it. So you guys going down the right road as far as I'm concerned. I'll ask this though since we're talking stocks. What other stocks are you guys like? I feel no pressure, but I love to hear. I love to hear what other stocks are you guys like?

Because it's not just this, right? I always love when I see people on the market also present in other ears of the market. No feed, not. That's cool, but I just want to know. For me, everybody's excited about the Trans-Gamaca stock. That's a nice one. It's people. From a financial perspective, I love dollar.

Because it's also a young company and it's doing good things and growing. Which other one I like to pay? You know, my good friends over one and one great studio. One's, yeah. I believe in those guys and I really like those businesses. So I think, like all of us, you know, we're all growing. We're all trying to find that right path that will take companies forward. But I really do believe that those companies, they're being properly managed.

They have great teams over there. So those are some of the stats that are looking to as well. Yeah, I like the ones just guys. I'm also. I feel biased. I own a little bit of their competitor. I like that way. Yeah.

I also have bought and will buy them again. I like their level of professionalism and I like how aggressive they've been with their acquisitions, they're targeted with their acquisitions. Acquisitions, I think, for the sake of growing the business, not just to say you have an acquisition. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah.

You guys are going to have anything like that in your area. I know you hint at it earlier, you know, but I know, I want you say something more. You guys going to like that. somebody out to grow the business by what they call it was a correct term done inorganic growth inorganic growth I don't know all they can answer that one we are we're assessing with us we're assessing all available we are assessing all available prospects of growth okay and the opportunities are there but we have to we have to be strategic in it as well

and do our assessment. As always said, when you make this, and we're not doing a full, you know? I would call it at 360, because you want to go around the other side and come back around. So you really want to do a 360. I said, you're not a 180,

because it means you want to come back to where you are and look at the situation, and then you make a determination to do all less get, get all the necessary persons involved in that decision making as well. And they'll just think that we know everything. that sometimes it takes you know an eye looking at somebody who is you know outside of finance as well because sometimes some persons can see things that you won't see because your mind is so fixated on one thing and somebody who is not just say hey how about you know this you know just give me a thought you know like huh so the thing about it right yeah you see when you when you're contemplating an acquisition in a distribution business it involves a lot of intricacies

because you really have to dig deep and make sure that you you you confirm the information that's been presented to you and that's a lot of heavy lifting yeah the due diligence requires a lot of investigative work yeah because okay if you're acquiring a distribution business you have to ensure that you check that the volume of inventory that they said they have on hand that that is true true when finally check and confirm the inventory, how much of it is going to go obsolete? True. Do they have supplier contracts in place?

What kind of contracts are these? Are they exclusive contracts? Are they non-exclusive contracts? Is the possibility of intellectual property conflict arising there? And that you have to bring legal in and you have to do all of that assessment? Yep. you have to then look at again very serious area, area, logistics and trade.

How are these goods being moved from the point of where they have been made to into the local market? And then how do you get them from point to point B? Who are the customers of this entity? If the customers of this entity are not mainly pharmacies, do we have the capacity to service these clients? you know so i mean like i said there are lots of opportunities that we're looking at um there's lots that go into it is not something that we can us jump into and rush out and say

press release true you know but we're taking our time to work because we've made a lot of mistakes in the past we've learned from them and we are going to make more mistakes but we don't want to repeat a mistake that we've already made sure that's good that's good that That's good. That's good. So, you know, we're trying to do things, do them exercising what we like to call or agility. Because that's one of the things that makes us attractive to other international players who may be existing in the space already. I'm looking for an alternative to some of the larger companies who have a lot of internal,

I don't want to use the word red tape. but they are bottlenecks in terms of decision making and their ability to be agile and respond to what's happening in the market and the competition. So they look to players like us who have the capacity to be highly agile and respond quickly to competition that arises in the market. So, you know, we're just evaluating your options. And we'll see what happens. And not only respond hardly, but actually no pharmaceuticals. And as I said, one of the things I admire is the fact that oddly, you know, Ms. Williams, well, they are pharmacists, so they know the business of being pharmaceuticals.

And, you know, it helps to guide and have that understanding. Because I said, we've been, I've been learning that about the industry and the business itself, and it has helped. Because you have to understand a business to provide the right assessment. especially if you're going to guide finance and advice because it's not the same for all the industry exactly not the same yeah yeah I agree for example one of the things I don't think a lot of people understand that goes into our evaluation of our supplier contracts and just overall business operation what are the risk we have to evaluate you know when these suppliers

or international manufacturers send us some what system are in place if somebody take it and things go here wire. They either have a serious reaction to the product or the product does not, they take something that is supposed to save their life and when they take it, it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. The efficacy, as you said. Efficacy and safety precisely. These, this aspect of quality assurance has to be built into the supplier

contract and you can't just have it in the supplier contract and leave it there. You really have to have internal systems that is monitoring the postmark or doing the post marketing survey lots. What do I mean by that? We bring the drug in. We supply it to pharmacies and it is being sold. What mechanism do we have to track to see if these products are working? If there are adverse events, how do we capture these reports?

And then how do we act to either correct, carterize, or prevent these things from happening in future? So it's a whole lot of things that take place. Yeah. And they'll start to be even more and more. We really have to be able to undertake these kinds of monitoring and risk. And risk management, really. Yeah, this management, really.

As you said, how I think more and more about the business, maybe an underrecognized section of the business, as you say, maybe the insurance risk, because at some point, the supplier can be on the line for a drug going bad. We've seen it in the U.S., right? A drug line is bad. It wasn't pulled. Well, and that manufacturer might face the risk.

But in an end market like Jamaica, the supplier might be the one, facing risk. Even if the company is able to, I won't call any company names because this would be suppliers and whatever. Let's say, you know, there's Jim Bob's corporation and they're facing a lawsuit from a bad product that's sold in a in Maclai, Jamaica. If I'm the patient, I'm suing them, but I'm also suing you. And yeah, and this is why this is why we have to pay keen attention to our supplier contract. The contracts have to speak to if this event should happen who is responsible and who is responsible for what you know um so that's something that's built into our supplier contract and something that we have to pay a lot of attention to is there any

because sorry continue i don't want to cut you there no no go ahead go ahead and i just it just makes me thinking about like you know commercial insurance is that is there obviously there's commercial insurance like your business and you know your vehicles or your processes but is there specific commercial insurance that maybe some of your contracts require you to have or take as a result of that well we haven't this is something that we have to we have to have in place oh we have to have in place i can't speak to the specifics of that being in a contract but certainly from a risk mitigation point of view this is a line item on our on our expense line that has to be there because of how we operate you know so um

let's say something happens on the market and the contract speaks to it being an obligation of the manufacturer. In the local market, the patient can sue us and if the patient sues us and we have to make a payout until the manufacturer do their investigations and decide to act, we have to meet our obligations to the patient or the end user. user in the meantime. So, you know, we have to have those kinds of arrangements in place. Okay. It's making me think, you know, about, so I was thinking about it. I won't have you say more because I don't ever want it to come up in a lawsuit, but it just makes me think about, you know, first, the simple thing to think is, oh, you know, you find our distributor and if they're open for sale, you can buy and absorb them. But I'm thinking, no, in terms of

actual synergies, maybe I want to see buying a lot of shares in Iron Rock, because they go commercially insurance or maybe I want to see you, maybe I want to hear about you guys going maybe a little bit back to your core because since you guys know pharmacy and the pharmacist came so well, there are lots of pharmacies in Jamaica for sale looking for a good home. So I mean, that's organic, inorganic growth. All the people, it's a huge on YouTube and check in to see if you smile. So, okay, okay, okay. I know what I say is that I don't have enough shares and I do plan to buy more and I don't play when I say that. So I've been planning to buy more, a lot more.

So I don't know if we have any, sorry, I've been talking, I've had the dreamer, Jason. Yeah. I didn't hear too long. So let's hear, let's hear you question. Yeah, I've really been enjoying the conversation so far. And oddly, I just want to say, you know, when I heard at the AGM, I felt so confident.

I feel like I didn't own enough. shares in this company currently i'd say you're you're probably my favorite young CEO on the market with randy being my second favorite young CEO but he's not on the market yet so my question let's like give our guess let's not give our guests any trouble please no no never giving trouble never given trouble i noticed um for q2 last year there was a 26.8 million dollar loss i wanted you to like tell me a bit more of why that happened and also based on what you see now how do you think the next report might look yeah so in Q2 last year we did have a loss as you as you pointed out and a lot of it was mainly

due to it may increase administrative as well as distribution cost um we were experiencing growth but we had moved into a facility to serve as a basis or the platform to continue on a path of it. Moving into that facility was an extremely expensive undertaking, but a necessary undertaking. And with the increased costs that come with this new development in the business, we needed to grow our revenue by a certain amount to overcome the level of expenses that we're now facing.

With that said, we went through the rest of the year examining our overall situation, readjusting our internal operations and brought some efficiency in terms of our distribution costs on the distribution side. Towards the end of the year, we are just about the middle of the financial year.

we really had to look at our efficiency. So one of the changes that we made was to move from having an internal fleet to carry out our distribution and we outsource that. So that eliminated for us vehicle maintenance at a certain level, gas parking and toll for those vehicles, the costs of having the human resource as on your payroll, role and those kinds of things and that brought some structural efficiency and we were able to maintain our capacity to service the customers in terms of our on-time deliveries and we've put metrics in place

to continue to monitor that and to make changes where needed so those efficiency measures continue to benefit the company and i think where we are now for this second quarter of this financial year, we are expecting to continue on a profitable trajectory. Will it be the same 9 or 10%? We will see. But with some of the changes that we're anticipating, the margins may fluctuate a little bit, but we expect them to improve in terms of our margin performance. performance and become more stable as we move into the third and fourth quarters and we introduce some some stuff that we think are going to be really really supercharged or ability to to improve the top line yeah and i mean from our and from a finance perspective we are we have to continue being

confident in the strategies that we've been undertaking and and that is one of the things i think we can continue to bank on our confident in is that we are we are strategy in how we run the business, the changes we've made, the assessments we're doing, and strengthening our balance sheet, for example, you know, a lot of those things are the stepping stone to continue being strong and providing value because there will always be outside factors that we can't control. Exchange rates, for example, because it's important to know that all of our suppliers, it should be that all these supplies that we talk about are US and our customers are JA.

So you must understand there's also that very, you know, there are those risks that happen, constant that we have to be aware of and that we continue. But we have been in control of how we manage all of these and how we kind of put it together to ensure that we're continuous reporting to, you know, to share all us. maybe that's maybe that's the side of receivables is not really receivables but receivables financing that you could benefit from maybe a hedge the right kind of hedge for you

okay yeah yeah yeah yeah because your entire supply chain is US yeah yeah yeah yeah mostly yeah it is but you know everything comes with it upside and downside because sometimes you hedge the US dollar at a certain rate and then it falls yeah yeah yeah but that's so the right partnership the right part of the right right yeah so like I said we've really looked into it and we've studied it so we don't know the nuances we know the upsize and the don't it's all about finding the opportunity and then aligning which financing mechanism is right

for that particular opportunity and executing all right things my brother yes i'm saying all right things sorry jason go ahead i like i like your answer and like i said before earlier i think somebody asked if you're a media train because that's a vibe i'm getting to you know the truth is the truth is i've done a lot i spent a lot of time with uh simone clark cooper this is not my strong area so what you're saying to me is that investment is failing up definitely I hate being in front of the microphone I hate doing these kinds of interviews and the public speaking but Simone Clark Cooper is word class she's spent a lot of time with me and she did out of training not just with me but with some of the management team

here as well and yeah that's what it is you know when it's not a strong area you really have to go out and get some training and get some help. You found the best. Yeah. You found the best in that one. Okay. Let's see. You have a stocks question for them?

Well, I mean, it is stocks related. I was asking about the shirt. Oh, you was asking, like, if I want to ask his stock pick for the year? That's what you're asking. No, no. That's what I was asking me to be asking. That's so sure. Go ahead.

No, ma'am, well, that can wait for now. I'll have some more questions here. Where's my file? Yes, man, they start to over the side. Okay. Let's see here. I'm a data guy myself. I look through a lot of data.

So one of the things I couldn't figure out is this. Would you say, Ari Williams, is a somewhat seasonal business where, you know, there's a flu spike. Can you sell more, like, flu-related stuff? Yeah. Yeah, when we look at our data, we have peaks and troughs. in terms of particular times of the year when we have accelerated sale and particular times of the year when kind of slows off. And this is exactly one of those periods that we're in for Q2.

Q2 is from August to October. And the two slowest periods for us for our financial year is August and September, particularly, because around that time persons are mainly focused on the back to school and a lot of parents and grandparents they sacrifice their medication and so on to make sure that children have all the books and the bags and all the fancy things that they need for school and you know the kids have to do medicals around this time too so a lot of them don't get medication for the medical but they're evaluated to see what their health status is and that they're fit and ready to enter the academic environment. So that's kind of like the slow period for us. Of course, Christmas time is a tricky time as well.

When persons enter the festivities, sometimes they put the medication on hold. But by and large, the highest period of sales growth for us, I'd say it's from end of October, all the way until probably April, March, April, into the following year. Okay. So your Q3, your Q3 and your Q4. So should I, just tagging on to that answer, contain that last year's Q2 involved a lot of the expenses with the moving.

I know moving and setting up with the big thing and I don't think you're moving again, this Q2. The skies should be a bit blow up, this Q2. Still a slow period, but not as expensive heavy. Yes, yes. No clothes are in the forecast. Okay, okay, okay. How you feel about the dividends?

I touched it earlier, but how do you feel about it? Would you guys, if you get a chance in the next year, pay one? Or are you like, it'd be good, but we're still in growth? I mean, the first, let me see, the first five words, if you get the chance. And I think that's pretty much where it lies. And why do I say that? We are in growth mode and we're seeing a lot of opportunities. But what we are trying to do is to manage the growth process in such a way.

And this is where, as Don said, we're trying to be financially disciplined and stick to it. Because there is a way companies have done it. They've grown quickly. They've still managed their cash flows. and they've been able to pay dividends whilst growing. So that's what we are looking at. How can we simultaneously continue to grow the business whilst at the same time remain profitable

and manage our cash flows in such a way and at the end of a financial year and next AGM we're going to say, you know, we've done this acquisition or we've onboarded this new supplier and so on. And we were happy to announce for our way, pay a dividend that would be the ideal position but we can't speak to it definitively as yet because the environment we're in you know we have to be cautious it depends on the

magnitude and size of the contracts that we may land magnitude and size of any possible acquisition or any other opportunity that may come up who knows a merger might also be on the cards we just don't want to limit ourselves we want to be able to be in a position to see all on any opportunity that comes up once it is a right fit for this business. And then dividends are always on the currents, once the profit and the cash is there. All right. Yeah. I like that answer.

I like that answer. I like that answer. I'd encourage you to try and find it in the first five, though, just because I tell you, as I told, a friend that's working with doing early listening, I said, no matter what you do, that first five that you have with it, where there's a tax free, that tax free first five. That's a sweet spot. Yeah, man. If you didn't have it, you'd have a pay the government 25%.

So pay yourself 25 if you can. There's a different business at different times. So, yeah, I'm sure between you and Dan, you'll make the right decisions, but listen, I got in below IPO price, so I don't mind. My yield should be a little nice. You said you had one more?

I don't want to give the gentleman here all night. I mash up. No worries. Man, we have a few questions. We have time. We have time. Come on. No, man. We have time, Jason.

Let me hear the next one. I didn't really see. Okay. Let me see. I've just got this into two. All right. So let's paint a hypothetical scenario where five years from now, you know, Jamaica would have discovered oil and energy costs would have plummeted.

Would you be willing to, you know, manufacture drugs here in the country? Let me see. if I got the question. Jason is asking him. He gave it some preamble, but would you guys be willing to go into manufacturing, of course, local manufacturing? Yeah, that's a very, you know, so our AGM was today, what a word meeting was yesterday. And interestingly enough, that was one of the discussions they had, not saying that there

are any plans there. just saying that when you're looking at a business, you have to look at all the possibilities. And that was one of the possibilities that were kind of discussed. Just, just, just, you know, it came up. So absolutely, it's not outside of our purview. And again, as pharmacists, we do have that background in terms of manufacturing, exposure, and so on. or mother who is a founder in the business.

She's a former pharmacist from federated pharmaceuticals, the makers of the DPH Nixas and so on. She was integral to that and had, you know, she spent about five years, I have about five years experience in manufacturing sector. So we do have these kinds of experience and expertise a part of the mix and we're not closed. if the right opportunity comes up or if we find the right product and we can find the right

space, we don't have to wait on fuel prices to fall in adjacent. Right now, our building that we're in is fully solar powered. So renewable technology in terms of energy generation. And we've had the experience where these can be financed through cheaper financing arrangements with the DBJ and even some of the private banks have special facilities too. So there's a lot to the market. There's lots of options. So, you know, we're just going to continue to grow and look at the opportunities and evaluate them and make the necessary decisions as we go along.

You know, I keep, oh, go ahead. No, no, no. Go ahead, Jason. I keep hearing answers that I like, you know, and I don't know. I'm not really used to that kind of thing. So. Are you not going to mention caramedy, mention car made. Right.

Um, yeah, I mean, you know, aside from the DBJ, Randy could have cut you a small one of a hundred billion, you know, but um, yeah, next question. I like when a listed company really behaves like a list. listed company will there be any like listed company benefits one of the things that's said that the jet-con a jm was that you know there would be some kind of discount on cars for shareholders would there be something similar for r a willems sorry i'm not sure i got a question clearly he has a pharmacy so if you have a pharmacy jason they will you can work out a good supply in deal with them if you have a pharmacy jason shareholder or not but i'm sure they'll give a good shareholder deal So, I mean, our sales and marketing division is highly accessible.

And just, you know, all you have to do, if you're, if we have products that can be supplied to your business, just give us a call and you'd be surprised to see how quickly them jump on it. And somebody is in your store, checking your shelves, talking to you, you know, finding ways how they can establish and grow the relationship with you because from top to bottom in this organization everybody's in growth mode all the field force everybody is just on alert and if you mentioned that hey there's this customer in your territory located at takes place you best believe Monday morning not passing and so you don't be surprised if they turn up tomorrow or not Saturday or even find which

church ago on a Sunday and they're there with you. That's how serious they are. Yes, good. Thank you. Thank you for that. That's it. That's it for my questions. Looking forward to owning more shares. All right. Chase, Mr. President. Big up, Jason. I have some of my cancel it, Jason. Monday 9 o'clock. Put the order in the queue. All right. As I said, I don't want to keep you here all night. I should ask you, do you guys have any questions for me as much as I can answer on behalf of the retail shareholding, like what would you guys want to see from the shareholders?

Or any other question you have along these lines? Um, I guess one of my question would be is how can we, uh, what are some more of the things that, that they're looking forward to us doing to improve the engagement and communication going forward. Uh, I know we've been suggested to come on to Rick Top and do more of these kinds of engagement, but is there anything else that we can do to engage the investment in public? That would be of interest to you guys. To help you to understand the business better, to help you to keep abreast of how we are interacting

with the industry, for you to learn about the industry, those kind of things. What else is there that we can do? or even if you have suggestions about things that you're seeing in the numbers or operations, and you want to suggest something, you know, we're open. I have eight minutes. Yeah, man, I want to call eight of it. I want to call eight of it. But I think that's a good question.

One, what you're doing now is actually great. I just like you have learned, where we are known in the space of the local market, we've never been here before. I've been in the market, started investing in high school many, many decades ago. We've never been in this space. If we've been in this space before, it's before my time. Way before my time. But I don't think we've ever been here before, meaning we have such a large stock market,

large retail impact and more and more people coming up now and thinking of it as an open option. I mean, I have two businesses and both of them are around the market. What we want as investors is access, which. I, because I also know business, I understand that there's some access you can't give, right? There's some access. Maybe you don't want to give. You are in a highly competitive space also. And that's for the true sharp investors to go and find the edge on their own.

But outside of that, you want this, you need, you need to give the sort of access you're giving. I think that's great. Be open to explaining everything. I think if you just think of that as the base and treat your shareholders, like actual shareholders. So think about your fiduciary responsibility, right, that you have to us. I don't just mean retail because you are also shareholders.

Both of your shareholders. I really like that. I can't over-emphasize that. Yourself, your sister, your mom, also shareholders. Really, really like that. Treat us like your mother. Treat us like your mother. You might not always want to tell your mother the bad thing up front,

but at some point you have to tell her, right? I know that growing up. At some point, after there, I said, boy, you know, you never see the backlight and the car, he never broke itself, you know. Right, somebody to thief it or whatever. You have a thing. At some point, you have to do it, but just do it. And it's one of those things where after the fact, you get the respect that comes with having done it.

The story will not always be pretty. And anybody who touches any business, know that the stories aren't always pretty. But there is a significant amount of respect for the companies and the people, companies who are open to the point where they can be open. Don't try generality. Don't try trick us. You're not, it's a different shareholder class. And not that you guys gentlemen have not done anything. I love what open you've been. But sometimes it's almost like people want to be tricky fine and they're not going to read page four for mechemeck page one and two really bright and pretty. Those days are done. There's a nice cadre of retail investors who are reading

all the pages. Just treat us with respect. Treat us like your mother. Tell us the things that are good or bad. You don't have to tell us too, you don't have to tell us immediately. I understand boy, I have to sit down and figure out how I have to tell me this. Same thing with the shareholders. I have to figure out of telling them about this. But when the time come, tell us, just tell us, put the options out in front and say what you're doing. And again, we might not always like it, but we will always respect it. Every single company on the market that has done that has benefited from that respect. and there'll come a time in the future where that respect will allow you to get something that

without it you would not i mean we see it with other companies or companies that are doing things that anybody else it's like an immediate no for them it's like uh that's not good but let me hear you because you've always been x y z right just literally just keep that same level of respect um going with your shareholders and you're good i i think i think so i think you're good and you keep buying shares in your company to be open about that, buy your shares in a company. We'll love to see when insiders believe in their company. Not nice like seeing a CEO or a F.C. buying shares. We love to the insider trading notes and say, oh, Don Mark Smith has bought one million IRA Williams units on the open market. Pressure. But yeah, yeah, do it. No, do it in the blackout.

But once blackout done, do it. And I've been too. told by a very special shareholder to say that you should absolutely stay off Twitter. Do not be, and I second that, you should be so, let me catch you in the streets. I don't need to catch you on Twitter. From what I'm learning, I mean that you have to be in all the spaces, but you just have to be in the spaces responsibly. Exactly. Not everything that's discussed in the boardroom, we can come and discuss it on Twitter bear, tweet.

You know, we have to understand the obligations that we have, you know, not just when you're a CEO of a listed company, there's a lot of responsibility that to carry around. And one of that responsibility, I think a lot of us either don't understand or we take it for granted is how we communicate. and learning how to communicate. Like, what do you communicate when? And how do you communicate it? And to whom do you communicate? And this is just me regretitating Simone Clark Cooper, right?

Listen, literally, you've only said people that I know are the best. A lot of people on Twitter might not know. They might know from radio. They don't know how sharp she's outside of radio. She's the best, the best. Remember, she's the former communications director of Grace. Kennedy, you know. Yep. For several years. And I don't, if I had it my way, she'd do a PR, I don't know if she does have PR agents, but she should. She should. She's naturally gifted

at that. If she listening now, Simone, I mean, please, do on. I know people, myself included who would love to pay you for that service. But yeah, yeah, don't take the pressure too much. The most important thing is the company. And I think both of you, I think, are speaking the right way, where you're giving the information you can, you're giving the hints of what you can, you're not over-promising. You're promising well enough, and hopefully you're over-deliver.

But don't over-promise. And that's important, especially on the internet now, because shareholders hear what they want. Best believe somebody heard this and say, them said them was buying, they said them was going to buy Fontana. But somebody hears that. No, I'm saying, Massey.

He said them was going to buy Masi. No, but that's how people are. So don't get too caught up in that. Just keep walking along the same line that you're walking. And I will leave you, gentlemen, with the last person because he did come back on. He was on earlier, and I did promise him. So, Diane, I'll see you back.

Then I'll allow you to ask a gentleman the last person, and we've got to let them go. Okay. Hi, good evening, gentlemen. Randy, hi. How are you? Good evening. Good evening.

Yeah, man. Night, night, night. How you doing? Hey, man. Good evening. Night, Dan. Boy, I feel like this is the hope for Jamaica. Bro, the gentleman don't know as soon as a camera lock off.

As soon as a camera lock off, they heard a group. I definitely, Randy, can tell you how passionate I am about Jamaica and about how I view what we do, the impact and the responsibility that lies on all shoulders as the generation. So that's responsible for the future of the country. We are parents, we are running businesses, we are growing and learning and exploring, and we, yes, we make mistakes, yes, we fall, but we get up, we brush off ourselves and we keep going.

And the only thing I am taking away from tonight is that for both of you and especially, only to have spoken the way they both have naturally, easily, fluidly about the business that they are a part of, done joining the business more recently and still being able to speak in the manner which he did. It's also very impressive. That points out to me that somebody is making sensible pragmatic choices inside the business, not just from the operation side, but also from the human capital side. By choosing the right people, you have continued to add value to the company,

and by choosing the right people, you have continued to strengthen the possibilities and the future of the company. I don't have any problem with anything that was said. I noted very carefully to how careful you have been about external money and its role in your operations. And we have had discussions in spaces where we talk about the generation that was burnt by Finsac and how cautious it has made many persons. we might be seeing or reflecting now in a time where Jamaica is once again surging in growth in certain areas and certain types of businesses and some of the same type of decisions that led to a FinCAC situation may get made in some companies still. But I can tell you, I know another billion dollar business that the owner went, got hit really bad during Finzac.

And he said to me once that never again is he going to consider or borrow anything. And since Finzac to know, he has rebuilt a billion dollar business bigger than it was before Finzac. And that was sheer grit, sheer planning, and something very, very important that you touched on, relationships. People trust him. People believe in his capacity and people respect his attention to detail

and his integral role. He buries himself into the business. He's a part of, he's an engine in that business. So people see him and they see the results that he's able to provide for the business. and to allow for that business to grow.

And in listening to you speak tonight and addressing how careful you are about how you choose, how you finance things, I am not going to tell you that I'm opposite to you in that thinking, but I'm also not opposite to Phil with Phil looking at it from the flexibility that access to capital can give you the

shortening of your sales cycle that financing of invoices can give you and I'm hoping that it's coming along as you are that you don't

ignore the benefits of financing when it is suitable and best planned and well planned for you and your situation at a given time but for you to say we are okay

the business and its its revenue generation rate is enough for us to do the things that we want to do in the way that we want to do them is very rare most times on this market what you hear is we want more money we want more money want more money give us a permission to do this because we think we can get this to be done it's very rare to hear a CEO say hey we're growing double digit year and year and we need to plan our financing based on our growth and based on what we see as a best fit for us and we don't think at this time that debt is the right thing for us to put on the company and the shareholders that that that is a breath of fresh air then i could like i wish i didn't expect that answer honestly i didn't i didn't expect you i smiled when he said it because i smile when he said it because, you know. Let me just clarify. Listen, guys, no, I mean, listen, one of the things Danny Williams said to me earlier in my tutelage, right? Businesses have always up there. Yeah, correct.

Correct. And I'm just throwing that thing because I don't want, if this is what, we're almost at the end. of September. If three weeks into October, an opportunity lands in Malap. And then I put out a press release with the team. One billion. I don't want to come back to bite me to say that we had to. No, no, no, no one. No one. No one. I don't think. That's what you said. I, I, I, what I'm saying is how careful you have been. You have looked at the previous, um, year. years of operation and you've seen the impact of the burden of carrying debt.

You know, you said something very important. We were simply looking at this from an angle as to say, can we afford the monthly payment, basically. Right. I just want to know that time was clear. No, you were clear. No, you were clear. Yeah, you were clear.

You were clear. You were clear. Yes. Dan, I'm happy that you have them there, but I see, I see, oddly, oddly, Dada, all the boss for him to us. I don't want you to have a question for them. Let me know. I don't know. Yeah, man. What I wanted to, to, but I would ask you is, um, in, in terms of your own selves, I wish I'd given this, this, I wish I had had him on Brick talk last here. Randy, price would probably be 300% now, but, um, nothing before it's time. Nothing before

exactly exactly but i would i would want to ask the gentleman um you you are you are you are two you're a two billion dollar company now and one point five yeah sorry jen but it is i'm not one point nine right in terms of revenue okay revenue right so okay okay okay yeah so i i'm saying you're a two billion dollar revenue side company now and uh you You have said to us that there are multiple opportunities out there. I know the space that you work in can be heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily profitable from just a single product line. I hear the diversification conversation. I hear the expansion of product lines.

I hear you talk about the shorter sell cycle products that you have introduced into into your portfolio. But let's say there was something, right now there's the huge crazes JLP once. A couple years ago, it was Pfizer's miracle drug. What's a blue pill called? I don't know. What is the blue pill called? I'm trying to remember. Yeah. Viagra.

Right. Right. You know, so those huge things. If they get, I don't want to say. get I don't want to your point. Axum doesn't be question.

Yeah. If you, if you, since you're exploring, I don't, no pun intended, but are you looking

for a magic pill? And have, have either of you considered that type of a that type of approach to the future of the company and its growth

in terms of finding something or having the opportunity to sell something into a large market that has huge, potential for revenue. We have had some inkling of attempts of that made by another company in your space. That's also a listed company previously, you know. So I'm looking, are you looking along those lines to carry anything like that or to enter into that type of a space where that would shift the dynamics of the company financially in a huge way?

You know, that's a very, very interesting question there. I say it's interesting because we've had those kinds of opportunities, I think, before. But because pharmaceuticals are such a highly regulated space, there are barriers to anything. And so if you can't clear those regulatory hurdles, then sometimes those opportunities get missed. However, with where we are now, and even today I spoke to it, that we're looking to align with manufacturers who integrate a lot of AI usage in their manufacturing process, they are going to be able to bring more complex newer molecules and noities that have less side effects to market faster. And so if you are not aligned with them from early, then you're going to be left behind.

And so that's a key focus for us as a pharmaceutical company. I don't know what the other players are doing, but I know that we have had that at the top of our strategy list in terms of aligned with companies that incorporate AI. in the manufacturing process. But to respond to your question specifically, you spoke about GLP ones, and at the moment, there are no approved GLP ones

officially from the Ministry of Health. I think there's one that's about to be approved, and so the fact is the GLP1 race is on. And even if the innovator companies like the Eli Lee's and the other you know the prominent makers of the JCP ones even if all of them come to market in Jamaica the truth is those brands are so expensive that they're going to be inaccessible to much of the Jamaica market so some of the players who we have aligned with for example

Bucydos life sciences, they are one of the companies that are among the top five, or the only five company, among the top five companies are only five approved Indian generic drug makers of GLP ones. And so we have a unique opportunity. We are exploring it, so we'll see how that plays out. But one of the hurdles we face, there is a lot of challenge that we're facing, and I'm a lot of frustration even in terms of getting drugs that are submitted with the Ministry of Health reviewed and approved on time so they can come to market. So that has been an area of growth inhibition, if you were, because we haven't been able to get the products that you submit into the Ministry of Health approved on time within

the timeframe that they said that they would, you don't get to launch new products take them to market so you can continue on your growth trajectory but we're continuing to work with the Ministry of Health despite the challenges and we're hoping that we will be one of the companies that enter the GLP once is and provide accessible solutions for the population so we see how it goes but it's definitely something that we're looking to as we study the market and look at where the opportunities are that exists all right I don't want to cut you guys off, but I think that's a wonderful point to end it on.

Not too much. A wonderful point to end it on, yeah. And Dan looked like him saying, just don't say nothing more. Don't say nothing more. Hardly at that. The only thing I'll say, Randy, before you wrap up, you know, I'm really grateful for you having us on tonight and just give us the opportunity to engage with some other people on tonight.

It was really a fantastic time. experience to share. And before I leave, there's just one thing I always try to close on whenever I engage. I have to absolutely give credence and recognition to the team that has been behind us in all of this. We have an absolutely stellar team here. It's an amazingly young team as well. The average age here at Ari Williams is 34. 34. 34. 34. Wow. Many of the persons who work here,

this is the first time they're entering the work world. And this is where I'm always so amazed at what we've been able to do. Because we're not just performing and competing against major powerhouse in the pharmaceutical distribution space. We've taken up space and we're taking market share from them. And this is on the box. of some very young people who this is their first place of work, but they've come in, they've latched on to the vision, mission of the company, and they're completely forging ahead for us to achieve everything that we've set out to achieve.

So I'm eternally grateful for the support of the entire team, sales and marketing, customer service, warehouse and logistics, finance, everybody you know and so I just had to plug that before I leave no so thank you all for the engagement tonight and thank you gentlemen for coming on we love this sort of openness thank you for being so much the door is always open at the same time you guys want to jump on we're here every Friday and yeah thank you I'll ask one last thing I don't know if I always want to know Ari Williams what does it stand for it's the name I'm a grandfather Ransford

Anton Williams as mom is dad Yeah, so he kind of laid the foundation for the core values that we have in still while we're growing up. Love for people and what we do. Innovation that will drive success. Vision, because without vision, you know what they say.