Superior Plus Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 3, 2023

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Superior Plus 2023 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Rob Doran, Vice President of Capital Markets, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Catherine. Good afternoon, Welcome to Superior Plus' conference call and webcast to review our 2023 Second Quarter results. On the call today are Alan McDonald, President and CEO Beth Summers, Executive VP and CFO Curtis Spillipon, President of Sutaris and Darren Rebar, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. For this morning's call, Alan, Curtis and Beth will begin with their prepared remarks, and then we will open up the call for questions. Listeners are reminded that some of the comments made today may be forward looking in nature and are based on Superior's current expectations, estimates, judgments, projections and risks.

Speaker 1

Further, some of the information provided refers to non GAAP measures. Please refer to Superior's continuous disclosure documents available on SEDAR and Superior's website yesterday for further details. Dollar amounts discussed on today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. I'll now turn the call over to Alan.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Thanks, Rob. Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon, I guess. Thanks for joining the call to discuss our Q2 results. This is a really important time for us in Superior's history. With the Seterus transaction closing in May, We've created one of the most diverse low carbon energy distribution companies in North America.

Speaker 2

This milestone has been years in the making. The team at Superior has been working tirelessly, creating one of the best propane companies in North America. Divesting of non core assets like the Specialty Chemicals business in 2021 and the strategic moves to acquire scale in the propane segment Has established Superior as a formidable energy distribution and marketing company. And now the partnership between these two industry leaders has provided our company with a strong core business and a new engine for long term organic growth and innovation. Since closing the transaction in May, we've been working very collaboratively with the Seterus team to ensure an effective transition.

Speaker 2

Our priorities have remained the same since we announced the deal. We're implementing a capital allocation strategy to accelerate growth and maximize shareholder returns on a per share basis, while also continuing our commitment to safety and improving our operational efficiency. We're operating Seterus as a standalone entity, allowing Seterus to aggressively capitalize on the growth opportunities in the CNG distribution business along with both RNG and Hydrogen. We're building a joint go to market strategy between Seterus and Superior Propane's distribution group, which will offer our customers a wider set of energy solutions. And we'll continue to foster Seterus' culture of innovation in emerging energy solutions to ensure we may remain a leader in Energy Distribution across the continent.

Speaker 2

Now to be successful in executing this vision, We knew we needed to retain the strong leadership talent that made Seterus a success. Today, I can confirm Curtis Fillipon will remain as President of Seterus and a key member of the Superior Plus executive team. I can also confirm that Nanshasha Cernodnichenko, Ceteris' Chief Operating Officer will remain in her role leading this expanding organization. And finally, Dan Bertram, Terrus' Head of Corporate Development and one of the key architects of the transaction will be promoted to become our new Chief Strategy Officer for Superior Plus. Dan is a welcome addition to the Superior Plus executive team and will make a significant impact to our strategic planning efforts.

Speaker 2

In 2023, Seterus expects to generate between $185,000,000 $195,000,000 in EBITDA, representing over a quarter of Superior's profitability. Their leadership in the CND distribution sector is unquestioned. Looking to the future, Seterus positions Superior not only as the CNG leader, but as a key innovator in emerging RNG and Hydrogen markets across Canada and the United States. As we look to 2024 and beyond, Superior will continue to be a world class energy distribution Company safely serving our customers with pride, we were also now firmly established as a leader in CNG and an innovative innovator in the in Emerging Energy Sector. Now I've invited Curtis to join us today.

Speaker 2

In a moment, I'll ask him to offer some comments about Sertaris and their performance in the quarter. But before I do, a few comments on the quarter. Although Q2 is typically a quiet quarter for I'm very pleased with our results. We saw strong performance across each of our operating business units in Canada and the United States and Improvements Over 2022. We also saw modest improvements in some key measures we've identified as priority, including AOCF per share and our leverage ratio.

Speaker 2

Our North American propane distribution team led by Andy Payton, our Chief Operating Officer is to be congratulated on this excellent result. Acquiring a group of disparate businesses, Realizing the synergies and building what is now an industry leader in such a short period of time is an incredible feat. We are very proud of Superior Propane and I believe we have one of the best teams in the business. Without their leadership, none of this would be possible. Now Q2 is my 2nd quarter here at Superior.

Speaker 2

Since joining, I've had the privilege of meeting many of you. I want to take a moment to thank you for your time and your insights. Like you, I'm optimistic about the future and I believe Superior is incredibly well positioned. We spent a number of years Transforming the company and building a solid foundation. Today, our next transformation, becoming a leading player across the Energy Distribution sector is well underway.

Speaker 2

We have a strong asset base, a profitable and stable legacy propane business. Leadership in the rapidly expanding CNG segment and we're at the forefront of the emerging RNG and Hydrogen Distribution Business. So with that, let me introduce you to Curtis Philippon, President of Seterus, who will provide an overview of their business and offer some comments about performance in the quarter. Curtis?

Speaker 3

Great. Thank you, Alan. It's great to join the call today. The Sotiris team is excited to now be part of Superior Plus. The onboarding process has done smoothly, and I appreciate that Alan and the rest of the Superior team has made it a clear priority to ensure that Sokeris continues to grow its North American market leadership in compressed natural gas, renewable natural gas and hydrogens.

Speaker 3

Soderis exists and thrives The market is demanding low carbon fuels and the pipeline infrastructure to deliver those fuels is insufficient and increasingly difficult to build. This inefficiency in pipeline energy infrastructure creates long term and growing industry for mobile energy providers. One of the keys to Seterus' success is our approach to managing and allocating our mobile storage units or MSUs. MSUs are specialized carbon fiber storage vessels mounted onto trailers that are interchangeable across compressed natural gas, renewable natural gas and hydrogen. Our MSUs transport low carbon fuels and also active capacity for on-site energy storage.

Speaker 3

MSU represents over half of the capital deployed and there's a direct correlation between their deployment and EBITDA generation. Tereus is proud of the fact that we have the largest fleet in the industry. We expect to end the year with over 700 MSUs in the fleet, which we estimate is 4 times larger And our next competitor. Seterus got its start 10 years ago in Western Canada, helping customers displace diesel fuel with compressed natural gas. Initially, our customers converted fuels to realize the cost savings offered by natural gas.

Speaker 3

But as the focus on reducing carbon emissions increases, The lower carbon intensity of natural gas versus diesel and fuel oil has also become a key decision factor. Over the years, we've achieved strong, profitable and organic growth while diversifying into several different industries and expanding across Canada and the United States, We're also adding renewable natural gas and hydrogen service offerings to our core CNG business. We're now looking forward to being able to leverage our propane offering and use Talking about the quarter, obviously, we're quite pleased with the quarter and the year to date results for Seterus. The demand for low carbon energy has accelerated and the Sedera team has done an exceptional job safely executing on these opportunities. Our year over year increase in EBITDA is primarily driven by our growth in our MSU fleet and the high grading of opportunities in this very high demand market.

Speaker 3

I'll turn it over to Beth to discuss the financial results.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Curtis, and good afternoon, everyone. Superior delivered a strong second quarter adjusted EBITDA A $69,100,000 pro form a to the results from the Seterus acquisition and Superior's 2nd quarter adjusted EBITDA, including the results of Seterus from the close of the acquisition was $40,100,000 This is an increase of $14,500,000 compared to the prior year quarter, driven by contribution from Suterais in June and higher adjusted EBITDA from the propane distribution businesses, partially offset by higher corporate costs. Net earnings of $107,300,000 for the 1st 6 months of 2023 compared to the net earnings of $56,000,000 in 2022. This was a $51,300,000 increase. The 2nd quarter net loss was $39,800,000 compared to a net loss of $85,000,000 in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 4

The primary drivers of the decrease in the net loss was higher gross profit and a gain on derivatives and foreign currency translation of borrowings Compared to a loss in the prior year quarter, this was partially offset by higher SG and A and higher finance expenses. Turning now to individual business results. U. S. Propane adjusted EBITDA for the Q2 was $18,600,000 an increase of $2,400,000 compared to the prior year quarter.

Speaker 4

2nd quarter adjusted EBITDA was positively impacted by higher average margins, Contribution from the Quarles acquisition completed in June 2022 and to a lesser extent the impact The weaker Canadian dollar on the translation of U. S. Denominated transactions. Average margins increased primarily due to disciplined margin management in a declining commodity price environment and measures to offset the impact of inflation and rising labor costs. This was partially offset by a realized loss on commodity hedges in the current quarter compared to a realized gain in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 4

The higher adjusted EBITDA was partially offset by higher operating costs related to the Corals acquisition and the impact of inflation increased labor costs. Weather bearings have been less than possible in the 2nd 3rd quarters due to the lack of heating demand. Average weather in our U. S. Operating region was modestly colder than the prior year quarter and 4% warmer than the 5 year average.

Speaker 4

Canadian propane adjusted EBITDA was 13.6 to offset the impact from inflation and higher labor costs. This was offset in part by lower volumes related to warmer weather and higher operating costs related to inflation and labor. Similar to the U. S. Business, weather variances are less impactful in the 2nd and third quarters due to a lack of heating demand.

Speaker 4

Average weather in Canada was 16% warmer than the prior year quarter and 15% warmer than the 5 year average. Wholesale Propane achieved adjusted EBITDA of $5,400,000 in the 2nd quarter, an increase of $3,600,000 compared to the prior year quarter. This was driven by higher gross profit related to the wholesale propane market fundamentals in California and to a lesser extent in Canada. The higher gross profit was offset in part by increased freight costs and the impact of the weaker Canadian dollar on the translation of U. S.

Speaker 4

Denominated operating costs. Truterus pro form a adjusted EBITDA for the 2nd quarter of $41,500,000 an increase of $15,200,000 from the prior year quarter of $26,300,000 This is driven by growth in the MSU fleet, price management and utilization of MSUs and lower cost of sales related to natural gas prices. Certarus' adjusted EBITDA from the date of close of the acquisition on May 31, 2023 was $12,600,000 Turning to corporate results, the adjusted EBITDA guidance and leverage. Corporate administrative costs for the 2nd quarter were $10,500,000 an increase of $6,000,000 compared to the prior year quarter due to higher insurance costs, CEO transition costs and the impact of inflation and higher long term incentive plan costs. This is related to the change in the share price in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 4

Superior realized a gain on foreign currency hedging contracts of $400,000 modestly higher than the gain in the prior year quarter as Superior's average head rate were higher relative to the average U. S. CAD rate in the current quarter. Superior's total net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio For the trailing 12 months ended June 30, 2023 was 3.6 times, which is at the lower end of our target range of 3.5 to 4 times. The leverage ratio declined from 3.9 times at March 31, 2023, driven by higher pro form a adjusted EBITDA related to Mr.

Speaker 4

Tariff's acquisition and improved results from the propane distribution businesses. We expect leverage to remain in the target range of 3.5x to 4x for the remainder of 2023. We're increasing our 2023 pro form a adjusted EBITDA guidance range from $620,000,000 to $660,000,000 to a range of $630,000,000 to $670,000,000 which includes the Zupera's full year adjusted EBITDA in the range of $185,000,000 to $195,000,000 The increase in the adjusted EBITDA guidance was based on the Sutera's strong year to date results and expectations for the Sutera and propane distribution businesses for the remainder of 2023. As we look to 2024, we still expect to achieve the superior way forward EBITDA from operations target of $700,000,000 to $750,000,000 by the end of 2024, which is 2 years ahead of expectations. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Q

Operator

and A. Thank you. Please standby while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Curtis, since it's the first conference call for both of us, maybe I'll start with you. We've seen the U. S.

Speaker 5

Rig count decline by over 100 rigs year to date, yet You've increased guidance for the Sutaris business. So obviously, this slowdown doesn't seem to be weighing you down. But I'm wondering if you can sort of Give us some additional insights into how that reduction has impacted demand, if at all. And so in terms of specific questions, I'm wondering if you can If you've seen any reduction to CNG consumption from your energy customers or if you just increased your market share and if you have To energy related demand, what types of end markets have you sort of redeployed those MSUs to?

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks, Darren. So when you look at the rig count, that is that's one marker for our energy side of our business, but It really has a pretty low correlation for our business. And we've seen good growth driven out of the energy sector. We serve all types of all parts of the energy sector from power applications to drilling and completions operations.

Speaker 3

So Good activity. What we tend to see is the equipment that we provide is the leading edge equipment. That's the last equipment to be laid down. So we're quite pleased In a slowdown situation that we are the last equipment to be stopped. And so that provides Some great growth even in potentially a slowing energy environment.

Speaker 3

We're not seeing that, though we're seeing good growth in the energy side. As you see, our results continue to increase. You're seeing the result of our continued diversification strategy as we've been Really focused on growing into a number of different industries and in particular, good growth on the utility side of our business As well as good growth on our Renewable Natural Gas Center of Business.

Speaker 5

Makes sense. Not sure if this next one is for Alan or Beth, but we saw an uptick in the NCIB post quarter. Just wondering if you could rank your discretionary capital allocation priorities between debt reduction and CIB organically growing the Sutaris fleet, M and A opportunities in the probate and business and anything else I might have missed?

Speaker 2

Well, hey, it's Alan here. Thanks. We're growing the business far and away is our first priority. We want to exhaust every opportunity to make sure that we're driving growth in Seterus. It's an incredible story and a great new That's the first to have in the business.

Speaker 2

So that's our first priority. After that, then you start to become circumstantial because you go look, M and A, as we've been saying, is really a secondary focus now. We've gotten great scale in the market. We feel really confident With where we are in terms of our legacy business, obviously, we still want to be opportunistic or if there's a tuck in that makes sense, we'll pursue that. And then, I would say that in terms of share buybacks and debt reduction, it really depends on the circumstance at the moment.

Speaker 2

We've been doing some share buybacks in the last month, which we're Pleased with, but we're going to continue to look at it. Suffice it to say though, our first priority is growing the business.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. I'll turn it over.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Aaron.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. We have a question from Gary Ho with Desjardins Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks and good afternoon. Maybe the first question is for Alan or Curtis. Curtis, thanks for your comments. And you mentioned you guys are 4 times larger than the next competitors. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit on the competitive Landscape, are others also growing at the same clip?

Speaker 6

And then are there M and A opportunities? As well, I remember at the onset of the transaction, One of the revenue synergies identified was cross selling to existing and new customers across the two platforms. Has that process started? And what's been

Speaker 4

From

Speaker 3

an overall industry perspective, So Terrence is by far the market leader in this compressed natural gas, renewable natural gas and hydrogen space. And so as I mentioned, our fleet of MSUs is over 700 units, 4 times larger than the next competitor. But we are we definitely see other players in the market And we watched that. It's a great market. I think you'll continue to see new entrants come into this space.

Speaker 3

And one of the things that we've seen over time is that there's Tremendous advantage to having the scale that Seterus has in this business and it allows us to take on larger projects and also serve Customers all across North America really well with our infrastructure. And so I think what we'll watch over time is that there might be Interesting tuck in opportunities with some of these smaller players that realize it's difficult to compete without scale in this business. But in saying that, within our history, Sertaris has been an organic growth business. And that our most Attractive opportunities have always been organically growing the business. We've got a great track record of consistently having Great opportunities to deploy into new markets and new regions and do it quite successfully.

Speaker 3

And so I expect that that will be By far the focus of the business, but we will watch if there might be an interesting tuck in down the road.

Speaker 6

And then on the

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Gary, it's Alan. In terms of sales, we were precluded from having any conversations Customers are sales during the transaction process. So we're kind of we're into this partnership and we're measuring it in days, not even weeks. We got 2 teams working together to say, okay, where does it make sense to have a single strategy to go after segments with This new breadth of Energy Solutions that we have.

Speaker 2

So the Seterus team and the Superior team are working real close and Getting along nicely, I might add. So we're looking for action to come out of that in the very near term.

Speaker 3

What's really interesting, Alon, I've We've enjoyed working. It's still early days of this, but the superior footprint in the U. S. And the Sotiris footprint in the U. S.

Speaker 3

Perfectly complement one another. And so there's this real opportunity to leverage off each other's infrastructure and sort of sales or engine pipeline. I think Yes. It's across all across both. It's fantastic.

Speaker 3

Yes. We have high hopes

Speaker 2

for this initiative.

Speaker 6

Okay. That's great color. And Alan, while still have you, maybe update on the M and B block. I think it remains a bit of a black box for investors. I believe they are now sub 10% Onur, have you spoken with them recently?

Speaker 6

Any idea kind of where they stand?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, look, let me Start by saying that we can't speak on behalf of another an investor in another party, but we Speak with we're in contact with M and B. We've got some further discussions coming up. And I can tell you at this point, They've not expressed any desire to draw down there or to lower their positions. So You'll forgive me, Gary, but that's as far as I'm going to go on M and B.

Speaker 2

Only out of respect to that, that they really should reserve the right to speak on behalf of their investment.

Speaker 6

Yes, understood. Okay, those are my questions. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come from Nelson Ng with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks and good afternoon and congrats on another strong quarter. So first of all, In terms of the Sutaris guidance increase, I think now it implies that you'll be earning about $284,000 of EBITDA per MSU. Can you just give a bit of color in terms of What has changed since you increased the guidance back in May? Like are you seeing higher contract rates for MSUs?

Speaker 7

Or Are you increasing utilization? But any color would be great in terms of what has changed in the past 3 months?

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks, Nelson. We're continuing to see is a great environment, very high level of demand And also a nice pricing environment. And it started we made a strategic shift a little over a year ago to really focus on Higrating the mix of projects that we're on and in such a high demand environment to make sure that we are on the best projects That you offer the best returns. And so I think what you're seeing is that strategy playing out right now that we specifically targeted Projects that offer good returns, good pricing, but also good activity right through Q2 and Q3.

Speaker 3

And as that plays out, you're seeing good results

Speaker 7

Okay. That's great color. And then just on CapEx, can you just clarify now what the growth in maintenance CapEx Ex spend has been to date at Sutaris in terms of the first half and what we should expect in the second half. I'm just wondering Whether there's any front end loading or back end loading of CapEx? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes. Maybe the best way to answer that one, Nelson, is sort of thinking For the whole year, so for Cetera, the overall capital expenditure with a good range would be to think about 120 $5,000,000 to $130,000,000 for the year. If you want to look at that and split that between growth and maintenance, From a maintenance perspective, that's sort of in that $5,000,000 range, up to $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 And then the remainder of that would be Growth CapEx. So I mean there's been some. I think as we look at the receipt of MSUs, there'll We more received in the back half of the year than we received in the front half.

Speaker 4

So there will be some more spend. But if you want to think about it in the context of Full year that was $45,000,000 to $130,000,000 a good number to think about.

Speaker 7

Okay, thanks. And then just one last Question, in terms of divesting the 8 Northern Ontario retail propane locations, Can you just give an update on how that's coming along?

Speaker 2

Yes. We're in process now. The lawyers here are looking at me, so I got to be careful what to say. We're in process right now. I can tell you that the interest we received Encouraging.

Speaker 2

It will be sometime between now and the end of the year that we'll be able to make an announcement. But so far so good. We're quick.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks, Alan. I'll leave it there.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Thanks, Nelson. Take care.

Operator

Thank you. We have a question from Stephen Hansen with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Yes. Thanks for the time guys. Question for Curtis perhaps. Curtis, is it possible to frame What inning we might be in here from a penetration standpoint as we think about the TAM for mobile CNG over time? I'm just trying to get a sense for Market gyrations relative to this ongoing penetration, can you grow the fleet at a 15% CAGR for 3 years, 5 years, at what point do we start to worry about saturation in the market, as you contemplate all these new opportunities you're looking at?

Speaker 3

Sure. It's something that we've looked at constantly over the last 10 years as we've been growing Seterus. And what we've continuously been impressed with is How much the industry continues to grow. As people look for more and more opportunities for low cost, low carbon fuels, more and more Applications keep on coming to us. And as technology advances, the scale of some of those opportunities have been really impressive.

Speaker 3

And so it seems like each year we go back to this exercise and we look at what is the addressable market and we're continuously surprised that It continues to grow at a rate faster than we're growing at. A little over a year ago, we went out and did a very detailed market study and looked at what we The addressable market was specifically within the CNG and RNG space, and we came out to an addressable market of about $6,000,000,000 to $8,000,000,000 that's in front of us in the near term. And so there's a significant amount of running room in that segment alone And then a much larger addressable market in the hydrogen space once the sort of full hydrogen economy comes to us.

Speaker 2

And so we look

Speaker 3

at those numbers and say, well, that's interesting from a market side perspective, but we see that real time right now in the markets that we play in. We're We're constantly entering new regions and new industry segments, and it's really impressive to see just the demand that's coming out of each one of those segments. Right now, we're working through a process of really targeting where we send our MSUs into which markets because we're in a situation where we're seeing more demand in each one of these segments, then we can satisfy with our fleet and we're having to make some tough decisions about where we go allocate this fleet. But I guess, pretty excited to say there's a lot of running room. And from an innings perspective, we're definitely in the early innings of where can you go and where can you continue to grow.

Speaker 3

When we look at specifically at a segment like Renewable Natural Gas, and I think you can you look at that Particular segment and the amount of capital that's going into the development of renewable natural gas in North America right now and the number of projects that are being developed, The likelihood is that the majority of those projects will not make sense to be connected to a pipeline, and they're going to need a mobile solution like Sartorius To gather that gas and bring it to a pipeline, the scale of that opportunity to renewable natural gas alone is larger than Sotiris' today. And we see that over the next few years. So there is just that's just one example. There's many industry verticals that we look at like that and say there's Tremendous amount of running room in these verticals. And so we're pretty excited about what the future looks like.

Speaker 8

Okay, great. That's really good color. And just maybe as a related question, as you sort of contemplate some of these growth opportunities, How do you feel about impediments in terms of supply chain access to manufacturing and just I guess basically MSU availability over time.

Speaker 3

Jerry, if you look at Sotera's history over time, we used to talk a lot About the supply chain bottlenecks and getting access to mobile storage units. So that was a key challenge for us. Early on, It was really only one manufacturer and they had some capacity limitations. And we recognized that years ago that was going to become a bottleneck to Sederus' Growth to the point where we really spent a lot of time working with that supplier and help them increase their capacity and also develop another supplier in the segment. To the point now that I don't view the supply chain access to MSU as a limiter in our growth.

Speaker 3

Not only have we developed the capacity in that supply chain, but we also have supply agreements with the 2 main suppliers to ensure that we have access The production slots that we need to be able to support our growth. And so that's been key. And actually, as I look forward and What are the bottlenecks to our growth and continue to accelerate our growth, it's mainly around people. And it just there's How quickly you can develop teams in the markets will grow. So we spent a tremendous amount of time around that.

Speaker 3

And We think about growth. We spent a lot of time with the Superior team talking about growth. One of the biggest things that I'm excited about with the Superior transaction is now Seterus goes from Canadian private company into a large Canadian public company that there's a real opportunity for us to really accelerate our growth to another level We see the demand available and now with the Saphira platform, we can accelerate even faster the growth of Seterus in the coming years. And So it's no accident element. I spent a lot of time talking about what can we do to keep on developing and using the resources of Spirit to continue to

Speaker 8

That's fantastic. And just one last follow-up, if I may. And it may be a hard question to ask, so I'll apologize in advance. But Curtis, for you and your team that took a fair bit of superior stock in as part of the purchase price, Do you have a sense for how much of that stock is going to be held in firm hands versus coming back to the market? It's been one of the concerns of investors here for the past couple of months.

Speaker 8

Thanks.

Speaker 3

It's difficult for me to speak for all the investors. I think There is some shares that will trade as part of that and we're seeing that. But I'd also say that there It's a pretty vocal large group of Seterus shareholders that are excited to be part of Superior, to be part of this platform. And they also recognize, as we talked about earlier, that We're in the early innings of a growth story at Seterus and combined with the superior platform, it's pretty exciting future. And so The number of CERTAINA shareholders that are pretty excited to be able to participate in the next phase of the growth as part of our larger public platform.

Speaker 2

I can tell you, Stephen, just to add to that. And by the way, side note, we can debate whether we're in early innings or I would argue we're just a batting practice and the game hasn't even started yet. But I've been pleasantly surprised with the level of engagement from the Cetera shareholders. They've been very welcoming. They've Been keen to meet, very curious about our story.

Speaker 2

And while I make no promise about where their heads are, These were they are very optimistic and enthusiastic group of individuals. So, I just couldn't be more pleased with the reception they've given us.

Speaker 8

Appreciate the time guys. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And our last question comes from Robert Cantelier from CIBC Capital Markets, your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, just a couple of questions left for me. The first one for you, Alan. Now that you've had a couple of months in the seat, do you have any insights as to how you're going to go about

Speaker 2

Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, really what we're focused on is, it's going to sound very boring and I apologize, but it's operational excellence. We see a lot of opportunity For Andy and his team, in terms of really getting under the covers of our pricing management, our churn management, How we're acquiring customers organically and things like Are we taking the right approach when it comes to capitalizing on long term lifetime value for customers? How are we thinking about our loyalty So there's a lot of work going on. And I would give this team a lot of credit because they've spent the last number of years On this acquisition path and when you're as I think we've talked about, you're acquiring these companies, it's so much work.

Speaker 2

You got to bring them in. You got to try and create some semblance of a singular culture, retain the customer base, Start to give them the capabilities that Superior offers, manage the branding. So that's consumed this organization. And I think now when we step back, we say, okay, Well, with our focus shifting from this time period where we were generating scale, how How do we now take advantage of that and build capabilities that are far beyond what we see at our competitors? So really, I'm optimistic about it.

Speaker 2

I know the team is hugely engaged. It's early days, but I think we have a lot of runway in The propane business from here on out.

Speaker 4

Yes. And I think what I might specifically add to that one is when you're asking about Synergies associated with acquisitions, we would still be targeting by the end of 2023 from the Can't keep the corals transactions to deliver another $6,000,000 to $7,000,000 of run rate synergies by the end of 2023.

Speaker 9

Okay. The second question, a little bit more high level here, but As you look to put your mark on the corporate culture, you emerge these 2 entities. What are your thoughts on the right level of Share ownership for both the Board and the Executive.

Speaker 2

It's a great question. We want to have an organization, whether you're a Board member or one of our drivers, You're really excited to be a shareholder of the company. It works for so many reasons. You want to have people who are Concerned when they know that we have to really buckle down and drive results, we want to have people that are proud when we're In the news feeds as a success story, and so we're working really hard to foster that. It's really early days, but I think that we have a lot of opportunity to The broad shareholding across the entire organization when it comes to employees.

Speaker 2

And it's funny you raise that because that's Actually one of the priorities we're working on kind of quietly behind the scenes here at the company. Early days, but if you asked where my thoughts are and where we should be, I think we should be a lot more broadly held across the organization.

Speaker 9

Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. And I'm showing no other questions in the queue. I'd like to turn it back to Alan McDonald for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, listen, thanks everybody. We really, really appreciate the time that you've given us today, the time that you've taken To sort of craft your response to our quarter. And over the last 3 or 4 months, you've been so generous To spend time with Beth and I and we look at continuing that and I think over the coming quarters we'll have lots of time to talk about This whole new journey that we're on here at Superior. So thank you all very, very much for your time.

Speaker 4

Thanks everyone.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

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Earnings Conference Call
Superior Plus Q2 2023
00:00 / 00:00