New Age Beverages Corporation (NBEV) Q1 2020 earnings call dated May. 11, 2020
Corporate Participants:
Scott Van Winkle — Managing Director
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Julie Garlikov — Chief Marketing Officer
Analysts:
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Michael John Grondahl — Northland Capital Markets — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good morning. My name is Henry, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the New Age Beverages Corporation 2020 First Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]
Now I would like to turn the call over to our first presenter. Mr. Scott Van Winkle, you may begin the conference.
Scott Van Winkle — Managing Director
Good morning, and thank you for joining New Age Beverage Corporation’s 2020 first quarter financial results investor conference call.
On today’s call, we will have Brent Willis, Chief Executive Officer; Julie Garlikov, Chief Marketing Officer; and Greg Gould, Chief Financial Officer.
I’d like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements regarding management’s current expectations regarding future results of operations, economic performance, financial condition and achievements of the Company. Forward-looking statements, specifically those concerning future performance, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make in this call are based on assumptions as of today and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.
During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today’s earnings press release which is available on our website at newage.com. The transcript of today’s conference call will be available on the Company’s website within the Investors section at www.newage.com.
I’d now like to turn the call over to Brent Willis, Chief Executive Officer. Brent?
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call.
I’d like to start off today by thanking all of our associates at New Age in more than 60 countries around the world for their decisive actions and responsiveness that led to an excellent first quarter. Their leadership, personal choice to step up to drive change and take action significantly contributed to our performance, a performance that we believe compares very favorably versus our peer group.
But even with that performance, at the same, time like a lot of other folks, we have been significantly affected by COVID-19. Just a subset of those impacts include sales and distribution to on premise and foodservice outlets in North America — they’re down more than 70%. Many retailers have curtailed any new product initiatives. In-store merchandising has been virtually impossible. And in our Noni by NewAge segment, our ability to hold in-person or group conferences and conduct peer-to-peer selling as we did for literally the past 20 years has been dramatically changed.
But despite those negative impacts, the organization has responded decisively in response to the new operating environment by driving incremental sales of our immunity strengthening products such as NHANCED Cell Defense and Tahitian Noni Juice, rapidly expanding of our e-commerce and social selling tools and other initiatives, resulting in overall excellent growth worldwide.
As you might imagine, in my role, I’m lucky enough to talk with a lot of other CEOs and also get the counsel of a pretty incredible and highly diligent Board of Directors as New Age. Here’s my take. Most of my fellow CEOs’ companies are really struggling. But in that context, all seem to be more short-term focused, all are cutting expenses and all are guarding cash. Many of them expect to continue to struggle. Because of their business models, the sectors to which they are exposed, they’ve just been fundamentally impacted, at least in the short term and, quite possibly, in the long term.
Gary Burnison, who is the CEO of Korn-Ferry, put it well, I thought, when he said in a matter of days organizations have had to make [Technical Issues] to survive. Everywhere, the circuit breakers have been tripped. Now it’s the big reset. To thrive, all companies will need to think and act like start-ups, by reimagining their future. If they don’t, their competition will. Why? Because in the next two years, we will see more change than we’ve seen in the last 20.
What a great opportunity for New Age. We are a startup at less than four years old; a scaled startup, but a startup nonetheless. And my take is the fast will eat the big, and speed and maneuverability on the battlefield will be of tantamount importance for those companies that will be successful going forward. At New Age, we’re using our speed and agility to think and act like the startup we are, and position ourselves to succeed in this uncertain market.
But let’s face it. We were prepared [Indecipherable] and we’ve built what we call our platform for growth. That platform is, number one, a portfolio of healthy, functional brand driven through, number two, an omnichannel route to market. As a result, we now have 80% of our revenue ordered and fulfilled online and 80% delivered direct to consumers’ homes. Through that system, we drive our healthy products portfolio, including two products, our Tahitian Noni and NHANCED Cell Defense that directly strengthen consumers’ immunity. I can’t envision a better business system, sales and distribution model and brand and products portfolio to address the challenges of today’s in-business environment, an environment that will likely pervade our lives for at least the next couple of years.
Now, on top of that business model, we’ve invested in and built a leadership team and sales and marketing teams to execute the model. 75% of our leadership team is new in about the past 12 months, and virtually 100% of the sales and marketing team is new in the past three to four months. We believe it is because of the people, coupled with the processes we have in place; the systems we have implemented and the visibility, information and dashboards that we now see daily; and the metric-driven performance oriented culture that is in process, these are the reasons that we are seeing the results on the business. No one sees this work behind the scenes, but it is that work. It is that work behind the scenes that is key to superior sustainable and profitable organic growth.
Look, we have the right business model with our direct to consumer approach for the period now and in front of us, the right products, especially our immunity ones, and the right approach with speed and maneuverability that frankly put New Age in a competitively advantaged position. And on top of that, we now have the team and the execution capabilities to drive our platform. I cannot envision a better position to be in than the one we are in right now, and it is working.
And to talk about how it has worked so far in the first quarter, let me please pass it over to Greg. Greg?
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Brent, and good morning to everyone.
For the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 net revenues reached $63.7 million compared to $58.3 in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of $5.4 million or 9.2%. Typically, our first and fourth quarters are the smallest seasonally and are similar in size. So the fact that we were also $4.5 million ahead of Q4 is [Technical Issues] principally China, Japan and Europe in our Noni by New Age direct selling. And our DSD system also had their best first quarter in its history, with double-digit growth. From a brand standpoint, our sales of Noni, Te Mana and NHANCED Cell Defense contributed to growth. We significantly increased our immunity benefits messaging and launched some key new products within our core brand franchises, and those are proving to be effective, as Julie will reference a bit later on the call.
As Brent mentioned, we have had even better results had it not been for the impact of COVID-19. We have felt the impacts around the world in all aspects of the business. Like most other companies, we expect these impacts and disruptions to continue. Gross profit was $41.5 million or 65.2% of net sales. In Q1 2019, we hit $66.2 [Phonetic] million, but in Q2 that went down to 62.7%; in Q3, 57.7%; and in Q4 to 54.3%. We are pleased by the 11 percentage point improvement in gross margin versus Q4 of 2019. It is a welcome step in the right direction which was driven by product mix improvements, channel mix improvements and geography mix improvements.
SG&A in the first quarter of 2020 as a percentage of sales increased 200 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2019 as a result of a number of investments made to upgrade and build out our platform, including upgrading external auditors to Deloitte, strengthening the quality of our insurance programs and insurance providers, upgrading legal support to Faegre Drinker and Greenberg Traurig and important investments in the Board of Directors and leadership team, as Brent mentioned in his initial comments.
Net loss was $11.6 million or negative $0.14 per share. The increase in net loss was significantly impacted by a gain on sale of property in the first quarter of last year as well as increased SG&A as previously discussed. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $7.1 million compared to a gain of $3.9 million in Q1 of last year, reflective of those investments in the impact of the gain on the sale of property in Q1 2019. Importantly, though, as referenced in our 10-Q, after the end of the quarter, we took a number of actions to reduce SG&A that are expected to positively impact our bottom line between $5 million and $7 million on a full year basis.
Shifting to the balance sheet. We continue to have a strong financial position and a clean capital structure. We ended the first quarter of 2020 with $27.5 million in cash after satisfying important tax obligations of $14.1 million in Japan, repaying $10.1 million against the East West Bank credit facility and putting $15.1 million in restricted cash. As of March 31, 2020, we had working capital of $17 million and have now met all the covenant obligations of our credit facility with East West Bank through December 31, 2020.
I would like also to briefly discuss the impacts and challenges associated with COVID-19 and touch on some of the actions that we’ve taken and some of the actions we expect to undertake. During the first quarter, we had a significant negative impact on our food services sales in North America and were contained in providing in-store merchandising support and overall selling into retail partners.
In our Noni by NewAge segment, we were significantly disrupted in our ability to do peer to peer selling or conduct business meetings around the world as we have done since the inception of the business. Many of the regions and countries in which we operate like Latin America and Indonesia, for example, had been growing double digits during 2019 but had declines in Q1 directly as a result of the lockdown in their respective territories.
In total, across the business, we estimate the negative impact from COVID-19 to be as much as 10% of total revenue. We offset these negatives by all the activities we implemented to result in a positive 9.2% growth for the quarter. Also, without the current challenging situations, our results most likely would have even been better.
The support we got from the US government in April was timely and very helpful to partially offset the impact of COVID-19 and maintain our workforce. Without it, I believe that we would have had a significant reduction in our workforce. The payroll protection program funds directly saved jobs, and lots of them. We received $6.9 million under the Payroll Protection Program, and here are the facts. Number one, we met all the requirements of the SBA PPP Loan program. Number two, we applied quickly, accurately and were granted the funds. And number three, we did not circumvent, skirt, quibble or do anything even remotely tricky or untoward to receive the funds. We qualified, we were granted the funds and we used the funds as intended, and it has saved jobs.
Now, looking forward into Q2, we see a similar negative impact related to COVID-19. China is almost back to normal operations, but Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, virtually all of Latin America and the US across all divisions are still challenged in conducting normal operations. Despite the negatives, I agree with Brent that our business model, our route to market, our healthy product portfolio, our specific immunity products and our direct sales to consumers and direct delivery to consumer homes couldn’t be more opportune. We have seen strong trends in the business and continue to see them in the month of April. So, with that, we have a positive outlook on Q2.
I will now turn the call over to Julie, our Chief Marketing Officer. Julie?
Julie Garlikov — Chief Marketing Officer
Thanks, Greg. Good morning, everybody.
So I have a little more than 100 days in with the firm, and I want to share a few perspectives and talk about what’s driving our growth in the midst of one of the greatest marketing and leadership opportunities I have ever experienced in my career. I’ve worked with some of the world’s best companies from Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, the PepsiCo to Rodan + Fields.
Let me tell you, this is a company that moves fast, and even that is an understatement. Since I love to move at speed, it’s a great speed. But even for me, it’s taken some getting used to. I joined because of our omnichannel strategy, which I have a lot of experience in, and then I personally like that as a highly differentiating strategy, and I wanted to make New Age the best in the world at it. Within this type of system, our brands are highly underdeveloped, underleveraged and untapped in their potential. But this is what I do, and I have been given the freedom to build out the entire marketing team to develop and drive those brands. And let me tell you, the team we have assembled is world-class.
I see this current pandemic, the effects of which may be with us for some period of time, as an incredible marketing and communication challenge. In this context, we have significantly accelerated our social and digital engagement and focused our messaging on the immunity system strengthening properties and efficacy of two of our products: Tahitian Noni and NHANCED Cell Defense. As many of you know, these two products have a combination of patents, science, research studies and human trials behind them. So, frankly, all we’re doing is getting the word out on their facts and scientific backing. We’ve also expanded the distribution of Cell Defense to Amazon, including Amazon Prime.
Greg shared our overall numbers are up 9.2% in Q1, which, as he mentioned, is like 19% in the current environment with the negative impacts on our revenue. Driving our growth has been our focus on core products, an immunity focused messaging which is really resonating with consumers. But the other driver has been the launch of some of our new products in key geographies: the expansion of Noni+Collagen; the launch of Noni+CBD in Japan; the launch of Te Mana Shape, our intermittent fasting program; and the further expansion to new markets of our full Te Mana skincare line are collectively having a tremendous effect. Not only are these product innovations connecting with new consumers, but they’re attracting new leaders to our network of independent product consultants and, importantly, attracting new younger leaders to the New Age opportunity. And as you might expect, we are just getting started.
Just the launch and expansion of the initiatives I mentioned provide us a lot of confidence on our Q2 outlook. And as Brent mentioned, we have daily visibility on all the other drivers of our revenue. So our perspectives on our growth and expected performance are informed by the facts and the correlated drivers of that performance. But we are not stopping there. Building on our immunity focus, we are expanding our immunity messaging, and we are launching Immunity Shots, which are also Tahitian Noni based, in traditional retail channels, e-tail and our own e-commerce sites. These get tested in a key market pilot in June so we get the tool kit right before launching globally thereafter. The feedback we’ve received from consumers and leaders on this product is unlike anything we’ve seen before, giving us confidence on its impact in the second part of the year.
Beyond product, we’re also upgrading, or more like overhauling, and transforming all of our social and digital properties and execution. You’ve probably seen the new Noninewage.com website that was just launched globally. It is infinitely more consumer-friendly than before. We’ve overhauled our social presence on Instagram and other relevant sites and are arming our leaders with social assets and screening like they’ve never had before, and we’re just getting started on this. Our improved social media presence, coupled with significant expansion of internal social selling screening and new tools and apps for our sales associates and independent product consultants underpin all of the new product initiatives we’re executing. We’ll give our sales leaders the ability to work in this digitally powered anytime, anywhere mobile world we all live in and to work virtually no matter where the COVID virus impacts us.
We’re building our brands and category platforms for long-term success and sustainability. So I would probably stop there before I share too many of the insights into what’s coming. But I summarize with this. So far, so good. A little more than 100 days in, the current initiatives on immunity are working and resonating and very timely. The new social and digital selling tools we’re providing are leading teams and transforming our abilities, and the new products we’re launching worldwide are just icing on the cake.
Back to you, Brent.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thank you, Julie. And a great job, honestly, and keep up the great work between you and all of your team. It’s a joy to be working with them. And keep up the speed and keep putting the foot on the gas on all of the initiatives.
I would like to share four final points before we open it up to questions. First, please understand what we are intending to communicate. The effects of COVID-19 are real and pervasive. They have dramatically negatively affected us in North America and worldwide. We are just taking quick and decisive actions and choosing to lead find opportunities and pivoting quickly while others are lamenting how tough or difficult or hard the situation is. That doesn’t help. And I would say it’s not just at the top. It’s at every single level in our Company, in every division, in every corner of the globe where individuals at all levels of the Company are stepping up to lead.
Point two. Please also know that first and foremost, we have worked very hard to ensure the safety of our associates, the continuity of production and our supply chain and the uninterrupted superior service to our customers. Safety is our top priority at this time, and it is the driving force behind every decision. We are protecting our associates with not only safety measures in our facilities and operations but supporting them with free supplies of our Noni Juice and NHANCED Cell Defense. We have canceled all in-person meetings and accelerated our virtual efforts and online tools. We do Zoom and Teams calls all day and all night, starting with Europe in the morning, the Americas midday and Asia markets at night, all day, every day. We have moved all non-production employees to working from home and have implemented social distancing and increased safety measures in all production facilities and distribution operations in all operations around the world.
Point three. We don’t talk about it because we’re not here for the credit or for the clapping hands. But I’m also very proud of so many of our markets around the world that have donated Cell Defense and Noni to hospitals and frontline workers and first responders. Our donations continue, not because we want the credit but because our immunity products really work and we want to make a difference. It is our associates’ continued dedication to our mission to inspire and educate the planet to live healthy that frankly inspires me, drives our business forward, as they dedicate themselves and sacrifice to provide the healthy products that the world needs now more than ever. I want to genuinely thank each and every one of them and their families for their selfless commitment and support of our mission and for choosing to make a difference for their fellowmen at a time when it is needed the most.
And point four. Greg talked about the SG&A and expense reduction actions that we have already taken. Additionally, we made the commitment that we would divest some of our older, smaller brands that we started with, and we are following through on that commitment. We have formally begun that divestment process and have engaged the support of one of the leading investment banking groups in the country to support the process. We like the brands. We just have too many other bigger, more profitable opportunities in front of us to give those brands the support and investment that they need and deserve. So all of those actions are in keeping with what some of the best in firms are doing, reducing any non-contributing expenses, focusing on shorter-term profitable revenue-driving activities and protecting cash.
So in closing, operationally, I’m very pleased with our fast start to the year, especially in the context of the global business disruption and equally pleased with how April has performed and how Q2 looks so far. None of the results are an accident, and they shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. As I mentioned at the outset of my comments, we’ve built the platform, and frankly, it is taking time and a lot of hard work and frankly some errors from some smaller retail investors that just don’t understand or haven’t done the work to understand what is in progress here. Our institutional investors really understand and they’ve done the work which is broadly why they have been increasing their positions. But now, it is just about leveraging this platform and driving more growth which will have the effect of lower SG&A as a percent of revenue on the income statement. We have the brand portfolio, the immunity specific products, the distribution system and a one of one unique omnichannel route to market.
As of this morning, we had a team of 277,370 dedicated independent product consultants that frankly they need the income in this challenging environment that develops us now and they are all fully dedicated and committed to growing together with the Company. We have been building New Age to become a major scale company in the future, and that’s why we have made the investments in the support partners, with Deloitte, Marsh, Faegre Drinker, Greenberg Traurig and others that are, simply put, best in the world.
We have made the investments in the leadership and commercial teams, and one I think can’t help but appreciate the strength and quality of colleagues like David Vanderveen, our COO, who was on the last investor call, or Julie who you heard from today, and a whole list of others. They are impressive. And they are here and joined to create something special. They are the reason we are up 9.2%, over and above a negative 10% impact from COVID, and because of them and the leadership focus of all of our associates worldwide why Q2 looks equally as strong.
And with that, I’d like to pass it back to the operator and open it up to questions. Operator?
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] We have a question in here. Mr. Aaron Grey, your line is now open.
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
Good morning and congrats on the quarter. It’s great to see the momentum, both on the top line and the margin profile for the Company sequentially.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thanks, Aaron.
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
So, it was great to hear the callout of China as a market of strength during the quarter in your prepared remarks. Can you talk about some of the underlying drivers there? As we come off 2019, the market faced some regulatory hurdles, and we also saw a lot of volatility in that market last year. So just curious, if you’ve seen these trends continue in the quarter and whether or not you feel like there’s been a rebase to where you feel like the market is maybe able to rebound now in the long term? Thank you.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Great question, Aaron. Yeah, China is critical to our future, and we see the drivers of our growth, with new people joining our system, greater revenue per person and strengthening at different levels. People doing more — or people that are involved with our system, doing more, and being much more active. And last year, there was plenty of disruption. A lot of companies we talked to in China in direct selling and other industries are still very disrupted. But in that context, you can say, boy, it’s really complicated or whatever or you can take action. So I’m really pleased with the organization there.
And we’ve probably have 150 people in China across operations in 10 major cities, but sales to over 300 cities around the country. So we’re pretty pervasive across all provinces. And the discipline that we’ve taken on the entire Company is now translating to the same disciplines with which we operate in China. So, not only are we seeing new people join the system in the context of others struggling, we’re kind of creating that olive branch and holding it out to others for us to thrive in the context when others aren’t. So that was kind of one piece.
But we’re also expanding the portfolio there. We launched Te Mana, our skincare line, which is really popular these days here in China and Asia Pacific overall. So that was really the first time we had expanded the portfolio ever in China. And more to come in terms of new products and new packaging formats going forward. And we’ve also significantly increased our WeChat communication and WeChat activities, which if you’re not playing in online and e-commerce and social these days between WeChat, Tmall and others. The whole business is moving in that direction. So that’s kind of the first reason, short-term, we are seeing the results in China.
But long-term, if you think about the next — I hate to put it kind of 10 years — the level of consumer spending in China as a percentage of GDP is about half of that of North America or Western Europe. And so you’re going to see a lot of investments from the Chinese government within the country to promote consumerism and consumer spending. So, for those macroeconomic reasons, coupled with the people and the team and the organization and the portfolio we have now and are building and the evolution to be much more social and e-commerce driven, those things give us a lot of confidence for China for the year. And unlike last year there, was out of our circle of control, a lot fewer disruptions.
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
Great. Thanks for that color. Super helpful. And then, you made a couple of comments just in terms of how you’re pleased with April and 2Q quarter-to-date. Just any incremental color you could provide in terms of relative — what you’re seeing? It’s nice sequential growth we saw in 1Q relative to 4Q, but obviously there’s still a lot of uncertainty around COVID. So just any way to help benchmark in terms of how best to think about 2Q on the revenue trends going forward? Thank you.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Honestly, Aaron, I think it would be imprudent to kind of provide any real specific guidance on a full year basis because there are just too many unknowns out there. And when we talk about the disruptions that we’ve had heretofore, we just don’t know how the external situation outside of our control is going to affect us. We saw a very good April and we see very good trends in May and June.
And what’s different about the Company now — I talked about doing all this hard work behind the scenes that typically goes unnoticed that entrepreneurial companies never really do. But I see on a day-to-day basis, we all see — the leadership team sees, everybody sees — the correlated drivers of performance. We see the revenue throughput, the amount of purchases by person, the number of people that have purchased within the past month, three months, six months, 12 months, new people joining the system, subscriber levels. We have data like crazy now in every single market around the world and the information and kind of executive dashboards and visibility so we know what to do with that, we can take action and provide influence or incremental focus where we need to.
And so, because of those things, we have the visibility. It’s almost like putting a manufacturing line in statistical control. We’ve got that results in more statistical control which sounds really bizarre, but that’s how, our belief is, you run a world-class multinational. So we’ve got those things in place that give us the visibility and ultimately the execution on the sales initiatives, the new products that Julie talked about and then just the building out of our system and the, frankly, evolving of the system with a much more virtual and social selling model. We’re trying to lead the overall industry in that, and because others have kind of done things in a certain way for 20 plus years — we haven’t, we’re new, so we can adopt those new approaches and use speed as a competitive advantage.
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
Thanks. I appreciate that, and certainly appreciate why it’s difficult, long-term, to see where sales are going, but good to see the near-term momentum. Just one more question on my side, and then I’ll pass it on. Just in terms of gross margins, saw a nice uptick sequentially. So how best to think about the gross margin profile over the next couple of quarters, and then just in terms of the timing of the $5 million to $7 million and the restructuring program when that flows through the P&L? Thank you.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Hey, this is Greg. For the gross margin, we are very pleased with where we came in this quarter. And basically we see this trend continuing, being right around the same level. And the biggest drivers to that will be the amount of business we get through our Noni by NewAge segment because that does have a much higher gross margin than our retail brands segment. So far, through April, things seem to be strong there, and we think that that should continue through the rest of this year.
And then, with the cost savings, this is something we implemented here in early April, but typically you don’t really see a lot of the cost savings for a couple of months. So then we’d really see it being more evident what you get out to the second half of 2020, and that’s when you’ll start to see the full effect of this.
Aaron Thomas Grey — Alliance Global Partners — Analyst
All right. Great. Thanks. Congrats, again, on the quarter. And best of luck.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thanks, Aaron.
Operator
Your next question comes from Savid [Phonetic] Bain. Your line is now open.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Hello. Dave Bain. Okay.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Dave.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Thank you. Just hope you guys are well. First, Brent or Greg, could you bifurcate segmented EBITDA generation in 1Q? I guess I’m particularly interested of Noni by NewAge, the gross margins there. Was it close to breakeven as a stand-alone? Trying to understand that element.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. With the gross margin, you will see — with the Noni by NewAge, we generated $39.6 million in gross profit from that division, which is definitely our largest division, doing almost our — a little bit about $50 million in total sales, compared to the New Age segment that did about $13.6 million in sales and generated gross profit of almost $2 million or $1.9 million.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Okay.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
If you translate that to EBITDA, last year, without the investments that we made in the brands, we would have delivered $5 million in EBITDA. So that is a good correlated number on EBITDA for just the Noni by NewAge division.
And I think in the first quarter, you’d see very similar to that on Noni by NewAge, offset by the investments in the brands division. And like I said, we’ve made the commitment to divest that. We’ve already started the process, and that should help when you don’t bifurcate the numbers because we’ll have a lot less of that brand stuff, but negligibly impacts us on the revenue side because it’s not a big piece of the revenue, but it is a big negative piece on the EBITDA. So you’ll continue to see positive from the Noni by NewAge segment at the EBITDA level like we did last year, with a lot less offsets because you’re just not going to be investing in those smaller brands to the level like you did before.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Great. Okay. Perfect. Maybe Julie, I mean, you spoke to the drivers around the positive IPC growth in 1Q. Can we get a sense as to what kind of growth was seen year-over-year? Regionally, was it driven by China or was it broad based? And then, Brent, you had mentioned revenue per IPC, that was up. And I’m just trying to — if there is any sort of growth data points around that, that would be great as well.
Julie Garlikov — Chief Marketing Officer
What I would say is, by the very challenging environment across all of our regions during this period as a lot of areas outside the United States were hit first or harder, we had very measured results and growth across a wide array of our markets. I was particularly encouraged by the growth in North America as well as some growth in our European markets and some of the smaller Asian markets before COVID had too great of an impact. So it’s very broad based across many parts of the Company right now.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Okay.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. If I can throw in there. With China, we saw it being up more than 14% for the first quarter of 2020 compared to the first quarter of 2019. And with North America, we also saw some pretty good growth there as well. And with Japan, it grew for the first time since we have owned the Noni by NewAge business, and we’ve really taken that trend and really started to a turnaround. I mean, it grew just slightly, but it still grew, and since that was the first time we’ve seen that, we’re very pleased with that.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
And did I catch you right — I’m sorry.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
So, I was just going to give you more color, more details there. So I’m looking at our dashboard right now. So I think I mentioned we had 270-something-thousand as of this morning. So as of right now, 6.48 AM here in Denver, we have 277,469, which is about 20,000 — take out China out of the mix, but it’s about 20,000 or roughly 8% above prior year. And as of this month versus the prior month, the number of people that are really making a bunch of money in our system has increased 8.25%, but that number of people is up about 30% year-to-date.
So, in terms of May — first 11 days in May versus April, up another 8.25%. And I can get that on any single country. And our average order size is $221.17 through each one of the subscribers. So you can see we’ve got the data and we can see it and cut it anyway we anyway we want. That gives us just that confidence and visibility on the business every single day.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
That’s fantastic. Okay. And then just last one, if I could, just to follow up on the 2Q guidance question. I understand you’re not offering full year guide. But it sounds like you have some visibility through June. And Gregg spoke — you spoke to, I believe, 2Q guidance is for like a positive outlook. Were you speaking to net revenue versus 1Q, versus the year before or any way we should read into that comment? Or was it just sort of like trends are good?
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Trends are good. And basically we do see positive through April for both the prior year as well as compared to Q1.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
And we’re speaking to net revenue, correct?
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Correct.
David Brian Bain — ROTH Capital Partners — Analyst
Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thanks, Dave.
Operator
Your next question comes from Mr. Mike Grondahl. Sir, your line is now open.
Michael John Grondahl — Northland Capital Markets — Analyst
Yeah. Thank you, guys. And congrats on the progress, especially on the marketing side. Two quick questions. Could you kind of highlight the $5 million to $7 million in cost savings? Kind of what that was driven by? And secondly, Greg, it sounded like in your prepared remarks, you had said that you had satisfied everything for East West. So, is the ATM issuance kind of off the table now for the rest of the year? Or what’s an update on what you need to do there?
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Okay. First, with the $5 million to $7 million. We really looked throughout the entire world to see which of our markets were operating the most effectively. We did have a few markets outside of the US that we looked at and said, long-term, it just doesn’t make sense for us to stay in these markets so that we pulled out of there because they were basically loss leaders…
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Like Russia, for example. It just doesn’t make sense to continue to invest to the level we were in Russia or like a couple of markets in Latin America just completely on lockdown. And we can service, let’s say, Venezuela and Colombia, our sister or adjacent markets versus having the full infrastructures in those kinds of places like we’ve had before. So we looked at that across the board, markets, brands, etc., for every single penny, every single investment, to make sure it was working for us versus different ways to manage and handle those countries.
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
Correct. And then besides that, we also looked at all of our external use of consultants and different firms and really tried to cut that back and make sure we’re just really doing the things that are going to create revenue here during the near term and focus on that and then throughout the entire world, we did make some reduction, especially in some of our foreign offices of certain personnel where we felt like we could do things more efficiently going forward. And that’s the $5 million to $7 million number on an annualized basis. So that’s that.
On the East West Bank loan, we did have a covenant where we needed to generate at least $15 million of equity funding by June 30, and we have met that covenant. And the next covenant does not come up until December 31. So then we will analyze during the next basically eight, nine months exactly the best way to raise those funds. But just like Brent said, we’re going to continue to move fast and find different opportunities, and by doing that, I think we will be able to meet that covenant very easily.
Michael John Grondahl — Northland Capital Markets — Analyst
Got it. Good. And then maybe just lastly, any timeline on the sale of the selected brands? Kind of what’s the expectations?
Gregory A. Gould — Chief Financial Officer
When we look at — we’ve went out, we’ve hired a banker, and basically things are moving forward. But right now, probably the best timeline that it could give you would be sometime during this summer. So we’re focused on getting it done quickly but want to do it at the best possible benefit to our current shareholders.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
And you could tell, Mike, it’s Brent here, that that will positively — and that may be an understatement — impact the P&L.
Michael John Grondahl — Northland Capital Markets — Analyst
Sure.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Those are conscious choices to make those investments before, but now we just — like I said, we’ve just got too many good other and very high profitable opportunities in front of us. And so, consistent with what I see a lot of my colleagues and other companies doing, is you got to guard your cash, you got to — which hopefully everybody can see we’re doing — and you need to focus on those things that are really more delivering in the short term and unfortunately not take a such a long-term perspective to the business and unfortunately that has the effect on us and those brands, but fortunately for investors in the short term, that will have a very positive effect on the Company’s bottom line.
Michael John Grondahl — Northland Capital Markets — Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thank you, Mike.
Operator
We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. Mr. Brent Willis, please continue.
Brent David Willis — Chief Executive Officer & Director
Thank you, everybody, for joining the call. I mean, we’ve got a lot of, as hopefully you can see, good people now driving a very opportune business model, good products, dedicated people around the world, and frankly we’re seeing people, maybe because they need the income or unemployment has been affected so many places around the world, that we’re a nice option for them. And against that context, we’re providing three social media and other online social training to anybody that wants it, whether they become part of our system or not.
So we’re excited about all aspects of the business. Certain bright spots in the retail side of the business in North America; a lot of bright spots in our direct to store distribution business that’s really been negatively impacted by COVID in North America but around the world, just people stepping up and choosing to leave. But we like what we see in Q2 and thereafter, and we’re going to keep at it.
Thanks, everybody, for joining the call today.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]