Russell Stanley: Good morning. And thank you for taking my question. Just wanted to follow-up on George, on your comments around Illinois and stores opening, I think, a little slower than expected. I guess what’s your latest view on how many new doors you might see in that market? I think in November, you were thinking it might see a third of the 192 licenses get open. Just wondering what your latest thinking is, given we’re almost a quarter to the way through the year?
George Archos:
Aaron Miles: Hey Russ, this is Aaron. Could you repeat that? Our phone has cut out.
George Archos: Russ, sorry, my phone cut out. I got you. I was speaking to myself there. So still openings in Illinois. I think we see about the 35 stores to 45 stores this year. We €“ it’s a pretty slow start. Again, zoning is very difficult on these municipalities, but we are helping a handful of groups that are opening their stores. And I think there’s a couple of other groups that are helping as well. So, I think that store count is probably pretty right on point for the year. I think 35 stores to 45 stores, from what we’re seeing and who we’re talking to that’s kind of what happens for the year at Illinois.
Russell Stanley: Got it. Thanks for that. And maybe if I could, on the CapEx guidance. You came in under what you were expecting in Q4, and you’ve reiterated the range for 2023. I guess in real terms, it looks like maybe you’re actually reducing CapEx in that sense, given some spillover from Q4 into 2023. So just wondering what you may have pushed out or eliminated from your 2023 plan there?
George Archos: So, I mean at the end of 2022, we made our plans, nothing has changed. We feel very confident with what we’re about to open. And we’re just looking at optionality in the future on PA, Florida, Ohio and some of those adult use markets. So, we’re ready to jump PA facility, we have the second facility built. It’s ready to turn on pretty quickly with some additional construction. Florida, the second facility is built, will continue to site work and adding space as we see fit. And in Ohio, we just added the capacity there, so we’ll watch adult use market. So, we feel very confident with what we said. As far as your push comment. We didn’t really push, we left the range of 25% to 50%. Some of it spilled over into Q1. So, we still feel pretty confident in that range. And we’ll adjust throughout the year if we see any opportunities that come up.
Russell Stanley: Great. Thanks for the color. I’ll get back in the queue.
Operator: We’ll move to our next question from Andrew Semple at Echelon Capital Markets.
Andrew Semple: Hi there, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to go back to the comments made earlier about using maybe the real estate that you own to lower your average cost of capital €“ just wondering how you would potentially use those proceeds from a possible debt financing. Would you use those to pick away at tuck-in M&A opportunities? Or would your first priority be to reduce some of the existing debt outstanding? I know you’re able to pay back $100 million of that with de minimis penalty. So, how are you thinking about potential uses of proceeds if you were to lower your cost of debt capital?
George Archos: Depending on what M&A opportunities arise, it could be a combination of both. If we don’t have any real M&A opportunities that need cash, then most likely, we’ll be paying down outstanding debt. I mean, that was obviously why we structured the deal that way. Our goal is to knock down that debt and it’s something we want to do. That being said, the cost of our capital is better well spent in an M&A deal, then we’ll do that. But right now, that opportunity is continue to build the balance sheet and knock down the debt to put us in a strong position.
Andrew Semple: And in terms of the M&A opportunities you’re seeing across the U.S. landscape, are you focusing more on potentially markets that are mature with some operators that may be struggling or maybe not be growing as fast as they might otherwise be without stronger balance sheets? Or are you looking to lay groundwork in new and emerging markets as they unfold?
George Archos: It’s both. It’s whatever we think is a great opportunity. If it’s a state with new licenses that’s new, we have an opportunity to be first to market. We obviously, we will definitely look at that. It’s something we’re good at. If it’s a mature operator in a mature market where we feel we can add brands, optimization, automation, et cetera, and make it a better deal for us. And we’ll also do that as well. I mean, we’ve done both. But we’ll continue to look at every opportunity that comes across our desk and we’ll transact if it were to make sense for Verano.
Andrew Semple: Great, that’s helpful. And congrats on Q4 results and I’ll get back into queue. Thank you.
George Archos: Thank you. Have a great day.
Operator: Next, we’ll move to Matt Bottomley at Canaccord Genuity.
Matt Bottomley: Yes, good morning everyone. Just wanted to go back to some of your commentary around one of the questions in New Jersey. And just if you could provide any more insights on where you currently are in terms of your own internal capacity to service that market. Do you have more M&A dollars? Or do you have any more CapEx dollars allocated there? We’ve had some of your peers kind of mentioned they’re kind of capped out right now with respect to their ability to increase overall production. So, I’m just wondering kind of where you are in that landscape in your own facility?
George Archos: Hey, good morning, Matt. So our facility is fully built out, no real additional CapEx other than some maintenance CapEx and maybe some additional equipment here and there as things change in the automation side. We do have additional capacity to add to the wholesale market. We have some rooms that we’re available to turn on some different tiers, et cetera. So as the store count ramps up in the state, we can continue throughout that process. But the store openings are going to be slow. So right now, we’re focused on the current wholesale market that we have as well as our stores, and we’re in good shape.
Matt Bottomley: Got it. And then just one other for me. Just in €“ and this may be a Florida-related question, but you had mentioned in some of the prepared remarks about promotional activities and discounting. Is that more specifically related to what’s happening in Florida? I get a lot of inbounds on the dynamic there given that we’re still seeing a pretty wide dispersion between the overall growth and volume versus some of the sample data, everyone looks at, whether it’s BDSA. So, I’m just wondering what your experience is in Florida or if that commentary was more broadly related to markets in general.
George Archos: It’s more broadly related. I mean, the discounting game is something that happens everywhere. As markets mature, different discounts are put in place, et cetera. So it’s something that we evaluate by market. Florida is also one of them. Some pretty heavy promotional activity in Q4 towards the holiday. We’ve seen that balance out now. But that’s an ebb and flow. We watch every single market, and we pivot when it makes sense.
