Fluent posts $40M loss for 2024 despite New York entry, other expansion efforts

Florida-based Fluent Corp. (CSE: FNT.U) (OTCQB: CNTMF) posted a $40.3 million net loss for the 2024 calendar year against $103.5 million in net revenues, the company reported on Thursday after U.S. markets closed.

The annual loss was up 78% year-over-year from the $22.7 million net loss reported in 2023, which CEO Robert Beasley didn’t bother addressing in a press release.

Rather, Beasley said the company is “positioning ourselves for continued success in the year ahead,” with the acquisition of RIV Capital in New York last year, followed by a rebranding from Cansortium to Fluent Corp., the launch of several new product lines and other expansion efforts that he said are already bearing fruit.

Beasley also denied that the failure of recreational marijuana legalization at the ballot box last fall in Florida had a significant impact on the company’s business plans, but admitted the company’s been “somewhat impacted by broader industry dynamics.”

“Many in the sector had prepared extensively for the amendment’s passage, and its delay has created market challenges, such as oversupply, heightened competition and increased product discounting,” Beasley said.

For the fourth quarter, which ended on Dec.31, 2024, Fluent reported a year-over-year revenue downturn to $24.9 million from $25.5 million. For the full year, however, revenues were up 6.4% to $103.6 million from $97.3 million.

In the final quarter of the year, Fluent also reported an impairment of intangible assets of $64.3 million, which it said was related to a license in Florida and “reduces the carrying value of the Company’s intangible assets on its consolidated statements of financial position to $37.6 million.”

Fluent currently operates 42 dispensaries in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, and said it expects to open at least three more in 2025. The company also expects to finish construction at a new cannabis cultivation facility in Tampa Bay by the end of the second quarter, which will add another 7,000 square feet of canopy to its production capacity.

The company recently refinanced a $71 million loan from Chicago Atlantic that had been set to mature in May and inked a new $96.5 million credit line with the firm.

At the end of December, Fluent had $61.4 million in total assets, including $40.1 million in cash, against $215.9 million in total liabilities.