Dolphin Entertainment Inc Stock

Good day. Welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, James Carbonara with Hayden Investor Relations. James, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. And once again, good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual results. Please refer to the forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release published today as well as the most recent SEC filings and reports.

During the call, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted EBITDA or loss, the company believes that these will provide helpful information for investors. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin. Bill, please proceed.

Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. As always, I'll start by walking through the key highlights, and then Mirta will take you through the detailed financials before we open it up for your questions.

Revenue for the quarter came in at $14.4 million, up 2.5% year-over-year and $27.2 million for the first half, up 3.8% compared to last year. Driving that top line was another busy quarter for our agencies. We are front and center at several large events since we last spoke in May, including the Conn Film Festival, the week after our last earnings call. And the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in June, which is the preeminent conference of the year for the marketing industries. Also, 42West had a big presence at the 25th Tribeca Film Festival in June and picked up multiple Emmy nominations last month. The digital department ran the creator gifting lounge at VidCon Anaheim. Elle's clients were on stage at the Nexus Global Summit in New York City and just a few weeks ago, we were all over really all over San Diego Comic-Con, where I'm pretty sure we saw James Carbonara dressed up as Darth Vader.

But the thing I really want to spend a minute on is something new, Graviteur studios. We announced this after we last spoke in May and then announced it -- excuse me, in June time to the start of the Cannes Lion Festival I just mentioned. We built Graviteur with our partners at Kynetic Media Ventures which is run by David Freeman, someone Dolphin and myself have been doing business with for over 15 years.

David ran the digital division of CAA since its inception. When he left at the start of the year to start Kynetic, we developed together the idea of a production studio for leading creators and influencers, many of whom he signed at CAA. Both Kynetic and Dolphin believe that audiences will follow creators across platforms, and we certainly witnessed that with the box office success of 2 movies directed by creators this spring.

In fact, the name of our studio is a Port onto Gravity and Altor, signaling that these creators are as in their own right and that they yield gravitational pull on their audiences who follow them. We believe we can help produce, distribute and market creator-led content across streaming platforms, television networks and theatrical releases. It's a natural extension of everything we've learned running a marketing consortium sitting inside pop culture for years. We know these audiences, we know these creators. And now we have a vehicle to actually build and own something with them. We're early days here, but we think this can become a meaningful part of the story over the next few years, and we'll keep you posted as it develops.

Now let's talk about the bottom line because the numbers this quarter need just a couple of notes of context. Two things to note. In fact, one, we had about $360,000 of onetime retention bonuses land in the second quarter across a few of our subsidiaries; and two, legal and professional fees related to our litigation ran about another $360,000 in the quarter. We believe this number will come down to normal levels in Q3 and going forward. And the underlying business held up just fine anyway. We expect a real step up profitability in the third quarter as these 2 items roll off.

Here's how we think about the bigger picture. The core engine of this business has already pointed toward meaningfully better free cash flow, independent of anything new we do. Our bank debt matures in just over 2 years, actually 2 years from next month. Freeing up almost $2.2 million a year in principal and interest payments. Our large New York and Los Angeles leases roll off in the back half of next year, which we believe will lead to savings of another roughly $1 million a year.

And with approximately $127 million of NOLs on the balance sheet, almost all of those savings will flow straight to the bottom line. That's the base case and it doesn't require anything new to go right, just running the businesses we already have.

Finally, with insiders holding a substantial stake in the company, management remains deeply aligned with shareholders in the pursuit of long-term value. In fact, under the 10b5 buying plan currently in place for myself, I expect to own over 5% of the DLPN common stock in the next week or 2. What DealMaker and Graviteur Studios represent is optionality on top of that. With respect to DealMaker, our strategic partnership began in February, and we used the rest of Q1 and Q2 to put together our respective teams and processes and to evaluate a pipeline of potential deals.

We believe we're getting closer to having our first deal and to creating a steady flow of deals coming to market after that. We both like a couple of the names we're evaluating, and we still expect to have our first deal in the market before the end of the year. Between that, Graviteur and our other ventures, we feel we've got real upside sitting on top of a business that's already heading towards strong free cash flow on its own.

So with that, I'll turn the call over to Mirta Negrini, our Chief Financial Officer to walk through the numbers in more detail. Mirta?

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now review our 2026 second quarter financial results. Total revenue for the 3 months ended June 30, 2026, was $14.4 million, an increase of 2.5% from $14.1 million in the same quarter of prior year. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2026, total revenue was $27.2 million, an increase of 3.8% from $26.3 million in the same period in prior year.

Our operating loss was $1 million for the second quarter of 2026 compared to an operating loss of approximately $100,000 for the same period in 2025. Operating expenses for Q2 2026 were $15.5 million. As Bill noted, this included approximately $400,000 of nonrecurring retention bonuses for certain employees, which will not be included in Q3 of 2026 or Q2 of next year.

In addition, we had approximately $400,000 of legal and professional fees related to our litigation that we are working to reduce going forward. This compares to operating expenses of $14.1 million in Q2 of 2025. Net loss for Q2 of 2026 was $1.6 million compared to a net loss of $1.4 million in Q2 2025. Basic and diluted loss per share for Q2 2026 was $0.13 based on approximately 12.8 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to basic and diluted loss per share of $0.13 in Q2 2025 based on approximately 11.2 million weighted average shares outstanding.

Turning to adjusted EBITDA. After adding back noncash and other onetime items, our adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2026 was approximately $243,000 compared to approximately $628,000 in the second quarter of 2025. As Bill discussed, the year-over-year change is driven almost entirely by the retention bonus time and the elevated litigation costs.

For the 6 months ended June 30, 2026, adjusted EBITDA loss was approximately $224,000 compared to a loss of approximately $82,000 in the prior year period, reflecting the same factors. This quarter, we've introduced adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA basic and diluted earnings per share for Q2 2026 was $0.02 based on approximately 12.8 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to $0.06 basic earnings per share for Q2 2025 based on approximately 11.2 million weighted average shares outstanding and $0.04 fully diluted earnings per share for Q2 2025 based on 17.4 million weighted average shares outstanding. We think this gives you another way to track our progress on a per share basis, and we plan to continue reporting it alongside adjusted EBITDA for future quarters. Our cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2026 were $7.7 million compared to $8.8 million as of December 31, 2025.

With that, I'll turn it back to the operator to open the floor for questions. Operator, would you please poll for questions?

[Operator Instructions] And your first question today is coming from Derek Greenberg from Maxim.

I wanted to ask about the Graviteur studios projects. Maybe if you could just explain the structure that a little bit more in terms of how much you own versus Kynetic kind of how much financing do you provide creators and just the overall economics of that project?

Sure. Derek, thank you for the question. Yes, Graviteur is something that was a natural for us and David. As I say, we go back 15 years with David, who ran the creator division, the digital division of CAA. And why? Because we're used to structuring films and TV shows and streaming series for -- we've done that for 30 years, right? And then using creators as either talent in front of the camera or talent as directors is certainly something that all of Hollywood has shown an interest in the last 3 or 4 months, I'm proud to say we were building this at the start of the year before it became vogue, mostly because we know that the people who follow these influencers will look for their content across platform.

We see in the world seeing popular people that do short-form video on TikTok are creating long-form videos on YouTube, and they're creating quite a following. And if anything, was proven by a couple of the films that were released in theatrically in May, they were wild successes, these movies, Backrooms and Obsession, highest grossing films in their distributors' histories is saying something. And they were each with creator directors who had built a following online and then made their first feature film or second feature film in one case.

And they don't need big budgets. Backrooms -- excuse me, Obsession was made for $750,000, and it's done over $200 million at the box office. So it gives you a sense of just how successful I was referencing. The level of success I was referencing. So in terms of financing, we'll look to finance those movies how we would if they were part of Dolphin films. Oftentimes, we lay off the risk when we can occasionally something like a Blue Angels that worked out very well for us. We might split the cost with a distributor like IMAX in that case.

In other cases, we may be able to lay it off entirely as we did for the most part with Youngblood, right? So the budgets will be a little smaller than the other projects, I would think, on average. Again, because with some of these projects, you can make them for even less than $1 million or around $1 million. So it wouldn't be a big capital investment anyway, but most of the time, we'll try and lay them off as they are. If that is helpful.

Okay. Got it. I was wondering if you could possibly unpack how to think about the performance of the business across all your divisions. If you're seeing like relative outperformance in certain areas versus others specifically maybe within the digital department. I was wondering how growth is there and how that segment is performing.

Yes. The digital apartment, it's definitely the subsidiary that we believe will have tremendous mid- and long-term growth potential for us. We are happy with how the first half of the year went. Also, we have some visibility going into their prime season of the second half of the year. So much of their success in any given 12-month period depends on the time period between back-to-school and the holidays, especially the holidays.

So you generally -- you don't need to wait until November and December for that. You'll get a really strong indication by September because the brands will start reaching out to talent, the influencers in this case, to contract for brand campaigns that will be running in November and December. They'll need to start contracting in September and October. We certainly don't have a reason to believe that the business won't grow from last year when it really had a great second half of the year. We believe that will happen again this year.

We're seeing encouraging signs on that already here in the first half of August. we're so weighted to -- a couple of our companies are so seasonal, I should say, like the digital apartment that the first half of the year numbers, while very comparable to last year, revenue is up a little. Some core operating income metrics might be down a couple of hundred thousand, but it really comes down to the second half of the year for us and what our success will look like as we continue to grow the companies.

Okay. And then on the Youngblood movie. I was wondering, I think last call, you said there is still potential for an international distribution agreement possibly streaming distribution agreement. I was wondering if there's any updates on those 2 items.

No. And that's -- the streaming is a little disappointing to us. We had thought that we would have a streaming deal by about now. International will often take through the international sales markets, which are in the second half of the year have not occurred yet. You'll -- that's often Toronto Film Festival, which is the week after Labor Day and the American film market, which is in Los Angeles in November, in the first week of November. So we might need those 2 markets to start firming up some of our international sales on Youngblood. But we're working with our distributor, Well Go to really make a stronger push to get a streaming sale in the U.S. certainly here in the second half of the year, but it would be great if we could see if we could -- what we can do here in Q3. But it has not occurred yet.

Okay. Got it. And then on other initiatives that was fairly new, the Dolphin Intelligence marketing capabilities for AI. I was wondering just how that's progressing, what you're seeing there?

I would say we have a couple of big calls coming up here in the next 2 weeks and many clients have expressed an interest in it, but it's -- what we're seeing in the early days is we're folding it into existing PR contracts or it's being layered on top of existing PR contracts. And what we're going to try and do is break out the service to be more of a stand-alone because we think it's valuable in its own right. And we haven't had the signature client yet that would take it and say, look, we've signed up blank for this service. So I think that's a mission for us here in the second half of the year just because it's all upside to us.

If we get it, there's no additional cost to us to service or provide the service from what we've already invested in. So it's something that we're excited about because it's just -- it's a great return on investment from this point forward, right? So I think that one is something we're looking to accomplish before the end of the year. And I think definitely speaking of upside, the first of the DealMaker ventures to enter market will be the poster child for upside for Dolphin as we put pipeline together, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, with DealMaker to be able to do ventures together with consistency.

But just to remind everyone, those would be what qualifies as a venture, I should say, would be something that a start-up or an existing company that's starting a new product line or a venture of some sort, which would pay Dolphin through its subsidiaries, cash marketing fees that we would get paid to market the venture but we would also receive an ownership stake in the venture as well. So those are the perfect combination of upside with cash contracts.

We're not trading our work for equity. We're actually getting both. And with DealMaker being a tool in our tool belt together with the venture to go raise capital, then it won't be for lack of funds that someone could actually then hire Dolphin and its subsidiaries to market the product. So it's a pretty interesting one-two punch of you get the best-in-class marketing companies with access to capital that DealMaker provides. So that -- I would say that's our biggest focus as management is to get the first deal in market before the end of the year. And then maybe even how close can we be to announcing a second venture by the end of the year as well. That's where our focus is.

Yes. Great. That's super helpful. Maybe just on DealMaker. Just maybe if you could talk about the pipeline a little bit more. I mean, you just said that you could possibly have another deal right after. I was wondering the cadence of how many deals per year kind of the timing from here?

Yes. It's a little bit like starting up Graviteur, right, or a film slate. You need a few months or whatever period of time depending on what you're starting, right, to build the deal flow or have the pipeline no different here. We announced this project at the end of February or second half of February, I believe. And worked with DealMaker to evaluate -- we set out that we will give each other 3 months. I think I even said that maybe on the last quarterly earnings call and evaluate deals together and then pick the first one we'd go out with.

We have 2 deals we like quite a bit. We both would look to proceed, and we're in the process of seeing if we can close on them to then take them to market. I think we were hoping to do at least one by the end of the year. I feel very confident we'll be able to do that and hopefully another one, like I said. And I think I mentioned we would be comfortable saying we could do 2 next year if we did this year. But obviously, we're in a shoot to get to the point where we could do 3 to 4 a year with pretty steady regularity. That's our hope.

And then since they can span all types of industries and/or categories. Some might be consumer products, some might be live events. Some might be something unique that's not in 1 of those 2 categories. It allows us to both create a variety in our slate as well as put different subsidiaries of ours as kind of like the lead marketing agency. So it won't be 6 straight ventures that all need 1 agency to market a particular consumer product that they have an expertise in. We would be spreading it out, and that allows us to create a pretty robust and steady pipeline.

And then we just imagine the day in 3 years' time and we've got half a dozen to a dozen of these in market in 3 or 4 years, and you've got these choose your flavor, right? Optionality, lottery tickets, upside catalysts, whatever it may be, that any 1 of them we would hope would have exit values to us in the -- in the certainly 8 figures and hopefully even higher. So that's what makes it a venture versus just a joint project of a couple of our companies. So that's what we're building, and we're pretty excited about it.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Last one for me, just on the Copper Books partnership. Just maybe if you could talk about how that's going.

Sure. On the Copper Books. And one other thought I had just as I wrap that last one, I just remember a fact. And I should point out again, with the DealMaker partnership, those ventures I was mentioning require 0 capital of Dolphin. So each of that slate, those projects we envision having in 3 to 4 years that are growing in the market, we hope to an eventual exit, they required 0 capital off our balance sheet. So that's why we went looking for a partnership. That's why DealMaker was so strategic to us.

As a matter of fact, in each of those ventures, we imagine we're getting paid to market. So that's the upside for us. In terms of Copper Books, yes, a lot of our publicists, a lot of our PR agencies, in general, are excited about having this partnership. We have many of our clients want -- either want to write books or have already written books, many of our clients have already written books and want to write more. So having that partnership that gives us national distribution in many cases, global distribution through Simon & Schuster is really a great asset.

We're fans of Ali Trowbridge, who started Copper Books and is the CEO, and she's very tight with many members of our senior management. And we're excited. We're -- it will take us time just like with Graviteur and just like with DealMaker to build up a pipeline of things that would otherwise go through this partnership, a book that's already been written and finished in the last 6 months already has a distribution partner. So it will take a little bit of time to create the get the water through the pipes, so to speak.

But it's a great tool for us to have. It's something different from any competitor in the PR space or the influencer space that we know of and it could become a nice little resource for us, too, to who knows, identify new clients that we can offer this to that sways them to hire our marketing firms for it because, of course, we'll be marketing those books as well. So it might take a minute.

Maybe we'd have something to say on Q3, I would imagine by the time we get to the 10-K next year, we'll be able to talk about it more in depth, but it's another -- of the 3 announcements we made in the first half of the year that speak to the upside potential of having built this group, DealMaker, Copper Books and Graviteur. That's how we see all of them. They're great in their own right, and they're additionally great business development for us because they're differentiated. No one competitor of any of our companies has any of those 3 capabilities. So we're pretty excited for all 3.

There were no other questions in queue at this time. I would now like to hand the call back to Bill O'Dowd for closing remarks.

Well, thank you. And thank you, everybody, for listening. We're continuing to build, as you heard, and get every quarter is 3 months closer to the happy days of the free cash flow from the leases that expire in the second half of the year now in next year. And 1 year after that, we're finished paying off our bank loan that was used to make those acquisitions that built this super group.

So brick by brick, as I say. And we're entering our fun season. The second half of the year is always better for us than the first half of the year. And many of our companies surge, as I said, between September and December. TDD, the digital apartment is certainly one of them. 42West is another. And of course, those two are our biggest revenue companies.

So when they swing up, the whole company swings up. But many of our companies are having a great start to the second half of the year. Sure Fire is doing very, very well, to name a leader for us. And we're excited to report our numbers in November. So with that said, I look forward to speaking to everybody again then. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, James Carbonara with Hayden Investor Relations. James, the floor is yours.

Thank you, operator, and once again, good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual results. Please refer to the forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release published today as well as the most recent SEC filings and reports.

During the call, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA or loss. The company believes that these will provide helpful information for investors. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release. Now I would like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin. Bill, please proceed.

Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. As always, I'll start by walking through the key highlights from our first quarter, and then Mirta will take you through the detailed financials before we open it up for your questions.

For those who have followed Dolphin for a while, you know that our business has a very natural seasonality to it. The first quarter is historically our lightest and our revenue tends to build as the year goes on, usually peaking in a very strong fourth quarter.

With that seasonal context in mind, we are pleased with our start to 2026. On the top line, total revenue grew 5.2% to $12.8 million. To give you just a quick flavor of what that growth looks like on the ground, our agencies have been at the absolute center of pop culture this year. Our powerhouse subsidiaries led major brand activations during Super Bowl 60, and we dominated the award circuit. 42West and Shore Fire Media clients took come honors at the Grammys, and we celebrated an Oscar win for Best Documentary feature at the Academy Awards.

We also had a massive presence in South by Southwest with a company record 16 world premier titles, and we are seeing fantastic cross-agency collaboration like The Door and Shore Fire teaming up to launch the new hospitality concept, Pawn Shop in Los Angeles. But where I really want to focus your attention today is on our profitability and our cash flow potential.

For the first quarter, we reduced our adjusted EBITDA loss from last year's first quarter by 25% year-over-year. When we calculate adjusted EBITDA, we add back onetime and nonrecurring items, along with our significant noncash amortization costs that come from expensing the intangible assets we acquired through the years of building our marketing Super Group.

We do this because it strips out the noise and gives you a much clearer, more accurate picture of our true cash flow potential. And the takeaway there is that our core business is operating more efficiently, driving that 25% improvement. While Q1 has historically resulted in an adjusted EBITDA loss, it's also worth noting that in full year 2025, our adjusted EBITDA was a positive $2.9 million. This speaks to the seasonality in our business that I mentioned at the top of my remarks.

We certainly hope to beat that adjusted EBITDA result this year. Taking a step back, the broader thesis we laid out on our last call remains entirely intact. After several years of aggressive acquisitions and growth-related investments, Dolphin has built the infrastructure. We are now in the phase where we get to reap the benefits of that work. We operate in incredibly hot sectors.

And with our rising profitability and very low capital expenditure requirements, we expect to generate significant free cash flow going forward. It's also worth reminding everyone that we are sitting on approximately $127 million in federal and state net operating loss carryforwards. Because of those NOLs, we pay very little in cash taxes.

That means as our EBITDA grows, it translates almost directly into free cash flow. And since our management team and insiders hold a substantial stake in the company, you can be sure we are deeply aligned with our shareholders in driving long-term value. Looking ahead to the rest of this year to next year and beyond, we are incredibly enthusiastic.

Alongside the organic growth we expect from our agencies, we have several major catalysts lined up. First, we are making strides with our dealmaker partnership. We are having good conversations and are targeting having our first deal on the market later this year. This is a perfect example of a catalyst that leverages our existing marketing acumen and carries highly attractive margins.

Second, we just announced earlier today the launch of a publishing and print venture with Copper Books and Simon & Schuster. This gives us the ability to offer premium book publishing services to our clients, whether that's a children's book, James Carbonara's favorite, a cook book or a novel.

The best part of this model is that Dolphin puts up 0 capital, but we receive 15% of the revenue. It's exactly the kind of capital-light venture we'd love to pursue. Finally, we want to reiterate 2 massive contractual catalysts that will fundamentally change our free cash flow profile.

First, we expect to realize about $1 million in annualized lease savings when our large legacy leases in New York and Los Angeles expire before the end of 2027.

Second, our bank debt matures in roughly 2.5 years. Paying that off will save us almost $2.2 million annually in principal and interest. Combined, that is over $3 million in annual cash flow savings that we expect will flow almost entirely to our bottom line. In short, the infrastructure is built.

We expect continued revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion throughout 2026, and we are very excited to watch our incremental revenue flow disproportionately to the bottom line. With that, I will turn the call over to Mirta Negrini, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through the numbers. Mirta?

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now review our first quarter 2026 financial results. Total revenue for the 3 months ended March 31, 2026, was $12.8 million, an increase of 5.2% from $12.2 million in the prior year same quarter.

Our operating loss was $2.1 million for the first quarter of 2026 compared to an operating loss of $1.8 million for the same period in 2025. Operating expenses for Q1 2026 were $14.9 million. As Bill noted, this included unusual items, specifically $900,000 in legal and professional fees, as well as a onetime direct cost of $700,000 related to a distribution guarantee for Youngblood.

This compares to operating expenses of $13.9 million in Q1 2025, which included acquisition costs of approximately $400,000. Both periods included noncash depreciation and amortization expenses of roughly $500,000 and $600,000, respectively.

Net loss for Q1 2026 was $2.7 million compared to a net loss of $2.3 million in Q1 of 2025. Basic and diluted loss per share for Q1 2026 was $0.22 based on 12.3 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to a basic and diluted loss per share of $0.21 in Q1 2025 based on 11.2 million weighted average shares outstanding.

Finally, turning to adjusted EBITDA. After adding back noncash items like depreciation and amortization as well as the onetime Youngblood guarantee and the unusually high legal fees related to outstanding litigation, our adjusted EBITDA loss for Q1 2026 was approximately $467,000. This represents a 25% improvement compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $625,000 in Q1 2025, reflecting the underlying strength of our core operations.

With that, I'll now turn it back to the operator to open the floor for questions. Operator, would you please poll for questions?

[Operator Instructions] And we have a question from Derek Greenberg from Maxim Group.

I wanted to start with just the Dealmaker partnership. At the beginning of the call, Bill, you had mentioned you expect to announce your first deal from that later this year. I was wondering if you could just update us. I think on the last call, you had said that deals should generate around 6-figure fees per deal.

I was wondering, a, if that math is still correct, if that's what you're seeing? And then b, as we move forward, kind of just what your expectations are with that partnership in terms of like maybe deals per year or just how you think about how that can contribute to the business overall?

Sure. Thanks, Derek, for the question. We had a very nice, let's say, vetting call with dealmaker at the end of April, sourcing or sharing the source deals that we have to evaluate and talk about what we like, what they like, which ones we think are ready for market.

It gives me the confidence to believe we'll be able to announce our first deal maybe even before our next earnings call, but certainly have a deal in market by the end of the year. We have a couple that we're all very excited about. With that said, I do believe that each of these deals will result in the 6 figures per year to Dolphin in marketing revenue.

And I also believe that we want to -- that we'll be able to get to multiple deals per year in the market. We're going to test with the first one, go through the process together, have that deal in market alone, not trying to do 2 deals at once to start, but get the rhythm down and go from there. So it will impact later this year in a positive way, and then it will be a real driver for us in 2027.

Okay. Great. And then on one of the other catalysts you had mentioned with today's announcement of the partnership with Copper Books. You had said you expect to get 15% of revenue with 0 capital. I was wondering, is that in relation to like a publishing deal? Or is that like book sales, how you think about that revenue? And then just overall, your expectations for that partnership and kind of getting your pipeline of talent activated within that partnership?

Yes. This is a real nice to have for us. We have many clients across most of our companies, quite frankly, that have either published books already, they're established authors or want to. And the ability to offer this service to guide them to a national distribution deal through Simon & Schuster is something that really separates us, gives us a little bit of extra reason for the clients to want to either sign with us as a business development tool or retain our clients because we can offer services like this. We'll see the uptake. It's all net positive.

As you can see, no investment from Dolphin in this relationship. So from that sense, it's -- anything is additive. We'll see how many take us up on it and how much it grows over time. But the publishing industry, in general, the book world is something that we have a couple of irons in the fire on that we think can be very additive to Dolphin and it's entertainment, right? And it's something that our companies are already experienced at promoting and marketing.

Each of our marketing companies have helped launch books or clients with books or held events for book launches. So it's a natural extension for us and Copper Books is a trusted source. Alli Trowbridge who had founded Copper Books is a dear friend of many of us within the company, and she has a fabulous business and Simon & Schuster is obviously one of the big publishers. So we're excited for it and looking forward to seeing where it will go.

Okay. Great. And just on that 15% revenue, if you could just clarify if that was like publishing deal between author and the publisher, if it's book sales, just with that number, how to think about revenue.

Yes, that will be 15% of the authors keep. So -- and/or any consulting fees that are required to get the book into market. So that's what that represents.

Okay. Great. And then I wanted to ask about the Youngblood movie. I had 2 questions there. First, if there is just any revenue from this quarter that was related to the Premier and box office run for Youngblood. And then my other question is just if there's been any updates on a potential streaming deal or your expectations there?

Sure. Yes. We recognized $450,000 of revenue in this quarter from U.S. sales of Youngblood, which is nice.

And in terms of the streaming sale, I'll go to the middle part, if I could, sorry, after the theatrical release, we put a movie out for pay-per-view. It did enter pay-per-view through a sub-distribution deal with Universal. We've been told that the first month was looking good, a few hundred thousand in sales. We'll get a full report in the next 30 days, which I could share, of course, on the second quarter earnings call.

But we're going to try and use that positive result from the pay-per-view sales to help drive a favorable streaming deal for ourselves. So we're waiting on that report. And then hopefully, we'll have something to share about a streaming sale on the Q2 earnings call.

Okay. Great. That's super helpful. And could you touch on just how the revenue share for the pay-per-view works?

Yes. Typically -- and in this case, we'll receive somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% to 50% of that revenue when there's a sub-distributor like that of Universal after they take their fee for doing that.

That could be offset by marketing costs from the first month or 2 of revenue. But as a general rule of thumb, I think you could probably expect something like that in that range.

Got it. I wanted to turn to another initiative you guys had, I think, towards the end of last year, just on the [indiscernible] Intelligence and your marketing initiatives. I was wondering just how that's progressing and what you're seeing?

Yes. That's run by Mark Anderson, who has spoken on a few panels in the last couple of months, I think, on this topic and is as big a -- and I say this with love, as big a geek on this topic as anybody I know and certainly in the broader industry that we work in.

And the clients have expressed a strong interest in this service. I think we've signed our first couple of clients to do what we call the audit, where we go in and effectively audit the results when people search in the general area that, that client works in to show them if they're showing up on AI searches.

And if not, why not? And so that we can take remedial action. So it started, and we think the momentum will pick up. Mark will be with me, and we'll have about 8 of our team members across Dolphin at the Cannes Lions Marketing Conference. It's in Cannes, France at the end of June, not to be confused with the Cannes Film Festival that started today.

But the Cannes Marketing Festival, I would say that AI and influencer marketing are the 2 twin topics that probably are between them 90% of the conversation in marketing today.

The use of AI and the rise -- the continued growth of influencer marketing. So we have members of our influencer marketing team going to that conference. We have members of our consumer products team. We have Mark from our Dolphin Intelligence team. I'll be there. So our Chief of Staff will be there. So it will be a good conference for us, and I would expect we'll have some more momentum behind Dolphin Intelligence coming out of that, the biggest conference of the year.

Okay. Great. I guess just my last question. I was curious how you think about potential M&A from here. Obviously, it was a huge part of your past and history, but I was wondering now that you view the platform is largely built out, if you still plan to opportunistically pursue M&A or just if you have any thoughts on that front?

Sure. Yes, I guess you will never say never, right? But I don't know of a single acquisition in the pipeline today. If something comes across our desk or if there's a skill set that -- who knows where the world is going, right? If there's a skill set we determine that we need, we could go back into the market.

We certainly haven't forgotten how to acquire companies, but we're more focused today on our deal maker partnership on our venture, so to speak, that can create disproportionate upside for us along with our organic growth, of course. That has always been the mousetrap that we were trying to build. That was a better mousetrap, so to speak, right? If we could build this group to a certain scale and have it grow organically, so our profits are growing every year, both revenue and profits.

But that we could -- once the group was finished, so we had enough horizontal scale across earned media to provide a suite of marketing services that would influence the outcome of ventures that we pursue that we could take ownership stakes in, then that's the better mousetrap, right? Because some of these deal maker type opportunities or some of these ventures that we're evaluating now, they're 10x, maybe more.

So that's what we want to pursue and quite frankly, a better use of our opportunity cost than incremental acquisitions would be in our view.

And there are no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to hand the call back to CEO, Bill O'Dowd, for closing remarks.

Well, sure. Thank you. And the closing remarks after Q1 usually start with -- I know we just spoke 6 weeks ago. So we have the short sand here and nothing major to report since we last spoke after our phenomenal Q4 to end 2025. We'll get back into our normal rhythm now speaking again in 90 days.

And I think in that type of time frame, we may have something exciting to talk about 1 or 2 things and certainly an update on our deal maker partnership. So as I mentioned, those are the huge opportunities that we see in our future, big catalysts for us coming out of that.

But in the meantime, the blocking and tackling of just incrementally doing better per quarter year-over-year. And each quarter gets us 1 quarter closer to those cash savings that I've really talked quite a bit about on our last couple of calls with the leases expiring and the term loan being paid off. It's going to free up a lot of cash flow for us, and that's always exciting, too. So thank you, everybody, for the time and look forward to talking to you in 90 days.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you once again for your participation.

Greetings. Welcome to Dolphin Entertainment's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, James Carbonara, from Hayden IR. James, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. .

These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual results. Please refer to the forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release published today as well as the most recent SEC filings and reports. During the call today, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA or loss. The company believes that these will provide helpful information for investors. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin. Bill, please proceed.

Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. As usual, I'll start by reviewing key financial and operating highlights from our fourth quarter, and then Mirta will provide a more detailed financial overview before we open it up for Q&A. .

Well, 2025 mark the next stage of evolution for Dolphin. We uplisted to NASDAQ in 2017 with an investment that is based upon an acquisition strategy. And for the next 8 years, we executed on that strategy by acquiring industry-leading companies across multiple entertainment marketing verticals. We have been extremely busy acquiring these businesses integrating their teams and building the infrastructure to support a larger organization. This past year, the first without a major acquisition, that work started paying off in a meaningful way, and I believe it offers a glimpse into our future a future, we find very exciting. Let me start with the headline numbers because they tell a compelling story.

Full year revenue grew approximately 10% to $56.7 million. Fourth quarter revenue was $15.6 million, up 27% year-over-year. That kind of quarterly acceleration heading into the new year is significant. It was also entirely organic. We had the same companies in Q4 of 2024 that we had in Q4 of 2025, and our revenue was up 27% year-over-year.

But what I really want to focus your attention on today is profitability and cash flow because that is where the Dolphin story gets very interesting. Full year adjusted EBITDA reached $2.9 million, which is up over 200% from $900,000 in 2024. And to more than triple your adjusted EBITDA on 10% revenue growth also tells you something important about the operating leverage embedded in this business. We have built a platform that can grow the top line and convert an outsized portion of each incremental dollar of revenue into profit. The fourth quarter was an exclamation point on the year. Q4 adjusted EBITDA came in at $1.7 million compared to a loss of $0.5 million in Q4 of 2024.

That is a $2.2 million swing in a single quarter year-over-year. It demonstrates that when our agencies are performing and our revenue is flowing, the profitability of this business model is powerful. I want to emphasize something that I think is underappreciated by the market. Dolphin requires very little capital expenditure to operate. We are a people and relationships business. We don't have factories. We don't have heavy equipment we don't carry meaningful inventory. So when we generate incremental EBITDA, that incremental EBITDA translates almost directly into free cash flow. And here is the other critical piece. Dolphin has significant federal and state net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $127 million.

So as Dolphin begins to grow its adjusted EBITDA, those NOLs will substantially shield our cash payments for taxes for years to come. So when I say that EBITDA converts almost directly into free cash flow, I mean it, we have $127 million of NOLs, and we do not have significant capital expenditure requirements. Growing EBITDA Dolphin means growing free cash flow, and that is a lens through which I'd encourage investors to evaluate this company. Let me address something directly that I know is always top of mind for investors and companies our size. Our management team, including myself and other senior leaders, owns a significant percentage of outstanding shares. We are deeply aligned with our shareholders.

We eat our own cooking and our incentive is squarely on building long-term value per share Okay. I also want to spend some real time on our partnership with Dealmaker because I believe this is one of the most exciting developments in Dolphin's history, and a meaningful growth catalyst for us. For those who are not familiar, dealmaker is the clear market leader in online capital raising.

They have raised more than $2.4 billion through their platform which automates the entire capital raising life cycle from investor acquisition and compliance to payments and ongoing engagement. They are the dominant force in community capital, and they are headquartered in New York. In February, we announced our strategic partnership with Dealmaker that is designed to unlock community capital for celebrity, influencer and entertainment-led consumer product and lifestyle companies. This is a powerful combination. Dealmaker brings the leading capital raising platform and Dolphin brings the entertainment industry's premier marketing group, along with decades of deep relationships across traditional Hollywood, with talent managers and agents as well as the creator economy and entertainment entrepreneurs. Here's here's why this matters so much strategically.

Celebrity and influencer-led businesses have been creating successful consumer brands for decades. What is fundamentally different today is a modern capital formation tools allow companies to directly align capital, customers and community and a single integrated process. Regulation A and Regulation CF offerings allow everyday consumers and fans to invest directly in the brands they love. Dealmakers platform makes that process seamless, and Dolphin's marketing capabilities are expected to make those raises even more successful by building awareness, cultural relevance and engage communities around them. So how will it work? Under the partnership, Dolphin and dealmaker will source opportunities, both within Dolphin's own roster and across our expansive network.

We are targeting consumer products and lifestyle brands primarily at growth and expansion stages as well as established businesses pursuing their next phase of scale. The collaboration is designed so that Dolphin earns fees for marketing services rendered in connection with these capital raises as well as the opportunity to receive ownership stakes in the products or companies themselves. Critically, these opportunities are expected to acquire little to no capital outlay from Dolphin. We are deploying our capabilities, our relationships and our platform, not our balance sheet. I want to be clear about the size of the opportunity.

The online capital raising market has been growing rapidly. Regulation A offerings alone have raised billions of dollars in recent years. and celebrity and influencer affiliated brands are among the highest performing categories and community capital raises because they come with built-in audiences, brand loyalty and social proof. Dolphin is uniquely positioned here because no other company combines our breadth of entertainment marketing services, our depth of talent and creator relationships and our experience building and scaling culture-driven brands. When you pair that with dealmakers technology and incredible track record, you have a partnership that can become the go-to solution for any entertainment or entertainment adjacent brand looking to raise capital from its community. We are in the early stages of building the pipeline, and I expect to have more to share in the coming quarters, but I want investors to understand the structural advantages of this business line. It is recurring in nature as capital raises unfold over weeks and months with ongoing marketing support.

It leverages our existing team and infrastructure, so the incremental margin profile is very attractive, and it expands our addressable market beyond traditional PR and marketing retainers into the capital markets ecosystem, which is a much larger pool of economic activity. Dealmakers CEO, [indiscernible] said well, when we announced the partnership. [indiscernible] ability to turn cultural relevance into market impact makes Dolphin an ideal partner. We agree, and we are excited to execute on this together. Okay. I also want to touch on Dolphin Intelligence. The new division we launched in December focused on AI-driven marketing strategy and execution.

The core insight behind Dolphin intelligence is very straightforward. Generative AI and large language models are trained primarily on editorial reference and user-generated content rather than on traditional advertising. That means brands with rich credible earned media footprints are the ones most likely to be surfaced, cited and recommended in AI-generated answers. This has created what we believe is a new golden age for earned media and earned media is exactly what Dolphin has built its reputation on since we uplisted to NASDAQ. Dolphin Intelligence offers a suite of new services, including generative engine optimization and AI engine optimization strategy, AI readiness audits and proprietary frameworks that help brands rethink their media mix to show up in the places where AI systems are looking. We have partnered with Otterly AI to power the measurement and analytics side giving clients real-time visibility into how and where they appear inside AI-generated results.

This division is led by Mark Anderson, a creative industry veteran with nearly 30 years of experience at the intersection of technology and creativity. The services are designed to complement our existing publicity, influencers and social capabilities, not replace them and they create new billable opportunities that expand our share of wallet with existing clients while attracting entirely new categories of business. We see Dolphin Intelligence as both a revenue growth driver and an internal efficiency tool. As we apply AI to our own workflows across the agency portfolio, we improve our operating margins.

And as we sell AI-focused advisory and strategy services to clients, we had incremental high-margin revenue. It is still early, but the client interest has been strong, and we believe this positions often well as marketing budgets are reallocated toward AI readiness. Beyond dealmaker and Dolphin Intelligence, we continue to pursue selective disciplined venture investments that require little to no upfront cash. We contribute our capabilities rather than our capital, and we look for opportunities with asymmetric upside. Young blood is a good example. This is a feature film we produced, and we later partnered with the Los Angeles Kings with no upfront cash outlay from Dolphin. The theatrical window may have underperformed, but we are straightforward about that.

The real opportunity has always been in the streaming and digital distribution tail and those windows are still ahead of us. given our cost basis in the project, we feel good about the risk reward from here. That is the model, contribute expertise, not capital and pursue opportunities where the downside is limited, and the upside is real. Expect us to stay disciplined and capital light in everything we do.

Let me give you some directional commentary on 2026 because I know that for a microcap like Dolphin, the more visibility we can provide, the easier it is for investors to underwrite the opportunity. We expect continued revenue growth in 2026. On an organic basis, we expect growth to continue across our agency portfolio with additional contributions from dealmaker related marketing engagements and Dolphin Intelligence Services as those ramp in the second half of the year. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to continue.

At 5% adjusted EBITDA margin in 2025, we believe we are just getting started. The infrastructure is built and incremental revenue carries high flow-through. We expect adjusted EBITDA to grow significantly faster than revenue again in 2026 just as it did in 2025. As noted in my earlier remarks, we have $127 million of federal and state NOLs, and we do not have significant capital expenditure requirements. We believe the free cash flow profile of this company at scale is what ultimately drives long-term equity value, and we believe 2026 will continue the beginning of that inflection.

I also want to note that our business has seasonality to it. Historically, our first quarter tends to be our lightest with revenue building through the year so that the fourth quarter typically becomes our strongest. That pattern is fairly consistent year-to-year, and I want to make sure investors have that context as they build their models. We are genuinely excited about what the rest of this year, 20 next year, 2027, and beyond hold for Dolphin. Finally, let me walk you through some of those catalysts because when you stack them up, the picture is [indiscernible]. First, continued organic growth and margin expansion across our agency portfolio.

Second, incremental revenue from the delinker partnership as the pipeline of liberty and influencer-led capital raises builds a business line that leverages our existing capabilities and carries attractive margins; third, growing adoption of Dolphin Intelligence Services as AI reshapes marketing budgets. Fourth, approximately $1 million in expected annualized lease savings beginning at the end of this year when our current New York leases roll off. Los Angeles ends at the end of next year in 2027. And because of our NOL position, nearly all of those expected savings will flow directly to the bottom line. This is not speculative. These are contractual lease expirations with known economics. Fifth and finally, full repayment of our bank debt within approximately 2.5 years September 29, 2028, if anybody wants to mark their calendar like I do. And that will happen then, if not sooner, reducing interest expense and freeing up additional cash. We feel very good about where we are. Years of acquisitions have allowed us to build a cross-selling powerhouse that we believe has achieved both vertical scale and earned media and horizontal scale across pop culture. We believe we are now in the phase where those investments are producing returns, and we expect those returns will accelerate. And we have enough scale to be able to take meaningful swings at venture catalysts that require little to no capital from us. It's exciting.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Mirta Negrini, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through the financial details. Mirta

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon. I will walk through our full year 2025 financial results and recent highlights. Total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025, was $56.7 million, an increase of 10% from $51.7 million in the prior year. Operating loss was $39.5 for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to an operating loss of $10.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. Operating expenses for the year 2025 were $56.7 million, including noncash expenses of $2.4 million from depreciation and amortization. This compares to operating expenses of $62.2 million in 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $2.4 million and nonrecurring or noncash expenses of $8 million, consisting of a $6.7 million goodwill impairment and $1.3 million write-off of notes receivable. Net loss for 2025 was approximately $3.1 million, including noncash expenses of approximately $2.4 million from depreciation amortization and nonrecurring net expense of $0.5 million related to the acquisition costs, debt extinguishment costs and a gain on the sale of a subsidiary.

This compares to a net loss of $12.6 million in 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $2.4 million and nonrecurring and noncash expenses of approximately $8 million primarily consisting of a $6.7 million goodwill impairment and a $1.3 million write-off of not receivable. Basic and diluted loss per share for the year 2025 was $0.27 based on 11,558,485 weighted average shares compared to basic and diluted loss per share in 2024 of $1.22 based on 10,306,904 weighted average shares outstanding. Adjusted EBITDA for full year 2025 was $2.9 million compared to $0.9 million in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 2025 was $1.7 million compared to adjusted EBIT loss of $0.5 million in Q4 2024.

With that, I'll now turn it back to the operator to open the floor for questions. Operator, would you please poll for questions?

[Operator Instructions] And the first question today is coming from Derek Greenberg from Maxim Group.

Congrats on the quarter. I wanted to ask about just the dealmaker partnership you had outlined I was wondering if you could touch a little bit more in terms of the revenue opportunities from that. You had mentioned marketing and equity, but I was wondering maybe if you could get a little more granular in terms of how that's tied directly to deal flow and how those opportunities will be sourced just the inbound outbound process?

Sure. Yes. We're we're pretty happy with Q4, as you can imagine, right? Deal maker, yes. Well, first, a couple of pieces of context, dealmaker represents to us a partner that allows us to scale a massive opportunity in our business, which is to launch consumer products with our own clients, whether individuals or companies or to attract new clients because we have the ability to partner with dealmaker and raise the capital to launch new products. The ecosystem of capital fundraising for raises under $5 million is very small, many investment banks or funds won't fund in amounts of $0.5 million, $1 million, $2 million.

Yet those are the exact amounts that it usually takes to launch a liquor brand, a cosmetics brand or oftentimes consumer products and other verticals to have a partner like a deal maker that could help us raise that money for our clients and then be able to do the follow-on raises, and participate in raises that in success, those brands need another $2 million to $5 million, 12 to 18 months later and then another $5 million to $10 million, 12 to 18 months after that. it was very exciting for us. In these raises, we would get a marketing fee for promoting the product, of course, during the fundraising process. And what we're also doing is we're building the strength of our clients and on our future clients. because we would obviously only look to do partnerships wherein our group was marketing that brand.

So -- and part of the use of proceeds of the fund raise could be for the marketing campaigns that are creating the strategy for and then would be asked to execute upon. So I would imagine that in most cases, those marketing campaigns would be in the 6 figures per year per brand. We would certainly expect that. In terms of deal flow in, the reception in traditional Hollywood to the fact that Dolphin has now partnered with the leading online community, fundraising platform has been very welcoming.

We -- I've done 3 or 4 meetings with our most traditional talent agency partner. I have a call later tonight on a potential brand that would like to use the service with a well and influencer fronting it. So we expect a very strong and robust pipeline from our friends in the community, the Hollywood community, but we have our own clients and brands that we work with also that could benefit from this service. So the deal flow should not be a problem for us. Was that helpful?

Yes, that's very helpful. I guess just one more on that. Generally, what do you expect the length of deals to be -- and who's typically the investors that are buying these deals?

Sure. Well, I'll use a Reg CF offering. And I realize that today's earnings call is probably the most business school speak earnings call we've ever done, right? But many people are probably familiar with Reg CF and Reg A, their regulations that came into effect with the Jobs Act. Maybe years ago or so. Reg CF allows you to raise up to $5 million per raise every 12 months with 1 company or brand. And typically, we look at taking 6 to 8 weeks preproduction, as we would call it, in the movie business, but assembling the paperwork and filing since these are registered securities offerings. .

So let's say, 2 months of prework. And then once the raise goes live online, we would look to complete the raise in full within 4 months typically. Dealmakers average is that, if not a little less. And their success rate is off the charts. I believe in the last few years, it's been over -- well over 90% of all raises started have been completed successfully, which is just unheard of, right. In that world the -- I say the typical investment size is probably $1,000 to $2,000. You're building an online community. People invest $2,000 each and just raise $4 million. So that's why the marketing of the offering is so important, both the performance ad marketing capabilities of deal maker with their own in-house agency and then combine it with the earned media, the PR and the influencer marketing of Dolphin, and you have a pretty compelling case for creating awareness of the fund raise?

Okay. Got it. Very helpful. And then on a related note, just your venture portfolio. I was wondering if you had any timing on your end in terms of when you think to add addition ventures, if there's a target for the year and as well as if there's just any potential monetization events on the horizon as well.

Sure. Well, I mean, obviously, the dealmaker strategic partnership allows us to go faster and broader with potential venture opportunities once we ramp it up. So we're about a month into the partnership. We've given ourselves a 60-day window to go through all the different processes together and then start vetting the first most promising deals that come in through our pipeline. So we would expect to do that vetting but somewhere start the process, I should say, somewhere in the second half of April, maybe near the month -- at the end of the month of April.

And dealmaker has an internal scoring metric. Dolphin has our own process of evaluating these opportunities. And I would hope to be in market with the first one this summer. And instead of doing 1 to 2 in a 12-month period, I think it will be 2% to 3%, we would hope, if not more. But as we ramp it up, I think we'll get faster and stronger in subsequent years because we'll have gone through the process together. And in terms of which types of products. We're certainly looking at traditional verticals that entertainers typically have fronted over time.

So obviously, liquids in general. We have a couple of those in the pipeline and that may be liquor, it may not, right? Again, I've definitely talked extensively about our desire to have skin care and cosmetics. And then really beyond that, ties into categories where you traditionally see especially influencers and influencers of scale, people with followings of $5 million, $10 million, $15 million can play in areas from suntan lotion to wellness products would be another category to, I guess, even sports adjacent consumer products. those would be areas that we would focus on athletes are certainly an area that we would look is on as well.

Okay. Great. And then turning to the other new department of the business, the AI of [indiscernible] segment you've laid out. Can you maybe just talk a bit about how you expect that to contribute to growth and just the opportunity you see with current customers?

Sure. Yes, we see that as additive as I was trying to indicate in the pared remarks, our existing clients we expect we'll have an interest in receiving the services of Mark's division, starting with doing an audit of how to show up now in generative AI searches and also an audit of how they're seen by the large language models or not seen. It's a very simple test, and it's pretty powerful in the room with the CMO or a brand marketing team to just simply enter into Chat GPT or into quad or whichever engine you want to use, what do you think of brand XYZ or I'm shopping for a tomato sauce. What are the 3 -- what are your 3 favorite ones, right? What are the 3 best tomato sauces out there, et cetera, and just see where the brand comes up? Since consumer behavior has started to shift and actually ask those types of questions at the moment of purchase in the grocery store and in front of the aisle and not just entering the search, but maybe taking a picture of the offerings on the shelves, and entering that same question into a search engine, I think most of the brands we've spoken to understand the incredible importance of strategizing their generative AI approach to the market.

And that idea of going to the existing clients with that capability and just becoming even more of a trusted partner to them. And then secondly, quite frankly, just like deal maker, Dolphin Intelligence is a business development tool for us. We can approach people that we would like to be in business with and talk about not just the incredible earned media powerhouse that's been built with Shore fire with the door with 42 West with special projects and what the group can do, and that cross-selling is obviously working given our numbers, right? But now we can add on capabilities that in the case of Dolphin Intelligence, very few marketing companies have and certainly in the earned media space. And then in the case of deal maker, I'm unaware of any marketing company that's got a strategic partnership like what we have with Deal maker. And so we believe that those will be real differentiating factors as we go attract new, bigger customers as well and with bigger budgets.

Okay. Got it. That's really interesting. One more just on the Youngblood, you talked about the biggest opportunities up ahead with selling the streaming rates. I was wondering how that process is going and potential time line or expectations relative to box office performance?

Yes. On independent movies like this and much like with our Blue Angels typically, your streaming sale is larger than your box office and sometimes 2 or 3x larger in Blue Angel's case, it was 5x larger. I don't know what it will be with young blood. We'll find out. We've presented the film to all the major streaming services through our distribution partner, [indiscernible]. And in addition to the streaming sale, we have a second window as we call it, even before the streaming sale, which is what we call electronic sell-through or pay-per-view. So when you go on to Amazon or Apple or or wherever and you can rent or buy the a few weeks or months before it hits the streaming service. That's what we buy that window. That window is opening up here at the end of the month. of March.

So we'll have a better indication by the time we get to our Q1 earnings call in the middle of May, how that window did and where we stand with the streaming sale. That's what we've modeled for this film was higher revenue in those 2 categories on a what we call a programmer like this. This is a very popular genre very commercial type of property, a hockey movie, right, sports movie in general.

Yes. That makes sense. Last question. just overall performance this year, double-digit organic growth. Do you think that level is sustainable going forward? .

From your mouth to God's ears, Derik. We're certainly going to get -- try as hard as we can. I do believe we're going to grow every year just organically like this. I'm very pleased with last year. Obviously, we surged in the fourth quarter more than even projected. 27% year-over-year revenue growth is is incredible for a company like ours. But what I think we were indicating in the prepared remarks that I feel strongly about is that we do anticipate that if we're with each incremental dollar of revenue, we would believe that much of it will fall to the bottom line, and therefore, our margin expansion will continue to grow as well. We hit 5% last year, which is fantastic, again, coming from years of acquisition and building a group that would eventually earn enough to overcome the cost of being public, which is where we asked and now 5% margin, we're striving for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, right, and keep growing our margin expansion.

So as the revenue grows, whether it stays at 27%, will win out, right? But it should -- any incremental revenue growth should have an outsized importance on the margin expansion. And ultimately, we think we're going to be judged by our profitability and our free cash flow. So you combine that margin expansion with the cash flow catalysts that we outlined as well, a reduction in these expenses in both New York and L.A. We'll have offices in New York and L.A., but they certainly won't be as expensive as the rents that were predate COVID. And then, of course, just simply the free cash flow we're going to save or generate, excuse me, from paying off our term loan with the bank. Obviously, we have the cash of the principal, but we'll also have the profit enhancement by not paying the interest on that loan. So we're excited about those and what we're always on the horizon, that horizon has just gotten a lot closer, Derek, right? We're in March of 26. Our New York leases up in December. Our L.A. lease is up in November of 27 and our bank loan mature September 28. So it's like 3 Domino's in 3 straight years. And the end of those Domino's is only 2.5 years away. So we're pretty confident that we're going to have a pretty good cash flow engine that's already started in the fourth quarter and all of 25 really, but we'll continue to accelerate because of those cash catalysts as well.

Congrats.

There were no other questions in queue at this time. I will now hand the call back to Bill O'Dowd for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, and it's always nice to do the annual earnings call with good news like this. Also, it gave me a chance to dust off my ability to speak to school and going through things like adjusted EBITDA margin expansion, free cash flow catalysts, but we are proud to present these results. They're the work and the hard work of operating subsidiaries that performed very well last year. The credit goes to them and our outstanding leadership like Maryland Liberty, like Los Amelie, like Charlie, [indiscernible], like Amanda Lumberg, like Nicole [indiscernible] like Emerson Davis, like [indiscernible] Ali Grant, like Kirsten Weinberg, like [indiscernible], like [indiscernible] and if we're lucky enough to have a strong year in '26, growing as fast as we did last year, then we're going to be pretty blessed. And in addition to that organic growth, obviously, I wanted to share why we feel the strategic partnership with deal maker is in its own right, a vehicle and a catalyst for Dolphin to realize its true potential because it allows us to have an approach to capital raising that will allow us to achieve the vision of building this group in the first place, which was for us to be able to take ownership stakes in some of the assets that we're marketing. .

And we're very excited about that partnership. Rebecca Cacaba is a true leader in that field. And if you're ever going to do community fundraising to Regulation CF or Regulation A, I would love to know what is more understandable by the general public market than the consumer product category and especially if it's led with either an entertainment property or an entertainment individual. So I think we're extremely well positioned strategically for that partnership to be very successful. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. It's a quick turn. We'll be speaking again in 6 weeks in May about our Q1, and I look forward to it. So thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, James Carbonara, Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual results. Please refer to a cautionary text forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release published today as well as the most recent SEC filings and reports.

During the call today, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted operating income or loss. The company believes that these will provide helpful information for investors. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release. Now I would like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin. Bill, please go ahead.

Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. As usual, I'll start by reviewing key financial and operating highlights from our third quarter, and then Mirta will provide a more detailed financial overview before we open it up for Q&A.

Well, this is the first quarter where we can have a true year-over-year comparison after the Super Group was finished being assembled with the acquisition of Elle on July 1 of last year. We've long talked about the benefits of cross-selling within the group. How did we do? Answer, Dolphin delivered another record-setting quarter in Q3 with revenue rising 16.7% year-over-year to $14.8 million and operating income turning positive with $300,000 despite almost $600,000 of noncash amortization expenses related to our historical acquisitions.

Furthermore, the first 9 months of 2025 have now surpassed the first 9 months of 2024 in revenue despite The Blue Angels generating over $3.4 million in revenues in Q1 of 2024. In fact, Q3 2025, this most recent quarter is the second-highest revenue quarter in Dolphin's history behind only The Blue Angels fueled $15.2 million in Q1 of 2024.

Equally important, as I just mentioned, the quarter's results were entirely organic. The same agencies delivered this outstanding year-over-year revenue and operating income growth that same agencies that we had at this time last year. This healthy organic growth is the primary driver behind our continued margin expansion with adjusted operating income of a little more than $1 million or 6.9% of revenue, which is up from 4.5% in just Q2.

This performance reflects both the consistency and strength of our core subsidiaries and the growing scalability of our cross-selling operating model. Another point worth highlighting is how clean our financial statements have become. In Q3, the last of our warrants expired. Earlier this year, we recorded the last of our contingent consideration from our acquisitions. And thus, below the line, we're down to just one fair valued convertible note and our interest expense.

I remember investors telling me that our P&L was too complicated. In addition to simplifying our P&L with only 2-line items below the line, the elimination of warrants, puts, contingent consideration and virtually all fair valued convertible notes removes the constant fluctuation up or down in our net income or loss from what would be expected based on our operating results.

We knew this day would come, and here we are. In short, with our below-the-line expenses being reduced to effectively just our interest expense, we now show clearly the operational performance of the business. And it was obviously a fantastic quarter. That operational performance continues to be driven by the collective power of our agencies.

Every Dolphin subsidiary brings something unique to the table, but together, they create something far greater than the sum of their parts. This unified strength across entertainment, lifestyle, influencer, sports and digital and our ability to cross-sell these services and our reach across pop culture continues to be the engine of our growth. We also continue to advance our ventures and productions portfolio with a particular focus on not expanding our cost base.

In Q3, our anticipated feature film, Youngblood, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to overflowing screening rooms, followed by a historic collaboration with the Los Angeles Kings in what we believe is the first major promotional partnership between the NHL and the feature film in over 2 decades.

We're actively negotiating sales opportunities for Youngblood now and hope to be able to announce our selected distribution partner before the end of the calendar year, if not in just a few short weeks. Stepping back, our third quarter results represent another key milestone in Dolphin's long-term trajectory. Revenue is at record levels, margins are expanding and our balance sheet is stronger than ever.

As a long-time believer in Dolphin's vision, I've continued to invest personally, having purchased a little over 2% of our outstanding shares since just April. Furthermore, I have entered into a new 10b5-1 plan that extends my buying program through December of 2026. I continue to believe our stock price undervalues the company's proven performance, strategic positioning and the significant growth still ahead. Thank you for your time and attention today.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Mirta for a deeper dive into the financials.

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon. Total revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, was $14.8 million, an increase of 16.7% from $12.7 million in the same period last year. Operating income was $308,296 for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, compared to an operating loss of $8.2 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2024.

Adjusted operating income was approximately $1 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, as compared to an adjusted operating income of $492,620 for the same period in 2024. Operating expenses for Q3 of 2025 were $14.5 million, including depreciation and amortization of $589,388 and noncash expenses of $127,365. This compares to operating expenses of $20.8 million in Q3 of 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $636,782 and nonrecurring or noncash expenses of $8 million.

Net loss for Q3 2025 was $365,494, including depreciation and amortization of $589,388 and noncash expenses of $177,365. This compares to a net loss of $8.7 million for Q3 of 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $636,782 and nonrecurring or noncash expenses of $8 million.

Diluted loss per share for both basic and fully diluted shares in Q3 of 2025 was $0.03 per share based on 11,770,195 weighted average shares compared to net loss per basic and fully diluted shares in Q3 of 2024 of $0.80 per share based on 10,930,286 weighted average shares. With that, I'll now turn it back to the operator to open the floor for questions. Operator, please poll for questions?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is coming from Allen Klee with Maxim Group.

This is the best quarter I've seen since covering your stock, considering everything. So congratulations. Starting with the organic growth of 16.7%, could -- how do you think about organic growth kind of what were the key drivers of that? And how you think about that maybe going forward?

Sure. Thank you for the kind words to start, Allen. I would agree with you. I know Q1 last year was phenomenal because of Blue Angels. But this quarter would be the strongest in history, except for that onetime event by a large margin. And it feels good as we just built on top of Q2. Q2 was the biggest revenue quarter, I think, in history, if you exclude The Blue Angels.

So we feel the momentum, and it is organic. It's -- as I was mentioning in my prepared remarks, it's the first time since we've had the Super Group finish that you could just compare apples-to-apples. It's the same companies we had a year ago and the companies we have now. Without any onetime events, no movie released in the quarter or no jolt of revenue or expense one way or the other, you're just comparing side by side and 16.7% revenue growth.

Obviously, you can see what happened in the operating income. Our adjusted operating income, what we measure ourselves by going over $1 million for the quarter. That's simply our operating profit and adding back the amortization costs gets you to over $900,000 of that. So we feel very strong, and it's all growth at these companies. And a big driver of that is the cross-selling that they're doing, they're working with each other.

So we just feel we have great momentum. And across 7 companies, some are going to be doing better than others in any given quarter, but most of them are firing well and are going to continue that into here into Q4. And so it's just a really good feeling. The better mousetrap we hope to build when we uplist to NASDAQ of building the super group of entertainment marketing companies and using their growth as a base and that they should be able to cross-sell with each other.

We should get more clients. We should get different types of clients. We should add share of wallet from the clients we already do have is happening. And then from that base, be able to go into ventures like Youngblood and have that optionality of a Blue Angels or a Youngblood is only going to fuel this. Imagine if the Blue Angels came out in this quarter, right? We would have had revenue over $18 million. So yes, it feels great and the growth is for all the right reasons that you want to see growth, right? It was brick by brick across all the companies, not a one-off.

That's great. For 42West, well, overall, I think fourth quarter is a seasonally strong quarter, and you have a bunch of festivals that you participate in, in the fall. Could you comment on -- and I know like your clients win, you could get paid more. So how does it look for the events that you're involved in?

Yes. We have a good lineup of films this year. It's still a little too early to know how long or how well they could perform through festival season or through award season. What I will say, though, is that 42West is one of the companies doing very well for us. They had a fantastic end of summer into the fall season.

September was a very strong month. October was equally strong, if not stronger for them. And it's just carrying into Q4, which is, as you said, a very strong quarter typically for 42West in particular. And we feel bullish about Q4 this year based upon 42West being our biggest subsidiary and them having a very strong start to the quarter. So the momentum we had in Q3 will carry into Q4 for sure.

That's great. And with The Door, you highlighted Jesse Gerstein rejoining and disrupt agency. Could you comment a little on kind of what those -- both those things represent?

Yes. The Door -- our PR firms are doing well and The Door is one of them. Thank you for that. Yes, The Door is growing any way as well. But one of the strategies they're employing are acqui-hires, making strategic hires of more senior publicists that already have a handful of clients that are with them. Jesse is one of them. He came back to The Door where he had been working up until a few years ago.

And so he's a known commodity, somebody that the team loves and he brings a book of business with restaurants. And as we rebuild that practice, The Door is really diversified since COVID. You may remember that was the one of our agencies that took the hardest hit in COVID by far. I think anyone that represented restaurants in New York and L.A., Chicago and COVID is going to be pretty affected and they just built back a beautiful business, Lois and Charlie and the whole team of The Door. So Adrian Jefferson joining in January with disrupt is -- it was a key milestone for that agency as well and Jesse joining this summer.

The Doors' revenue is significantly up year-over-year and just getting stronger. And what a great diversity of clients inside that company. I mean that's the company that can represent everything from John George and his restaurant Empire to Adidas and to Häagen-Dazs and PayPal. I mean they just had some signature clients throughout the year. And so it's a special agency within our group for sure.

Great. With Shore Fire Media, I don't know if I've ever asked this, but does it also kind of -- you have some powerful clients that are doing well. How does -- or how do you think about -- how does that help you? And then how do you just think about how they're performing?

Well, it's a good example. You made me think we say powerful clients. It's hard not to -- on one hand, Shore Fire has got hundreds of clients, and they're very proud of their breadth and depth. And then it's hard not to think of Mr. Springsteen when you say powerful clients, right?

So there is a good example of cross-selling and working together, right? The film, Springsteen Road to nowhere was obviously worked on by both Shore Fire and 42West. And just those types of collaborations are occurring on far less high-profile projects with great frequency between our companies. Shore Fire's breadth, though, as you said, is just very strong.

I mean we put out the Grammys press release today, 35 nominations across our companies, 30 from Shore Fire alone and how many different categories, my goodness. They're just such a leader in that. And you read the press release and you're like, man, they've got clients that do everything. I learned a fun fact from the Shore Fire team that Tobias Jesso is up for Songwriter of the Year and works with big-name artists like Justin Bieber. He he's six-foot-seven. So I said, he could play small forward on our company team.

But the growth of Shore Fire, we've talked about it a lot over the years, and there's a company that has really grown in size since they joined Dolphin in December of 2019 and just has such a beautiful management team, layers deep, by the way. I think Marilyn Laverty would be the first to tell you that as the Founder and CEO.

And again, 42West, Shore Fire, The Door have just had such a strong year, each of them, and it really drives us when our PR firms are doing well. And it's great to see them recognized. I mean March was awesome with the #1 agency in the country by the observer, and that's not in entertainment. That's in any field. That really validated what this group of PR firms can do. But we -- it seems like every other week, we're being recognized, it's quite a humbling and rewarding fall for us.

And those awards mean something within the industry and to have a couple more, 3, 4 more this fall is really a tribute to what I think the professionals in the industry recognize, which is that these firms individually are best-in-class in the industries they serve, whether it be movies and TV for 42West or music and Shore Fire and hospitality and lifestyle in The Door and impact with Elle.

But collectively, they're unique in the industry. There just isn't another group like this across all of pop culture. And it's nice to get the awards, and I'm sure for Wall Street, it's nice to see these numbers.

And just to make sure I heard right, you were hoping for Youngblood to be able to announce something before the end of this year.

Yes. And I'm being conservative with that. We had a Youngblood. I was with Emerson Davis earlier today. She runs our studio development and production for Dolphin and been with me for almost 20 years, if you can believe it, Allen. And a new mother, how about a shout out to her 4-month-old daughter, Carter, who Emerson brought to Toronto for the film Festival where we premiered Youngblood. I give Carter all the credit. I don't think she was more than 2 months old, and she didn't cry once. So I don't know how that's possible.

But if you met Emerson, you would think it might be possible because Emerson is so cool, calm and collected. But we had great screenings at Toronto. You can get caught up in festival fever where people go crazy for films that it's an overreaction. But -- and so we tried to mute our response because we didn't want to get ahead of our skis, as they say. But we had overflowing screening rooms. I hadn't personally seen that at a buyer screening. And we had good reception coming out of Toronto.

We announced our partnership with the LA Kings and the NHL. After that, we shot additional footage, which was so cool at an LA Kings game. not to give anything away, but people will read between the lines and if the Youngblood made the NHL and perhaps which team he might be playing for at the end of the movie. But that was really cool. And the reception to that is that's just not something that happens with independent films.

Studios may be able to typically strike a partnership with the league, but it just doesn't happen. And as we put in our -- for independent films and as we put in our press release, I mean, we're unaware of any other example for over 2 decades. So we're very proud of that. And the film is now completed as of last Friday with the additional footage in. And the reception has been very rewarding.

So I do believe we'll say by the end of the year, I think it will happen much sooner and be able to announce a distributor for Youngblood relatively shortly and with the release date. So that's exciting for us, and we'll knock on wood for success with Youngblood for sure.

That's great. And then just kind of thinking about how you're thinking strategically, you're doing great, but it's a balance between dropping results to the bottom line and investing also at the same time for growth. So I was wondering kind of how you're thinking about that of investing while you're also growing. And also, in the fourth quarter, just the government shutdown and some impacts on travel, should we think that, that might impact any of your businesses?

We've been very fortunate on that second question, Allen, and hearts go out to everyone that is affected. We have not been. So we won't hide behind and we don't need to hide behind our results are so strong, but behind anything that just isn't the case with us. We've been unaffected and we're relatively unaffected by tariffs.

So a little bit of impact in the first half of the year with our board game clients and others that get a lot of their things from China, but we've been blessed that way and knock on wood, it stays that way. In terms of the first one, yes, it's always the classic balance act, right, of investing in an affiliate program, for example, at TDD and setting yourself up for hopeful success in 2026, while managing to the growth we've already experienced.

Last year was a milestone for us because we achieved adjusted operating income for the first time in the calendar year last year, and we're proud of that. Now Blue Angels is certainly a part of our business. So we're not apologizing for having Blue Angels at all.

But if we didn't have Blue Angels in 2024, we would have just almost made adjusted operating income, we would have been just short. And when I got on the K call about it, which was already tremendous growth from the year before, I said I really did believe that 2025 would be our first full year of adjusted operating income without any ventures or films involved. And while you can see the results, I'm highly confident that through Q3, it would take an absolute collapse and there's something in the month of December for that not to be true.

So we judge ourselves by that metric. It's a proxy for cash from operations, like how are we doing? And we feel very good about it. And so we think we've struck the right balance this year. We're going to be rewarded in maybe even some here in Q4, but certainly by Q1 with some of those investments that we've made. And yet we still grew along the way.

And so once those investments come in, then all bets are off. And then, of course, you may remember, and for those who are looking at our company and our stock, we have some real cash catalysts for the next 3 years that will fall into this cash flow for us. We're now 1 year from now, we're out of our New York leases. When you buy companies, you buy their leases, right? So we've got 3 companies with offices in New York still. We only need one lease. So we'll save some money there a year from now.

Next year, this time, 2 years from now, we're out of our LA leases. And that's the most expensive lease. Excited about that and the cost savings that will come from that. Again, we just don't need that much space in a post-COVID world. And then third, we're less than 3 years out. It will come on before we know it. Our only commercial bank loan will be paid off, principal and interest on September 29, 2028. That will free up well north of $2 million of cash a year just on that.

That plus the leases should free up north of $3 million for sure, a year. Again, if we don't grow at all, so that's an extra $750 million of cash a quarter, obviously, plus. So as we achieved adjusted operating income this quarter of $1 million, that would just add to that. So it's the biggest reason why we think we're so undervalued today.

And I just started a 10b5 plan to buy stock and send a signal to the market. I'm buying every week because I believe in this company and the results that we're posting, not the ones we will post in the future. And so I bought 2% of all outstanding shares since April, and I'm still buying. So I think that sends a pretty strong signal. I hope it would.

No, I would agree. In my entire career, the only company I've ever known that the CEO has entered one of these plants or buying the stock. I've had plenty for selling. But no, it's quite -- and is it -- is the term of it like a certain amount like each time? Or is it -- I don't know if we need to know.

Yes. I had to learn too, Allen. So we set it up to be $5,000 a week, and I've extended it -- or sorry, it's technically entering a new one all the way through December of next year. So $5,000 a week may sound like one thing. But when you say, well, that's $260,000 a year, hopefully, that's making a statement.

And from April of '25 through at least December of '26. So I never thought of it this way before, but quick math tells me that's over $400,000 and just making a statement. And we're feeling very bullish about what we've done already and then what we're going to do with this continued growth. So very exciting for us.

There are no additional questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Bill O'Dowd for his closing remarks.

Well, thank you, and thank you, those who are on the call and on the webcast and those who will listen in the future. I think our excitement is well heard at this point about the company and the commitment we've made myself personally with that 10b5-1 plan. And then we just decided to let the numbers do the talking. They speak for themselves.

And I'm very proud, I'm very thankful. I'm very grateful to the leadership at each of the companies. They're the ones who are receiving these awards, and they're the ones that are collectively working together to post these numbers. And if any one company is going through a tough time or a particularly challenging quarter and no one is in a dramatic situation, but just if they're off, we have other team members that pick them up and overperform and you balance across 7 companies.

And it's diversified revenue. It's diversified client base. It's highly -- or I should say, very much what you want. And we're very proud of 16.7% year-over-year with the same agencies and the adjusted operating income that is doing what it's doing. So we see a very clear trajectory. We know what's going to happen in the year and in 2 years and in 3 years, and we're very excited to be here. So it's always great to have a good Q3.

We live with these numbers for the next 4.5 months and be very proud to introduce them to anybody new to our company during that time period. But we also expect a strong Q4. Hopefully, we can judge me on that statement at the end of March and look forward to talking to everybody then. So thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you, everyone. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Thank you. Bye-bye.