Highwood, IL— November 12, 2020 — PRESS RELEASE — Grow America Builders has announced the newest member of their team. David Shutan will handle all aspects of the sales process, from gathering requirements through developing detailed bids based on each company’s specific requirements and ensuring clients’ needs are met.
“We knew after our first meeting with Dave that he would be a perfect fit for Grow America Builders. We consider ourselves truly fortunate that we found someone with his work ethic, talent and skill. We are confident that Dave will be instrumental in facilitating collaboration in the complex process of going from concept to completion in the building of facilities to support cannabis businesses,” said David Fettner, managing partner of Grow America Builders.
Before joining Grow America Builders, Shutan served as Senior Business Development Representative for Evive, a technology company focusing on employee engagement and as National Proposal leader for Cordant Health Solutions.
This new hire underscores Grow America Builders’ commitment to deliver the highest level of service in the cannabis facility construction field.
Grow America Builders offers over 25 years of expertise in construction projects of all types and has completed projects for industry leaders throughout the country.
Jake Gravbrot
The Interview: Jesce Horton Shares the Story of LOWD
In this wide-spanning Q&A, Horton shares how his Portland, Ore.-based adult-use cannabis brand focuses on grower-quality flower and elevating cannabis culture.
Jesce Horton’s newest cannabis brand, LOWD, launched the week of Oct. 26 at 28 dispensaries in Oregon’s adult-use cannabis market. Cultivated in a 7,500-square-foot facility in Portland by 12 employees, LOWD cannabis’ brand and flower products have been years in the making. (Horton made a facility and brand pivot after his first cannabis business—Panacea Valley Gardens—which operated within the medical market, didn’t qualify for an adult-use license because of zoning restrictions.)
In this Q&A, Horton—a former engineer for Siemens, founder and former director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, board member for the Resource Innovation Institute and Cannabis Conference 2020 advisory board member—discusses the road to officially launching his adult-use cannabis business, what the LOWD brand means to him and his team, and the steps the company is taking to build a strong culture and high-quality products.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Cassie Neiden: Could you provide us some background into your journey of launching LOWD?
Jesce Horton: I am one of the people in the industry that started growing from their basement—actually just a clone in my backyard. Like many people, through the different regulations, from moving from an unregulated market to a medical [market], here in Oregon there were a lot of changes. And then [when] moving from medical to recreational, we experienced even more in that the facility we built while being medical no longer qualified [for recreational cultivation] from a zoning perspective.
So throughout that time I was doing a lot of nonprofit work. I decided to step down from the nonprofit [Minority Cannabis Business Association] and focus 100% on finding another facility and building it out steadily over about a year and a half. And then we waited for about a year for licensing. We started again from the bottom with a big, empty warehouse. And from that point, we steadily built it out, using a lot of energy-efficient equipment, a lot of process design, and moved from 10 lights up to 100 flowering lights here at our new facility in Portland.
During that time we focused a lot on our branding, messaging and also our strain selection—making sure that we were curating a menu that we felt would be successful in the very saturated adult-use market here in Oregon. So that’s kind of where we are now.
CN: Are there any lessons learned from your first medical facility that you’ve applied to this new recreational facility?
JH: I would say making sure that [you’re] taking your time. I think in this market, a lot of us feel like you have to go as fast as possible, and you have to get to that next toll gate as soon as you can. And sometimes, within that process you sacrifice a lot of things like equipment selection, process development, [and] team development. Within that first iteration, we really learned that [lesson], and we [took] our time over the last couple years—not really being in a rush to get to the adult-use market—but making sure that when we got there, that we had a very strong team, that we had really solid branding and messaging, and that we had a product that was consistent and of premium quality.
CN: You’re a board member at the Resource Innovation Institute—and I know sustainability is important to you. How did that factor into the process development, facility design and equipment selection?
JH: [With] the bootstrap methodology, the goal is always, for example, to add tons of cooling, however many [tons] that may be. And a lot of times, within that, you’re sacrificing the efficiency of that equipment, and you’re not designing the facility around that equipment. You’re kind of fitting things in piecemeal. And instead of doing that this time, we really took our time to identify and try some of the most efficient HVAC equipment. We developed our facility so that it could utilize heat exchange, so that we could then optimize that equipment [for use] in our office space, in our propagation space and all throughout our facility, understanding that [each of those areas] need different levels of cooling. We have one system that can essentially provide that for each room.
And then also, in lighting selection, instead of going for the typical PAR [photosynthetic active radiation] value that you look for, [we thought]: How can we make that a little bit more efficient and better for the plant? So we utilize mixed-spectrum lighting.
CEO Jesce Horton sharing information about LOWD's cannabis brand at Five Zero Trees dispensary.
CN: How many people do you have on your team now, and how did you go about building that team?
JH: It was very painstaking way of doing it. But it was one from a founder’s perspective, one my partner and I were a lot more comfortable with. We built the team very slowly—we brought on our trusted group of people that we’d been working with. [We brought] people on [for] a trial basis and if they didn’t fit in with our core values, [we helped] find [another] place for them within the market [by utilizing] our network. We quickly moved people out of our facility that we felt weren’t adding a great amount of value, versus just being able to do the job. We definitely pay our people more, but we feel like we have a group of people that really focus 100% on excellence.
So I think we have an all-star team of people, it’s kind of all home grown. Our creative director is actually my cousin and one of the top black ad executives in the nation, [Brandon Pierce]. He’s the vice president, executive creative director, of Hulu. TaJanna [Mallory] also is a great core team member and she’s been working with me since I started MCBA [helping] me to grow that organization, as well as my old college roommate [Oyd Craddock II] who does all of our graphics. So I think a lot of times people look at the quality of what we’re putting out there, and they assume there’s a lot of money or a lot of big players behind it, but it’s really just a small group of creatives and cultivators who are really trying to exemplify the Portland cannabis culture experience.
We have a small investment team. It’s actually 100% black investors, primarily friends and family. Our biggest investor, though, is the former president of Jordan Brand [Keith Houlemard, who] has really been helping to guide a lot of our work as it relates to working with retailers. Similar to how Jordan Brand always wants to connect with the community and its most important consumers, we’re trying to figure out exactly where [ours] are. So [we’re] making sure we have metrics and are understanding how things are doing at the individual dispensaries, making sure that we identify other dispensaries that are out there that may not be on the radar that are really serving our consumers well—figuring out how to really get closer to the people that we really think are driving the culture.
CN: What are LOWD’s core values, and how are the folks on your team living up to them?
JH: Without a doubt, first and foremost, is being thorough and complete. We call it hardworking. That’s one of the most difficult qualities to find: people who are going to honor the plant because really, when it comes down to it, if you cut any corners [for an] easier way, it will come back to you somewhere down the line. That’s just how this particular part of the industry works. In doing that we have to find people who are looking at the purpose of the job.
The second one is culture. And that may be kind of different for different people, identifying with cannabis culture and that can connect with all the way to the oldest member here which is a 70-year-old lady, Linda Kozen, who spent a lot of time in the Applegate region in southern Oregon cultivating plants from when she was a little girl. She’s very, very connected to the medicinal aspect and the culture of cannabis cultivation here in Oregon. [That also includes] people who identify with the street culture of cannabis: people who have been arrested for cannabis, for possession or for sales or whatever it may be [and] people who understand how that market moves, how the city really works.
CN: Tell us more about the branding and messaging of LOWD.
JH: [We like to think of] LOWD [as] the intersection of street and nature. If you think about a plant that really [represents] the beauty of nature, the diversity of nature [and] urban culture—I think it’s cannabis. So, LOWD wants to be that voice. We don’t think there’s any other place that exemplifies that more than the city where we operate, Portland, Ore. That’s how we identify with our consumers: people who want to go and spend the weekend hiking but also love to go to the city to sit down to have a cup of great coffee or go to a great club or spend time at a beer brewery with some friends. That’s what I enjoy, and we think more and more people are enjoying those same things. So as this Portland culture continues to grow, and continues to get more diverse, we want to be a shining star that represents that growth and diversity.
CN: What does LOWD stand for?
JH: LOWD stands for a few different things, we kind of play with it a little bit.
First and foremost is Love Our Weed Daily, and that touches on our employees here and how we care for the plant. But it’s also the consumers and the connoisseurs that we want to connect with who are very, very tightknit group of cannabis people: people who really love the plant, who consume on a regular basis and are discerning of how they select their cannabis.
Love Oregon Weed Daily is also one that we play with because we believe Oregon has some of the best cannabis in the world. We believe that strongly.
Also, Live Out Wild Dreams is the third one that really connects with us because we’re all guys who’ve [started by] growing from our basement. Being able to build a cannabis brand is one of the biggest dreams that each and every one of us has ever had, so this is our way of bringing that out.
And the acronym LOWD also connects with us very much because it’s a big part of the street culture and how they discuss the most premium cannabis, the best weed—we’ve always called it “loud.” So much of the cannabis culture has been stolen, has been transitioned, has been left behind. We want to make sure that we really grab a piece of the culture in our own way and help to put it on a pedestal.
CN: What goes into LOWD’s genetics selection?
JH: We are very ambitious with seed here at LOWD. We pop seeds from some of the best breeders on a regular basis. Usually when we select the strain that we believe has a nice profile, instead of popping 10 seeds, we usually pop 100 to 150. We’ve been [selecting strains] very ambitiously over the past two to three years, strictly for the purpose of identifying strains that we feel fit into really unique terpene category profiles, ones that have really been important in the evolution of strains that the cannabis culture identifies with. Those would be Purple Punch crosses, OG profiles, Kush profiles, Garlic x Cookies crosses and profiles, very gassy profiles. [These are] really important categories that make up the strong diversity of strains out there. And we’ve tried to select a strain that can fit into each of those categories so that no matter what [people] like, we hopefully have something—our interpretation—of that particular profile.
We have the typical wholesale flower that we sell in half-pound increments, but we also have a really unique product that helps us to give the consumer what we think is the closest experience to smoking like a grower. And we call those our SLAG—or Smoke Like a Grower—jars. The idea is, typically when someone picks up flower from a dispensary, that flower has gone through a lot of handling, whether that be at the harvest, breaking it down into bins, the trimmers touching it and weighing it, then going into another container, then going to distribution, and being weighed again—we think that really diminishes the flower over time.
So what we’ve done with the SLAG jars is we’ve, ourselves, selected what we think are the best buds—the truest essence of each plant of our best plants. We hand-trim those directly into a UV-resistant jar, and then it’s never touched again. And that way, we feel like a consumer can come and have the flower that’s minimally handled, thus giving them the chance to smoke like growers do. We think growers smoke better than anyone.
We are working on pre-rolls and live resin and rosin that we hope to be released by the beginning of the year.
CN: How did launch week go?
JH: It was a great, big week. We launched in about 28 dispensaries, and we’re happy to know we were No. 1 [in flower sales] in 98% of those dispensaries that we launched in. We got a ton of great feedback, [and] we’re working very closely with the dispensaries to learn which strains are doing the best [and] figuring out how to bring the most successful strains to those individual stores.
Verano Holdings Announces Agreement to Acquire and Combine Operations with AltMed in Florida and Arizona, Creating One of the Largest U.S. Private Cannabis Companies
The deal combines two profitable, fully integrated platforms operating in limited-license, high-growth markets.
CHICAGO and SARASOTA, Fla, Nov. 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PRESS RELEASE -- Verano Holdings, LLC, a multi-state cannabis owner, operator and manager, has announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement to acquire and combine operations with Alternative Medical Enterprises, LLC, Plants of Ruskin, LLC, and affiliated companies (collectively, AltMed), vertically-integrated cannabis companies that apply pharmaceutical industry standards to developing, cultivating, producing and dispensing medical cannabis and medical cannabis products in Florida and Arizona. The transaction is expected to result in a highly-accretive combination of Verano and AltMed with the resulting company operating under the Verano name.
Two Industry Leaders Join Forces
Verano is a multi-state owner, developer, operator and manager of cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and dispensing licenses offering innovative products to the discerning, high-end customer market. Verano produces a full suite of premium, artisanal cannabis products sold under its consumer brands, including Encore Edibles, Avexia and Verano. Verano’s Zen Leaf branded dispensary environments deliver an elevated cannabis shopping experience in both medical and adult-use markets. Active in 12 U.S. states, with 17 active retail locations and approximately 440,000 square feet of cultivation facilities, Verano has been profitable each year since its founding.
AltMed, founded in 2014 and profitable in recent years, is a fully-integrated medical cannabis company known for its robust research and development pipeline exemplified by its award-winning MÜV products and dispensaries. AltMed offers a full range of premium cannabis options developed in its vertically-integrated operations in Arizona and Florida. With 27 active retail locations, AltMed has 220,000 square feet of cultivation facilities in Florida, and 30,000 square feet in Arizona, which is rapidly expanding by an additional 50,000 square feet to meet increased demand.
This transformative transaction is expected to create a market leader in the United States by combining two profitable, fully-integrated platforms with the ability to scale by entering new markets and expanding deeper into existing key markets. The combination will accelerate Verano’s expansion into Florida and Arizona, currently among the largest and fastest-growing cannabis markets in the United States. Following the consummation of the transaction, the combined group of companies will operate under the Verano name and will have the ability to operate in 14 states, with eight cultivation facilities and 44 active retail locations. Approximately 32 additional retail locations are planned.
Expected Benefits of Planned Transformative Combination
The combination is expected to result in substantial benefits to AltMed and Verano, including the following reasons for the transaction.
Establishes Verano as one of the three largest MSOs in the United States based on 2021 internal projections compared to current FactSet 2021 consensus estimates for revenue and EBITDA.
Creates a scale market leader well positioned for growth and accelerates expansion in limited license, high-growth markets – specifically Florida and Arizona.
Includes a premium, comprehensive product offering encompassing both medically-focused and lifestyle. Four product brands: Verano, Avexia, Encore, and MÜV; and two retail brands: Zen Leaf and MÜV.
Joins companies with aligned cultures, management teams, and core competencies of people, processes, research, and products.
Increases Verano’s reputation as a manufacturer of high-quality products on a large scale by adding similar capabilities in new states.
Enhances both companies’ abilities to provide a superior, patient and customer-focused cannabis experience.
Combines experienced management teams with significant and diverse industry expertise including pharmaceutical, real estate, manufacturing, agriculture and hospitality, with a proven track record as disciplined cannabis industry operators and good stewards of capital.
Increases the combined company’s financial profile with industry-leading margins and profitability.
“The combination of Verano and AltMed is a game changer in the U.S. cannabis industry. It is expected to create one of the largest private cannabis companies with truly no redundancies in geography or operations. AltMed is an ideal partner to accelerate our shared vision to be one of the most innovative and profitable cannabis operators in the country. Our cultures are seamlessly aligned and we have a strong commitment to providing a superior, customer-focused cannabis experience across our existing markets. AltMed not only has a substantial market presence in Florida and Arizona, a state which recently approved recreational use, but also delivers a portfolio of high-quality, pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis products,” said George Archos, founder and CEO of Verano Holdings. “Together, we believe we have a very strong management team whose experience spans cannabis, pharma, real estate and hospitality, and we are very excited to welcome and work collectively with AltMed’s Michael Smullen, Bill Petron and John Tipton.”
Archos continued, “This combination will create significant opportunity to expand our business into limited-license markets and scale both our wholesale and retail operations. We have created a thoughtful model for long-term success and a solid platform to deliver what we expect to be industry-leading EBITDA margin on a pro forma basis. In addition, our combined strong balance sheet should provide us with financial flexibility to expand operations and go deeper in states in which we operate.”
“We share Verano’s enthusiasm for this transformative business combination. We have a mutual commitment to delivering a high-quality product through a superior customer experience to distinguish us in the marketplace,” said Michael Smullen, chairman, CEO and co-founder of AltMed’s Alternative Medical Enterprises, LLC. “We are both disciplined stewards of capital, run our businesses efficiently and are focused on delivering profitable growth. It was important for us to find the right strategic partner and Verano was the ideal choice.”
“Through our combination with Verano, we will have economies of scale to further expand our operations, bring adult-use programs online and scale cultivation and manufacturing capacity to meet market demand,” said John Tipton, CEO of AltMed Florida. “Both Verano and AltMed are uncompromisingly dedicated to superb cultivation and manufacturing processes, new product development and retail design and engagement. In combining with a multi-state operator, we have a larger platform to meet the growing needs of our customers and deliver long-term profitable growth for our stakeholders.”
Management Details
The combined company will be led by Archos, the founder and CEO of Verano, who is a veteran in the logistics and operations spaces who entered the cannabis industry in 2014. AltMed’s key personnel will maintain a strong presence on the management team and Board of Directors, including Michael Smullen, Alternative Medical Enterprises, LLC’s chairman, CEO and co-founder, and Tipton, a registered CPA with more than 30 years of leadership experience in both the agricultural and land development industries. In addition, Bill Petron of AltMed Arizona will bring his vast experience to the newly formed company.
Beacon Securities Limited is acting as AltMed’s financial advisor.
SKYMINT Brands Launches SKYMINT Farms
Located on 200 acres, SKYMINT Farms aspires to become Michigan's largest purveyor of regeneratively and sustainably cultivated sungrown cannabis.
DIMONDALE, Mich., Nov. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PRESS RELEASE -- SKYMINT Brands, a Michigan-based, vertically integrated cannabis company, has announced its establishment of SKYMINT Farms, a 200-acre sungrown cannabis farm nestled in the Huron-Manistee National Forest and focused on the values of regenerative farming, sustainable agriculture, premium cannabis cultivation, and community enrichment.
"Michigan is known for its 3,000 acres of wine grape vineyards and nearly 10 million acres of farmland that give our state a dynamic food and agriculture industry. With SKYMINT Farms, we are on a mission to additionally put Michigan on the map for cultivating some of our nation's best sungrown cannabis," says SKYMINT Brands' CEO and co-founder Jeff Radway.
Joining SKYMINT Brands' two state-of-the-art, sustainable cultivation facilities, SKYMINT Farms aims to receive Sun+Earth status within the next two years. The coveted seal certifies cannabis brands that farm using beyond organic methods, holistically, responsibly, and regeneratively for the well-being of all people, farmers, and the planet.
SKYMINT Farms ensures that its cannabis is grown using the sun as the primary source of power, rain water as the primary source of irrigation as well as crop rotation, intercropping, and cover crops to create a nutrient-rich living soil. Within the next two years, SKYMINT Farms will additionally include grazing animals to make the farm truly biodynamic.
"Elon Musk once said in a TED Talk, 'We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky called the sun. You don't have to do anything. It just works," says James Barr, SKYMINT Farms' lead cultivator and project overseer. "Natural light is much more complex than what even the best indoor lights can mimic. Cannabis loves the sun and expresses itself very differently when farmed outdoors. Cannabinoid and terpene production is greater, and the plant is more resilient."
SKYMINT Farms reflects the three pillars that inspire the work at SKYMINT Brands: To elevate the production of cannabis; to cultivate a stellar collection of premium brands; and to leverage its resources and position within the industry to change our world and communities for the better. Not only does SKYMINT Farms aspire to do right by the land and the environment but it also aspires to do right by Michiganders by cultivating community. Its cultivation site is in Lake County, one of the poorest counties in Michigan, and SKYMINT Farms provides nearly 30 year-round farm jobs on its beautiful rural oasis.
Adds Radway, "Community is at the core of our company ethos. At SKYMINT, we wholeheartedly believe that cannabis has a meaningful role to play in bettering people's lives, hence our motto that happy plants make happy people. But foundational to the pursuit of happiness is food security, and in Detroit, 1 in 6 remain hungry. There's no better way to nurture and grow community than to literally help feed it, which is why we're proud to partner SKYMINT Farms with Forgotten Harvest this holiday season."
To immediately address the food deserts surrounding metro Detroit, SKYMINT Farms has joined forces with Forgotten Harvest, a food rescue organization that distributes 45 million pounds of food to Detroiters each year. SKYMINT FARMS will sponsor Forgotten Harvest's annual Hope for the Holidays event to provide holiday meal boxes to 2,000 Michigan families—some 6,000 individuals—over the course of just three days in December.
Since its inception in 2018—originally under the name Green Peak Innovations—SKYMINT BRANDS has dedicated itself to creating and curating premium-crafted cannabis brands, hand-grown to perfection and available to Michigan adult-use consumers at 11 SKYMINT retail locations throughout the state. Its growing brand portfolio includes flower, pre-rolls, edibles, beverages and concentrates, with SKYMINT Farms sungrown flower slated to power up to 50% of SKYMINT Brands products over the next 10 years.
SKYMINT X DNA GENETICS is the newest imprint under the SKYMINT Brands umbrella, joining SKYMINT, North Cannabis, Jolly Edibles, and the socially responsible Two Joints label, which supports the critical efforts of Last Prisoner Project.
The Green Organic Dutchman Announces Q3-2020 Results and Leadership Changes
Chief Financial Officer Sean Bovingdon will serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer, while Michel Gagné has been appointed Chief Operating Officer.
TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2020 /CNW/ - PRESS RELEASE - The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. has announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2020 ended Sept. 30, 2020, and leadership changes. These filings are available for review on the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.
Leadership Changes
The company announced that Brian Athaide has left his positions as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and board director effective immediately. TGOD Chief Financial Officer Sean Bovingdon has been appointed Interim CEO. In addition, Michel Gagné, Vice President of Operations, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO), overseeing the company's cultivation and processing operations, supply chain and product development. In his new role as COO, he will work closely with the CEO on the company's overall strategy and execution.
The board of directors decided that a change in leadership was necessary to drive the company forward as it enters its next phase of growth and continues to work towards achieving positive EBITDA and cash flow as rapidly as possible. Under the company's new leadership, TGOD will operate with a renewed commitment to executional excellence and cost discipline as the company drives revenue growth and operational stability.
"On behalf of the board of directors, we thank Brian Athaide for his contribution to TGOD and I am pleased that Sean has agreed to lead the company at this critical juncture," commented Jeff Scott, chairman of the board. "He recognizes the challenges we must confront, and I look forward to working with him and the rest of the TGOD team to pave a new way forward for the company."
"During the third quarter, despite certain production challenges that have now been addressed, we continued to deliver growth following the launch of our mainstream brand, Highly Dutch, in Quebec, as well as teas and RIPPLE dissolvable powders. Our focus will continue to be on improving the execution of our existing production while developing innovative and distinctive products to introduce into more stores across the country," commented Bovingdon.
"We saw encouraging numbers in October as we sold more flower, additional RIPPLE and tea variants, and launched hash in Quebec. We are looking to build on this growth while focusing on financial discipline throughout the company," added Bovingdon.
Q3 Financial Highlights
Quarterly revenue of $5.71 million consisting of sales from cannabis products in Canada of $3.84 million and hemp-derived product sales in Europe of $1.87 million.
The 41% increase in revenue from Canada from Q2 to Q3 can be attributed to the entry into the Quebec market with the launch of the company's mainstream brand, Highly Dutch, which was introduced at the end of May 2020 and ramped up in Q3, along with the introduction of TGOD's premium tea lineup.
Loss from operations decreased by 68% in Q3 2020 compared to Q3 2019 to $6.34 million, primarily driven by increased gross profit and decreased operating expenses.
Net loss of $76.24 million consisting primarily of a non-cash impairment charge of $67.84 million realized during the quarter to reflect changes in the timing of accessing market demand, sales price compression across the industry, and the resulting slower revenue ramp up and growth. This non-cash charge has no direct impact on the company's operations or liquidity.
General and administrative expenses of $5 million for the quarter decreased in comparison to expenses of $13.34 million during the prior-year period and represent a decrease of $0.71 million from Q2-2020. The reductions from the prior quarter reflect the company's continuing plan to significantly reduce spending on third-party vendors, and was partially offset by increased severance costs of $0.6 million and the fact that the company received $0.34 million in CEWS payments in Q2-2020. Excluding these severances and one-time CEWS benefit, underlying G&A reduced by $1.6 million or almost 30% versus the prior quarter.
Q3 Business Highlights
The company obtained a European Union Good Manufacturing Practice (EU-GMP) certificate for its Ancaster facility, enabling it to commence exporting its premium certified organic products to Germany for validation in preparation for commercialization in 2021. The company anticipates validation will be completed by the end of 2020, subsequently enabling export of medical cannabis products for commercialization to Europe and other jurisdictions.
The company launched vapes in Alberta and British Columbia, listed Highly Dutch mainstream flower in Manitoba, Newfoundland, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, and added Zen Green Sencha tea to its product assortment in Quebec.
The company completed the necessary equipment transfers to transform its Valleyfield facility into a production and processing hub for its 2.0 products following challenges with third-party processing. Production at the Quebec Facility of dissolvable powders, premium teas and concentrates has commenced, along with co-packing of third-party cannabis brands in October, which is helping absorb costs and better leverage the company's assets and licenses in Quebec.
The company launched Organic Afghan Black hash under the Highly Dutch brand in Quebec with initial sales exceeding expectations.
The company continues to monitor and adapt to changing market conditions including but not limited to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and has implemented precautionary protocols which have enabled all operations to continue uninterrupted.
Subsequent to the Quarter
On Oct. 1, 2020, the company agreed with its lender to extend the maturity date for its revolving credit facility to Dec. 31, 2021, in exchange for common share purchase warrants to purchase 500,000 Common Shares at a price of $0.30 per share expiring Nov. 2, 2025.
On Oct. 2, 2020, the company agreed with its senior lender to extend the maturity date for its senior secured credit facility to Dec. 15, 2021, in exchange for payment of a financing fee of $0.4 million and repricing of common share purchase warrants to purchase 7,000,000 Common Shares expiring Dec. 20, 2022 from an exercise price of $1.00 per share to an exercise price of $0.30 per share, and extension of the expiry date to Nov. 2, 2025, and issuance of additional common share purchase warrants to purchase 1,000,000 Common Shares at an exercise price of $0.30 expiring Nov. 2, 2025.
On Oct. 23, 2020, the company secured additional financing by closing a transaction with gross proceeds of $12.78 million for new equity. The underwriter purchased, on a bought deal basis, an aggregate of 53,263,400 units at a price of $0.24. Each unit is comprised of one Common Share and three-quarters of one common share purchase warrant of the company. Each warrant entitles the holder to acquire one Common Share of the company until Oct. 23, 2025 at an exercise price of $0.30 per warrant.
Legislative Map
Cannabis Business Times’ interactive legislative map is another tool to help cultivators quickly navigate state cannabis laws and find news relevant to their markets. View More
Cassie Neiden
