CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Marimed: More US Growth in the Works for This Consistently Profitable Cannabis Company

Consumer demand for legal cannabis continues to grow in the US despite stalled legalization efforts at the federal level. Analytics company New Frontier Data, for example, projects US cannabis sales will hit US$57 billion annually by 2030, with that number possibly reaching $72 billion if 18 additional states permit adult recreational use.

MariMed (CSE:MRMD) has developed into a premier seed-to-consumer multi-state operator with expertise in cultivation, production and dispensary operations. The company has a track record of sustainable revenue growth along with one of the strongest EBITDA margins in the industry, projecting $135 million to $140 million in revenue for 2022, as well as $35 million to $40 million in adjusted EBITDA.

The Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine recently spoke with MariMed President Jon Levine, who discussed the company’s growth prospects, how it plans to increase shareholder value and the ways in which US federal legalization efforts influence MariMed’s business.

What distinguishes MariMed from other US multi-state operators?

MariMed is a company that prides itself on its history and a leadership team with a strong track record of winning licences. We built this company over several years – first as advisors helping businesses win their applications and building out their facilities, and now as acquirers working to consolidate those businesses under the MariMed footprint.

Today, we have a lot of team members and facilities with deep industry knowledge, including several members of our executive leadership team. Our CEO Bob Fireman, COO Tim Shaw and I have been working together in this industry for more than a decade.

Why did you choose the states in which you operate, and do you have plans to expand to other states?

In the beginning, MariMed submitted applications in multiple states that were available for licensing and focused on getting those states up and running. Now that MariMed has consolidated the businesses in Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland, we are focused on expanding to the maximum allowable by law in each of those states.

In Massachusetts, for example, we plan to add two more adult-use dispensaries to our fully vertical, seed-to-sale operation there. In Illinois, we recently added a cultivation-and-processing licence that, once operational, will make us fully vertical in that high-growth state, and we also acquired a licence to build a fifth adult-use dispensary. Illinois allows operators to own and operate a maximum of 10 dispensaries, so we are also focused on adding an additional five to maximize our retail operations in that state.

Additionally, we’re looking for other markets we can expand into that have limited licences and are within the larger regions we presently operate in. We can go in and do the same build out where we go fully vertical as quickly as possible.

What are MariMed’s plans to enhance shareholder value?  

We have an exciting future ahead of us. As I mentioned, we’re building out Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland with additional locations. We’ve also recently won licences in Ohio and Connecticut. 

We’re also going to continue to expand into additional states through either acquisitions or through the licensing process. Then we’ll build them to be as fully vertical as quickly as possible.

We’re also going to expand our branded products, including Betty’s Eddies, Kalm Fusion, Bubby’s Baked and Vibations: High + Energy, which have all been very successful in each of the states in which they are presently distributed. We’re going to make them bigger and stronger, as well as expand them into additional states over the next several years.

How do you intend to finance your growth plans?

We’re presently cash-flow positive and generating additional cash every month. So, we’ve been using cash flow from operations to expand at a slower rate. But with the current down market making equity issuance not the best option for shareholders, there are opportunities to borrow non-dilutive money at attractive rates given our financial strength and clean balance sheet.

What impact, if any, has the government’s inability to introduce federal cannabis legalization had on your business?

It’s a disappointment for MariMed because we would like to see some form of the SAFE Banking Act passed. That’s less important for our company, as our strong management team has learned how to operate within these tough confines of borrowing and banking abilities for over a decade. The SAFE Banking Act is really about helping smaller cannabis entrepreneurs that are more challenged in gaining fair and equitable access to capital.

We would love to see the SAFE Banking Act passed, and with the right amount of social equity reform included in it. But even with the continued delays at the federal level, MariMed can still operate efficiently and successfully. We’re going full steam ahead in building additional opportunities for our investors.

Finally, what do your shareholders have to look forward to in the next 12 months? 

Our investors should expect continued success and growth. Over the next 12 months, we will open additional retail and cultivation facilities, generating more revenue, and increasing the number of consumers that can access our great brands. We’ve been very successful over the last few years, and we’re going to continue that trend.

Our shareholders should expect MariMed to have a strong balance sheet with the ability to expand our cash flow and to borrow money at reasonable rates to accelerate the expansion of our business to get to the next level. We may be considered a small MSO, but we are going to become much bigger. 

In this market, we have a wonderful opportunity to continue to grow. I think our shareholders will benefit from patience and expect that we will continue to grow over the next several years.

This story was featured in Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine.

Learn more about MariMed at marimedinc.com. 

CSE Performance

Year-End 2022 Interview with Canadian Securities Exchange CEO Richard Carleton

With 2022 drawing to a close, the global financial community is looking back on yet another year of unprecedented activity across markets. Governments relaxed pandemic restrictions and wound down historic financial support for individuals and companies, just as interest rates surged in response to inflation concerns that proved to be highly warranted. Shifts in the geopolitical and security landscapes added to the uncertainty.

As always, volatility means difficult times for some and opportunity for others. The mining industry was in the spotlight to be sure, as prices for some metals weakened modestly, while others rose or remained strong. Cannabis rode expectations for regulatory change in the US to both the upside and downside.

The Canadian Securities Exchange took this environment in stride, leveraging competitive advantages that have underpinned its success by making it a popular listing destination for entrepreneurial companies from around the world. The year 2023 looks set to be transformational for the CSE, with several major developments on the horizon that are important for investors, issuers and the financial professionals who serve them to know about.

Canadian Securities Exchange CEO Richard Carleton sat down recently to discuss key accomplishments during 2022 and their meaning for the CSE, as well as to explore some of the changes on deck for 2023.

We have a number of important topics to cover, including some substantial developments set to take place at the CSE early in the new year. But before getting to these, it’s important to set the table with some thoughts on financial markets in 2022. Markets seemed more challenging to figure out than usual. What is the view at the CSE?

Well, I guess there are a few themes. The first is that mining is really driving the bus in terms of capital raised and generating the vast majority of our new listings. And different from some past mining cycles we have seen at the Canadian Securities Exchange, there is investor interest across a range of metals.

Rather than the traditional emphasis on precious metals exploration, we have seen a focus on battery metals: nickel, copper, zinc, cobalt, as well as lithium, graphite and rare earths.

Many of these companies are exploring sites where historic drilling took place. World prices for those metals could not support or commercialization of these deposits some years ago. I think it’s fair to say that given the increases in commodity prices, particularly when we consider them in Canadian dollars, the likelihood of producing mines being developed on these properties is higher than perhaps we have seen in earlier mining cycles.

On the other hand, we are seeing lower levels of trading activity on the exchange. Far fewer people working from home at this point, and I think the increase in interest rates has put a lot of investors in defensive mode, particularly retail investors. The decline in major indices, especially those tracking large technology companies, has also made people somewhat more conservative in terms of risk profile in my view.

The amount of money raised by companies on the exchange is also smaller than we have seen for the last few years. This can be explained by the fact that early-stage mining exploration companies are coming to market with relatively modest market capitalizations; they don’t need a lot of money to fund the initial phases of drilling they are looking to carry out. This contrasts with the large, integrated US cannabis companies coming to market a few years ago where single companies were raising several hundred million dollars in one go.

Overall, financing activity is robust, but it is not accounting for anywhere near the total sums of money that we saw in the latter part of 2020 and early part of 2021.

The CSE continues to pursue issuers from jurisdictions outside of Canada: Australia, Israel and the US are prime examples. Why these markets in particular and what are the plans for 2023?

I believe that one of the best things that Canada does as an economy is to provide public venture capital to early-stage companies. When we are looking at applying the services and skills we offer, we view, in particular, Israel, Australia and the United States as three dynamic places that support start-up companies. But in Israel and the United States, there isn’t a marketplace like the CSE that services early-stage companies with the focus that we bring to the table.

In the case of Australia, we have real interest from the mining community, especially with mining very much back on the minds of investors in North America. We can help Australian companies, that have maybe raised their preliminary capital in Australia, to access more of the global markets through a listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange. This makes them more accessible to investors in Canada, the United States and Europe. What we are looking for are dynamic economies generating lots of start-up companies, but where the companies are perhaps underserved by local markets in their effort to raise public capital.

The CSE has been working on a blockchain-based system for the clearing and settlement of tokenized securities. Where does the project stand and have recent developments outside the Exchange influenced your strategy?

We’ve made good progress on the technology. In fact, this summer we tested the full cycle of a trade with one of the dealers. That would be the trade, through clearing and settlement to all of the back-office processes that need to be completed in order to finalize a transaction. From that perspective, we have continued to make good progress.

It is fair to say that the crypto winter, or whatever you might call it, has influenced how we are thinking about this effort as we move forward. We have a lot of very credible people who are looking to tokenize securities to take advantage of some of the strengths of the technology, and we are continuing to work with regulators on a framework for that.

I think regulators will be conservative in their approach to tokenized securities in view of the situation with FTX and the knock-on impact on a number of participants in the crypto space. None of these, to be honest, are all that relevant to the traditional securities world, which is what we occupy. But, as I say, I believe it will make the regulators more conservative in terms of their approach with regard to thinking about some of the things that we are looking to achieve.

There are a number of job postings on the CSE website, mostly in customer support and regulation. What specific needs will the exchange be addressing with these hires?

A lot of the growth is taking place in our Vancouver office, and it is very much tied to the changes we are looking to implement in our listings policies. We have been working with the regulators and believe we are very close to coming to terms with the British Columbia Securities Commission and the Ontario Securities Commission on the approval of these policies.

The commissions are asking us to take on a larger role in overseeing a number of aspects regarding issuers listed on the exchange. For example, we will be launching a senior tier, which perhaps 80 to 100 companies will qualify for.

The way the regulations work, and exchange policies, is that these companies will be subject to closer scrutiny than the more junior companies. That is more labour intensive from the exchange’s perspective, and we have been staffing up to meet the obligations we are undertaking as a result of these policy changes.

The CSE team participated in several cannabis industry events in 2022, and you were recently named “Capital Markets Advocate of the Year” by the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp. What is the exchange’s motivation to devote so many resources to the cannabis industry?  And what have you learnt about the cannabis industry that the market doesn’t know but needs to?

I think roughly 85% of the market capitalization on the exchange is in the cannabis space. They are our largest companies, our most mature companies, and they account for the vast majority of the revenues generated by companies on the CSE. So, it is a very important community for us to work with and to recognize and support.

There are also a significant number of private companies in the United States in the cannabis sector who don’t like the asset values being given in the public markets right now, especially in light of the decline in share price for many of the companies after Senator McConnell indicated that he was not going to support the SAFE Banking Act, which is liberalization of the rules around access to banking services for the cannabis industry. He suggested he would not be backing that during this session of Congress, and perhaps beyond.

In any event, there is a significant additional number of companies in the United States that we believe will be candidates for listing at some point, so we are trying to keep those relationships warm, even though valuations are not as attractive at the moment as they once were.

I will focus on some of the challenges the US cannabis industry faces in the capital markets. It is unique in the sense that, particularly for the US companies, about 97% of the shares are held by retail accounts. For a number of reasons, there is very little institutional participation in these names. For some it is because they are not listed on a national securities exchange in the United States, because their custodian refuses to keep shares of US cannabis companies in custody, because of volatility, or because they are operating in a state where cannabis is illegal. Many institutions have determined that it is not an investment they are prepared to make.

What that means is that there just isn’t the kind of long-term institutional holding of these shares, which I think has made them considerably more volatile, both up and down, than some of the other companies in their consumer-packaged goods peer group.

When people look at these big price swings, it is important to understand that this is not a Procter & Gamble or something along those lines, where you have a significant percentage of the stock held by institutions, fund managers or ETFs. This is all pretty much retail activity, and retail investors may not have the patience, investment horizon or approach that you would see from an institution. That’s fine, but people need to understand that the profile of these companies may be a little different when it comes to secondary market trading activity as a result.

Mining is another sector that is historically important to the CSE. In 2022, over 70 new mining companies have listed on the exchange. What makes the CSE such a good home for resource companies?

There are two things that I would highlight. The first one is that our team has a really good reputation with leaders in the entrepreneurial community, as well as the investment bankers and the accountants and the lawyers who service that community. We have surveyed these groups over the course of the year to get a better understanding of how they see us and our competitors. We see not only a high level of satisfaction, but a lot of repeat business from these professionals who have had a positive experience as they bring a company to market on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

That experience includes everything from the analysts reviewing files to our accountants. As one example, Francis Manns is an experienced consulting geologist who was extremely influential in the development of 43-101 reports for mining. He is now a resource at the CSE available to our issuers as they look to improve the quality of their public disclosure through technical documentation. He is a highly regarded individual and someone whom people in the industry look forward to working with.

The other piece is that our pricing is very amenable and responsive to the needs of the mining community. It is less expensive to list on the Canadian Securities Exchange than on other markets via IPOs and RTOs. We have long had a policy of providing cost certainty for companies. We are not looking to charge fees as a company raises money, for instance. We are not in the situation where we are nickel-and-diming our companies. They know at the start of the year what their budget is for maintaining a listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange and we stick to that. This is something the companies appreciate because they apply more of the money raised to advancing their projects, as opposed to putting it in the back pocket of the exchange where they happen to be listed.

I think the combination of those two things gives us a powerful leg up when it comes to attracting new business from the mining industry.

In October, the exchange launched the CSE2 trading venue. What exactly is CSE2 and what led you to launch a new venue in what appears to be a fairly crowded landscape?

This is a difficult question to answer quickly because it involves a grasp of evolving Canadian equity market structure. But I’ll give it a try.

An increasing number of brokers are providing zero-commission trading for their clients. People wonder how they get paid if they are not charging clients anything for the trading services they provide.

One of the ways is to monetize order flow from their clients. So, how do they do that?

Markets in Canada typically incent the provision of liquidity by providing a rebate to the party that posts an order that eventually trades. And they charge a higher fee to the party who accesses that liquidity by causing the trade to happen. It is known as “maker-taker” because one party makes the liquidity and the other party takes it. The maker gets a rebate and the taker is charged a fee.

All markets now have a second book which has an inverted price method in which the party who takes the liquidity receives the rebate and the party who posts the order is charged a fee. That way, the discount broker, let’s say, receives a rebate when they post a non-marketable order, and they receive a rebate in the inverted market when they trade against an order that is already there. That way they get rebates on their active orders and they get rebates on their passive orders.

Now, remember how important retail is to the Canadian Securities Exchange, and a lot of that order flow is coming from discount brokers that have reduced or eliminated trading charges over the last few years.

It is thus critical for us, if we are to maintain our price discovery role in the marketplace, to ensure that we continue to gather as many of the passive and active orders for companies listed on the CSE as we possibly we can. Yes, it is a crowded marketplace, but we are the listing exchange and we need to maintain that price discovery for determining the market value of securities at any given time. The alternative is to potentially lose that to marketplaces that are not having to absorb the expenses and regulatory responsibility to actually list the company. That is where we are coming from with CSE2.

One of the biggest developments slated for 2023 is the introduction of a CSE senior tier. How will this differentiate the exchange and what other activities are you planning to support this evolution?

There are really a few things, but I guess the first misconception I want to clear up is that this involves us somehow declaring war on other exchanges in Canada and making a pitch to a company like Royal Bank to delist from the Toronto Stock Exchange and come over to the CSE. It really isn’t that at all.

We have a number of companies on the CSE that would meet the admission criteria on senior exchanges in Canada. And we don’t want to be in a position where those companies are able to follow lesser standards of corporate governance, or longer periods to provide quarterly reporting to the marketplace as well as their annual audit results by virtue of the fact that they are listed on the CSE.

We are trying to put those companies on a level playing field with their peers that are listed on the other senior markets in Canada. We also, obviously, want to retain these companies. I sometimes speak about the Nasdaq back in the 1970s and the 1980s as one of our inspirations. They did such a good job working with Microsoft and Cisco and Oracle way back when they didn’t qualify for the New York Stock Exchange because they lacked tangible assets in the form of factories and steel mills and those sorts of things. All they had was intellectual property and engineers working to improve it.

When the New York Stock Exchange tried to attract Bill Gates and the rest of the senior leadership of the young tech companies in the United States, they told them they were not going to move because they’d had such a positive experience working with Nasdaq as public companies.

That’s the kind of approach we would like to take. We have worked with many companies that have succeeded and are growing. We want those companies to stay and continue to prosper on our marketplace and not go somewhere else simply because they qualify.

The other part is that we are interested in the opportunity to list ETFs and structured products. Looking at some of the other markets in Canada, they have robust structured product and ETF offerings that attract a lot of new listing activity. That is something that has not been available to us in years past, and we hope to open that capability and compete on a level playing field with other exchanges in Canada for that business. We think there are a number of products, such as a true cannabis ETF, that really do have a natural home on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Let’s close on a look back and a look ahead. Talk to us about what it took to build the CSE to its current status, and what amongst your team’s accomplishments makes you the proudest. What should the financial community expect from the CSE over the next two or three years?

I’m going to work backward and start with the question about what to expect. The answer is not all that exciting, but I’d say to anticipate more of the same. That means the CSE grows quickly and we continue to be responsive to the needs of the corporate finance community in Canada, and particularly to entrepreneurs. That way, whatever industry sectors are receiving support from the investor community in Canada, we will be here to support them and provide them with fair, transparent and accessible trading markets for their securities. And then overlay that with the opportunity to compete for more structured products and ETFs.

What did it take for us to get here?  It is very much the team we built and the reputation it has earned through hard work and engagement with people across Canada, the United States and beyond. They achieve a very high level of customer satisfaction and repeat business – all of the indicators suggest that we will continue to be very competitive with our peers in bringing new companies to market, and really what it rests on is the people we have had around us for years. Our bench is deep and experienced. And we continue to add to it with people who are excited to join a group that did such a good job of building an exchange that is now a material part of the Canadian financial landscape.

There are not many other examples in the world of an alternative exchange like ours being successful and having the impact that it has had. I think that while all of us can take some pride in that, what we definitely can’t do now is to take it easy. It is still a very competitive landscape in Canada and beyond.

Podcasts, The Exchange for Entrepreneurs

Jen Rainnie on Beach Lifestyle Footwear Brand Malvados | The CSE Podcast Ep30-S2

Audio

Episode 30 of The Exchange for Entrepreneurs Podcast is live! The CSE’s Barrington Miller chats with Malvados Founder & CEO Jen Rainnie about her journey from being a former Canadian windsurfing champion to a fashion entrepreneur, her advice for women in business, and Malvados’s beach-inspired footwear and authentic brand identity. The conversation also addresses the steps Malvados is taking toward environmental, social and governance (ESG).

Here’s an overview of what Barrington and Jen discuss in this edition of The Exchange for Entrepreneurs Podcast:

00:00 – Introduction
03:27 – What is Barrington wearing?
04:19 – What is the landscape like being a female entrepreneur?
05:46 – What exactly is surf culture today?
06:51 – Who is your customer?
09:55 – What advice would you give to yourself knowing what you know now?
12:23 – What market has surprised you the most?
16:12 – What are your long term goals?

About Jen Rainnie

 Upon her arrival home to Canada, Jen began a long and successful career in the action sportswear industry. Noticing a need for a more luxurious, yet comfortable sandal, an idea was sparked. Always one to seize an opportunity, Jen set out to create her own fashion-forward footwear label, one that would prove sandals aren’t just for the beach—they’re also for every festival, wind-in-your-hair, road-tripping moment in between. And so the story goes, MALVADOS was born.

Learn more about Malvados at https://malvados.com/

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Stitcher / Google Podcasts / iHeart / RSS

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Cresco Labs: Top-Tier House of Brands Acquires a Major Retail Network and Sets its Sights on Becoming Number One

Cresco Labs (CSE:CL) Chief Executive Officer Charlie Bachtell believes that when it comes to cannabis, brands matter just as much as in any other industry. Branding Cresco’s retail stores Sunnyside, rather than simply using the parent company name, is but one example of this concept at work.

There are 51 Sunnyside stores across seven states, all brightly coloured and selling products in packaging that would be right at home on the shelves of Whole Foods or CVS.

Different Cresco Labs products have their own unique branding too, depending on their target audience. There’s the namesake Cresco, the flagship “excellent everyday cannabis,” packaged in sleek, matte-coloured containers.

Then there’s Mindy’s, a line of restaurant quality edibles made in collaboration with a James Beard award-winning chef. The packaging has a deep red colour and black cursive font – it looks indulgent. It’s a Cresco Labs product just the same, but it has a totally different identity.

Bachtell emphasizes the importance of a house of brands strategy rather than what he calls a “branded house” where everything is named for the company itself. Consumers are loyal to brands they trust, and you cultivate that trust by speaking to your target audience.

“One thing we realized very early is that the cannabis consumer is very wide and varied,” Bachtell says. “You’ve got your 21-year-old male college student, but you’ve also got your 63-year-old grandmother. They’re effectively walking to the same store to buy the same product, but they want it to look and feel very differently from each other.”

The dedication to brand differentiation is paying off. Cresco Labs had the top branded product portfolio in the second quarter, according to cannabis sector analytics firm BDSA, including the top portfolio of branded flower, the top portfolio of branded concentrates, the second-highest portfolio of branded vapes and a top five portfolio of branded edibles.

The company grew even stronger in March when it announced a definitive agreement to acquire what Bachtell refers to as “the largest engine of value creation in the industry,” New York-based Columbia Care. Once complete, the acquisition will bring 131 facilities (99 dispensaries and 32 cultivation and manufacturing locations) into the Cresco Labs family in one fell swoop. The transaction is expected to close around year-end.

Creating scale in the US cannabis industry is a challenge, in no small part because regulations vary from state to state. Most cannabis companies, Cresco Labs included, generate 75% of their revenue from their three biggest states, according to Bachtell.

But with Columbia Care under the umbrella, Bachtell expects to have eight states contributing at least US$100 million to the top line in 2023. That’s significant diversification.

“We are matching the most productive per-store retail operating model with one of the largest combined retail store platforms in the industry,” Bachtell explained on the company’s earnings call to review the second quarter. “We are creating an unmatched diversification and balance of revenue by geography and by channel.”

Speaking of geography, Cresco Labs is number one in market share in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The goal is to be in the top three in every state where the company operates.

Bachtell is based in Illinois, where before he co-founded Cresco, he was general counsel for a mortgage company. He started that job in 2007, just in time for the housing market to be engulfed by the Great Recession.

The mortgage industry went from relatively unregulated to highly regulated overnight, Bachtell says, and those in the business had to figure out how to navigate rapidly shifting sands.

When a colleague suggested they get into the cannabis business in 2013, Illinois was just about to pass a law legalizing medical cannabis. Bachtell was skeptical it would be a good fit for him, but then he saw the legislation.

As it turned out, mortgage banking and cannabis sales have something in common.

“I read the bill, and it was as well-drafted and thorough as legislation that was geared toward that banking industry through the last five years of crazy regulatory and legislative initiatives,” he says. “I felt like I had read this book before.”

What Bachtell realized then is that cannabis would never be less regulated than it was at the time. Especially if federal legalization eventually became law, cannabis would develop into a consumer product whether the industry knew it then or not.

The cannabis industry, according to Cresco, can be broken down into four verticals: cultivation and manufacturing, building consumer brands, distributing those brands onto as many shelves as possible, and retail locations. The goal is to excel at all four, but Cresco is prioritizing the middle two. That’s the way the wind is blowing, according to Bachtell.

For example, if cannabis products do end up on the shelves of your local pharmacy, that makes brands more important than brick and mortar retail stores.

Illinois also became the first state to require that products be packaged in childproof containers. That cemented the importance of packaging in what Cresco Labs considers its mission to this day: normalizing, professionalizing and revolutionizing cannabis.

“If Illinois was going to require you to put it in a container, then that becomes your Coca-Cola can, your Budweiser bottle, your Marlboro cigarette pack, your Tylenol box,” Bachtell explains. “However you want to think about cannabis, it just became a consumer product good.”

Bachtell is the first to admit that the cannabis business is complicated. With all manner of different state regulations and federal legalization not yet realized, it’s not an easy industry to navigate. But it’s where Bachtell feels he belongs.

“I knew what the industry needed at that time, which was somebody to come in that had been through this kind of chaos before and knew how to normalize and professionalize an industry that people were concerned about.”

Investors are concerned too, he says, and fatigued by the lack of federal progress. Cannabis companies can’t trade on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq while cannabis is federally illegal, and there is no shortage of OTC-traded companies jockeying for position.

But Bachtell believes Cresco Labs can become the most important company in cannabis. With a vibrant house of brands and an acquisition that more than doubles the company’s retail footprint, the mortgage lawyer turned cannabis CEO looks to have collected all the pieces to the puzzle.


This story was featured in Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine.

Learn more about Cresco Labs at www.crescolabs.com.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

IM Cannabis: Early Mover Status Drives Growth in Multiple Legal Cannabis Markets

IM Cannabis (CSE:IMCC) Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Oren Shuster believes that entrepreneurs have to trust their “gut instincts” and follow the data to make good business decisions.

Earlier in his career, Shuster had co-founded with Rafael Gabay the Ewave software group, which was thriving with over 1,000 employees. Nevertheless, when the subject of medical cannabis came up during a meeting, Shuster’s instincts nudged him toward exploring its potential. 

“We started the Ewave technology group, and I quickly focused on healthcare technology. I’ve been one of the pioneers in developing web-based electronic medical records, radiology management and telemedicine solutions. But one day, a man talked to me about medical cannabis,” says Shuster. 

“As an entrepreneur, it got my attention, so I spoke with patients and doctors and collected data and feedback on medical cannabis. A light bulb went off in my head; I knew I had to do it – there’s something significant here for patients.”

With decades of experience in technology and medical ventures, Shuster then pivoted to co-found IM Cannabis, or IMC, in Israel.

In 2010, IMC sold its first batch of premium flower. The company is an outlier, and in a very good way, with operations in Israel, Canada and Germany, the world’s three largest federally legal markets.

Where most people see problems, entrepreneurs such as Shuster tend to see opportunity.

“A lot of cannabis companies went to Malta, as it was easy, but we went to Germany. A tough or challenging environment didn’t matter, as we have a strategic approach to Europe – not opportunistic,” says Shuster.

Germany legalized the medical use of cannabis in 2017. Shuster’s early push into the regulated German medical cannabis market has positioned IMC for high-octane growth as Europe’s largest economy presses ahead with plans to legalize cannabis for recreational use. German lawmakers are expected to introduce a draft bill on recreational cannabis legalization by the end of this year, according to media reports. 

“We’ve laid our foundation in Germany, currently one of the largest medical cannabis markets in the world, which is expected to rapidly expand as the German government enacts broad regulatory reform of cannabis use,” says Shuster. 

Undoubtedly, Germany legalizing cannabis for recreational use will be a seismic move for Europe. Tiny Luxembourg and Malta have given the go-ahead for people to grow and consume cannabis, but Germany is the continent’s biggest market.

Currently, IMC operates in Germany through its fully licensed EU-GMP subsidiary Adjupharm GmbH, which has built a logistics centre that allows it to repackage products. With the completion of the logistics centre, IMC has doubled its footprint in Germany to 8,000 square feet, upgraded its production facilities and increased its storage capacity to seven tons of cannabis. 

“IMC has a very clear strategy. What we’ve done is built the supply chain which starts with premium products in Canada going to our state-of-the-art EU-GMP facility in Germany. We are building it as the hub for the EU market,” explains Shuster. 

“We are in the best position to take a leadership position in the massive European market of 750 million people.”

In Germany, the IMC Hindu Kush strain has been a strong seller, helping make Adjupharm GmbH a top 10 cannabis company in the country. Adjupharm has initiated product licence applications to prepare for the launch of new high-quality THC products in the fourth quarter of this year and first quarter of 2023.

“We entered the Canadian market because we needed premium products for Germany and Israel. Our cannabis capacity in Canada is about 15,000 pounds (6,804 kilograms) annually, and we are not yet at full capacity. It’s all premium, indoor-grown Canadian cannabis,” notes Shuster.

“We are growing locally and selling in the Canadian market while supplying our other global markets. We’re also buying premium products from Canadian growers.”

IM Cannabis offers cannabis flower and strain-specific cannabis extracts under the IMC brand, plus dried flower, pre-rolls and pressed hash offerings under the WAGNERS and Highland Grow brands. IMC serves both medical and recreational consumers in Canada. 

IMC has launched a slew of new products in Canada in response to high demand for its WAGNERS and Highland Grow brands, which hold top-three spots in the premium and ultra-premium segments in Ontario, according to sales data from the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS). 

The WAGNERS pre-roll catalog at the OCS has expanded with the launch of Tiki Rain, Blue Lime Pie and  TRPY ZLRP pre-rolls. Two new 3.5g dried flower stock keeping units (SKUs) – Tiki Rain and Purple Clementine – were launched in addition to an expansion of the concentrate portfolio, with the introduction of soft black hash and 3.5g soap bar hash. New product rollouts include Frost Bite, Leviathan and Space Jagger, according to the company.

“There are distinct advantages to being in different markets in diverse phases of maturity. The Canadian market is the most mature, fully legalized market with a variety of products. We’ve gained insights from being in an ultra-competitive market and can carry those insights to less mature markets,” says Shuster. 

IMC produces a full suite of distinct strains – Roma, Tel Aviv, London, Dairy Queen, Mango Mint, Lemongrass, Pecan Pie, Mimosa – and at least three different oils. The premium brands are aimed at high-end consumers and benefit IMC with premium pricing and higher margins.

“Most of our products are premium and occupy the highest category, as consumers are willing to pay more for quality and artisanal brands,” says Shuster.

While focusing on revenue growth, Shuster has also rigorously pursued cost and margin efficiencies at IMC. For its second quarter ended June 30, 2022, IMC reported C$23.8 million in revenue, a 114% increase from the same period in 2021.

IMC sold 3,210kg of dried flower during the quarter, at an average selling price of $5.72 per gram, compared to 1,842kg for the comparable quarter in 2021, at an average selling price of $3.92 per gram. 

IMC chalked up the jump in revenue to more medical and recreational cannabis sold at higher average selling prices per gram in Israel and Canada. The company’s gross profit, before fair value adjustments, was $5.6 million during the quarter, compared to $0.6 million in the second quarter of 2021.

“At the end of Q2, we had $5.8 million in the bank. We’ve accelerated along the path to profitability with increased revenue, operational streamlining and a focus on cost reduction,” says Shuster. 

“We are seeing growth and a revenue run rate of almost $100 million annually.

IMC has launched its Canadian WAGNERS brand in Israel and plans to bring new medical cannabis products to the country later this year. 

IMC’s de facto company, Focus Medical Herbs, closed its Sde Avraham cultivation farm in Israel, resulting in cash cost savings of $2.5 million per year. It has also finalized the sale of SublimeCulture and restructured its operations in Canada, yielding $4 million in annual cash savings.

A cautious risk-taker, Shuster has connected the dots of opportunity by building a diversified company with a global cannabis supply chain.

“I take calculated risks. I never put all my eggs in one basket, which is why IMC is geographically diversified with operations in Israel, Canada and Germany,” says Shuster.

“On legalization, we are primed to target new adult-use recreational cannabis markets in Germany and capture substantial market share across Europe.”

This story was featured in Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine.

Learn more about IM Cannabis at https://imcannabis.com.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Trulieve Cannabis: Staying True to Proven Growth Plans and Core Values Turns Trulieve Into a Cannabis Powerhouse

Trulieve Cannabis (CSE:TRUL) is one of the cannabis industry’s major success stories, with many of its biggest achievements occurring in the four years since it became a publicly traded company. The Trulieve team focused on innovating and leading Florida’s medical cannabis market at first and then expanded into new jurisdictions, the prudence of its strategy confirmed by strong profitability.

Importantly, this seed-to-sale, fully integrated multi-state operator is also making a mark by supporting the communities it calls home and championing cannabis policy reform.

As Trulieve Chief Executive Officer Kim Rivers explains, community and advocacy have been at the heart of the brand since the beginning.

In one example, Gadsden County, a majority-minority community in northern Florida where Trulieve built its first cultivation facility, has seen the company grow to become its leading employer, according to Rivers.

“We’ve had a material impact on the jobless rate there and pride ourselves on the difference we’ve made in that community,” Rivers says. “That story has been repeated in other communities that we’ve gone into, particularly on the cultivation and manufacturing side of the business.”

Since its launch in 2015, Trulieve has expanded quickly, now operating more than 4 million square feet of cultivation and processing capacity, more than 175 dispensaries and with operations in 11 states. The company is the largest medical cannabis operator in Florida, having recently celebrated the sixth anniversary of its first retail sale in the state, and is a top player in its other core markets of Pennsylvania and Arizona.

As it grows, the company has been able to keep its values of community and advocacy at the forefront by entering into new markets with specific characteristics. “Where we chose to make investments and how we chose to go into a community is thoughtful and purposeful,” Rivers explains. “It allows us opportunities to have a deeper connection with the communities, customers and patients that we serve.”

In addition to Trulieve’s internal community-focused initiatives, such as its supplier diversity program, the company works with a range of organizations, including the Epilepsy Foundation and veteran’s and children’s initiatives. Rivers also highlights the support of individuals qualifying for expungement of low-level cannabis offenses.  Among other benefits, expungement provides these individuals the opportunity to remove the conviction from their record, to participate in the industry and to vote to influence future cannabis policy.

A combination of customer focus and financial discipline has allowed Trulieve to thrive where other cannabis companies have not, Rivers notes.

“We made the decision early on to focus on branded products through branded retail, and we’re not shy or hesitant about growing our scale in both supply chain as well as our retail network,” she says. “That gives us the ability to build more durable relationships with the customer and have more control over the customer journey.”

This approach is clearly working, with the company reporting strong Q2 2022 results despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, including pressure on the company’s wholesale segment.

Trulieve reported a 49% year-over-year revenue increase in the quarter to US$320.3 million, including a 3% rise in retail revenue to $298.6 million. “We’re proud to see strong customer loyalty continue in the first half of the year,” says Rivers.

The company also posted a 17% EBITDA increase to $110 million and finished the quarter with $181.4 million in cash. 

The success of Trulieve’s approach is also evidenced by its expansion of operations into other markets, including Arizona, California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Almost one-third of the company’s retail operations were located outside of Florida as of the end of the second quarter.

While Rivers notes that each new market has unique challenges due to differing regulations, Trulieve has found many aspects of its Florida business model to be transferrable, including operating and manufacturing procedures and market analysis.

According to Rivers, the company has been thoughtful in terms of how it can share resources across its broader platform and gain efficiencies where possible, citing the company’s nutrient program as an example.

Currently, the company is unable to transport cannabis products across state lines, but it can transport nutrients, and its nutrient blends are used across all of its sites in the US. “We also do a good bit of our research, development and innovation work in Florida because we have the ability to do that at scale,” she says.

Rivers also points to the company’s team as a key strategic advantage. “We have individuals who have operated within our Florida market and been a meaningful part of our scaling of operations from when we were initially three stores to now more than 100 stores in the state,” says Rivers. “Being able to take these lessons and apply learnings across different markets has been invaluable.”

For Trulieve, the year 2022 is about organic growth, as more states enhance their medical cannabis programs and pivot toward recreational use. Rivers says the company has focused on its branded products and branded retail while optimizing the portfolio of Arizona-based Harvest Health & Recreation, which the company acquired in a $2.1 billion all-stock deal in October 2021. 

As part of that effort, Trulieve divested non-core assets and operations, one recent example being the decision to discontinue wholesale operations in Nevada. 

“Sometimes it’s just as important what you don’t do as what you do,” Rivers says. “The goal is to enter 2023 as a stronger company positioned for the opportunities we see ahead of us.”

Despite recent remarks by political leaders in support of cannabis policy to cover state banking or criminal justice, Rivers notes that progress around cannabis reform on a federal level has been slow.

However, she remains hopeful that the encouraging discussions will morph into actual policy. “It’s very apparent that this is a popular issue due to the amount of conversation that it is getting before the midterm elections,” says Rivers.

One particularly important jurisdiction for Trulieve going forward is the southeast US. Rivers says the company has been “very bullish” on this region, citing recreational cannabis initiatives in Maryland as just one reason.

Another key area for growth is recreational cannabis opportunities in the company’s home state of Florida, which already has an 800,000-patient-strong medical cannabis market.

Trulieve backs the Smart and Safe Florida Act, a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the recreational use of cannabis by people aged 21 or older in Florida. The company is hoping it will appear on Florida’s November 2024 ballot. Trulieve has contributed $5 million to help get the proposed amendment on the ballot.

“That will be a massive catalyst for our industry and certainly for our business, with 21 million residents in Florida and up to 130 million tourists visiting the state a year,” Rivers concludes. “We think our strategy will continue to serve us well in emerging markets as they develop but certainly also as the landscape on the federal side transforms.”

This story was featured in Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine.

Learn more about Trulieve Cannabis at www.trulieve.com. 

Podcasts, The Exchange for Entrepreneurs

Beau Whitney on Data-driven Economic Models for Cannabis | The CSE Podcast Ep29-S2

Audio

The CSE’s Barrington Miller is joined by Beau Whitney, Founder of Whitney Economics, to discuss data-driven trends in cannabis globally, including US legalization, emerging markets, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG). The conversation also addresses how Whitney Economics uses data to help cannabis operators navigate the industry.

Here’s an overview of what Barrington and Beau discuss in this edition of The Exchange for Entrepreneurs Podcast:

00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – Global trends in the cannabis industry
03:28 – The cannabis industry in Canada and the US
07:05 – How do American cannabis companies differ from coast to coast? How is the industry shaped by state legislation?
11:33 – How do ESG (environmental and social governance) mandates tie into the valuation of multi-state operators?
14:40 – Is the current economic data contributing to the liberalization of cannabis policy in the US?
16:52 – What are the data points that have shifted over the last 7 years?
19:32 – Have there been any surprising individuals, organizations, and corporations that have reached out to collaborate?
22:59 – Within the business of data, who are Whitney Economics’ competitors and/or collaborators?
24:29 – Key findings from the business report that Whitney Economics published in 2020

About Beau Whitney

Whitney Economics was founded in October 2014 by Beau Whitney, in Portland Oregon. Mr. Whitney is currently the Chief Economist for the National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) and the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). A member of the American Economic Association, the Oregon chapter president of the National Association of Business Economics and a participant in meetings of the Oregon council of economic advisors, he is widely regarded as one of the country’s leading cannabis economists. A registered member of the European Industrial Hemp Association, Mr. Whitney is also a member of multiple local regulatory advisory committees throughout the U.S. including the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) RAC for both hemp and cannabis.

Learn more about Whitney Economics at https://whitneyeconomics.com/

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CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine: The Cannabis Issue – Now Live!

Welcome to the latest issue of Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine, your source for in-depth stories of entrepreneurs from a wealth of different industries.

Since launching just under a decade ago, the agility of the commercial cannabis industry has been nothing short of remarkable. As the global leader in publicly-listed cannabis securities, the Canadian Securities Exchange is acutely aware of just how nimble the various stakeholders in the industry have had to be in the face of various multifaceted challenges. 

In this issue of Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine, we feature executives from six of the most influential CSE-listed cannabis companies, as well as industry experts, who provide their perspectives on how the cannabis industry can maneuver through the current market conditions and where they see the industry going.

The CSE-listed companies featured in this issue include:

Check out the Cannabis Issue of Canadian Securities Exchange Magazine here:

 

Podcasts, The Exchange for Entrepreneurs

Paul Rice and Michael Perron on Indigenous Communities and Business | The CSE Podcast Ep28-S2

Audio

The CSE’s Barrington Miller is joined by President and CEO of Dable Advisory and Consulting Services Paul Rice, and CFO, Transaction Advisory, Corporate Development, and Corporate Strategy of Kinza Consulting Michael Perron in this special edition podcast to discuss the history of business for Indigenous communities, how steps for reconciliation can be taken, and hopes for the future.

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Market Open

Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. (CSE:BVCI) Joins the CSE for a Virtual Market Open

The CSE warmly welcomed Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. (CSE:BVCI) for a virtual Market Open on August 18, 2022. 

Blockchain Venture Capital is a financial services company providing an innovative technology infrastructure to participants in the emerging blockchain and distributed ledger technology industry. They’ve developed BVC-Chain, a public, decentralized blockchain built on open blockchain technologies; BvcPay, a mobile app developed on BVC-Chain that functions as a digital asset wallet; and CADT, a digital asset that is 100 percent backed by the Canadian dollar.

CEO Richard Zhou and other members of the Blockchain Venture Capita team kicked off the day’s trading, and Director Justin Poy shared more about the company’s vision and mission. 

For more details about the CSE, including information on other Market Opens, please visit the CSE website or follow us on social media.