Business
Fitch downgrades Canopy Growth, citing cannabis market-share losses
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Fitch downgraded the rating for Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth to CCC, the agency’s fifth-lowest rating, and warned of potential further negative actions.
Fitch’s CCC rating carries substantial credit risk with a “very low margin for safety” and a “real possibility” of default, per the agency’s ratings scale.
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Canopy’s issuer default rating was previously rated B-, or highly speculative.
Fitch Ratings said the downgrade reflects:
- Significant market-share losses in the Canadian cannabis market.
- Execution missteps.
- Challenges pivoting its cultivation strategy.
“As a result, it is highly doubtful that Canopy can improve EBITDA trends to reach operating cash flow breakeven in fiscal 2025 (by March 31, 2025) as Fitch previously expected, and creates greater uncertainty around capital structure sustainability,” Fitch noted in its commentary on the ratings action.
Canopy’s financial year ends March 31.
The credit-rating agency said it could cut Canopy’s rating again if:
- Canopy displays a lack of execution on its premiumization-cultivation strategy.
- Fitch concludes the strategic incentive for alcohol giant Constellation Brands to support Canopy has slipped.
- Canopy pursues a repayment/refinancing of notes worth 600 million Canadian dollars ($466 million) that Fitch considers a distress debt exchange.
Fitch noted that the Canadian cannabis market grew by 50% to CA$4 billion ($3.1 billion) in 2021, but Canopy’s Canadian cannabis sales fell 10% in fiscal 2022, partly from the shift away from the value segment.
Regarding the upcoming July 2023 repayment of the CA$600 million in notes, “Fitch believes Canopy’s financing options have become more limited given the broad downturn in market conditions,” the rating company said.
“Fitch expects the company could seek options to preserve liquidity given ongoing high cash burn. As such, the company could pursue a notes repayment option that Fitch views as a distressed debt exchange.”
Fitch also highlighted Canopy’s cash position, noting that cash and cash equivalents fell to CA$1.4 billion at the end of the previous fiscal year, down from CA$2.3 billion one year earlier.
“The ongoing cash burn and M&A strategy combined with current market conditions have eroded Canopy’s liquidity position and could hamper its ability to access additional capital,” according to Fitch.
The full Fitch report on Canopy is available here.
Canopy shares trade as WEED on the Toronto Stock Exchange and CGC on the Nasdaq exchange.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/fitch-downgrades-canopy-growth-citing-cannabis-market-share-losses/
Business
New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
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New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Business
Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge
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Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Business
Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
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Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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