Canopy Growth Corp FIRE Founder Bruce Linton

Canopy Growth Corp FIRE Founder Bruce Linton - RICH TV LIVE - JULY 3, 2019 - The surprise ousting of the chief executive officer of Canada’s foremost cannabis company is a sign of things to come, some observers warned Wednesday, as the young industry grapples with investor impatience in the face of what has so far been disappointing financial results. Canopy Growth Corp. announced early Wednesday that Bruce Linton, who founded and grew the firm in an abandoned chocolate factory in Smiths Falls, Ont., into the world’s most valuable cannabis company, was “stepping down” from both his role as co-CEO and as a member of the board. But in multiple media interviews, Linton said he had effectively been terminated by the company’s board of directors — a majority of whom had been appointed by Canopy’s largest investor, the U.S.-based alcohol giant Constellation Brands, which took a $5 billion stake in the company last year. In a recent conference call, Constellation Brands’ newly appointed chief executive officer Bill Newlands noted that he was “not pleased with Canopy’s recent reported year-end results,” which saw the cannabis company post a net loss of $670 million over the last year. “I think there has been some frustration from their biggest shareholders that Canopy has not been producing the kind of numbers that everyone was expecting and things needed to change. I think we’re going to see a lot more executive changes across the industry going forward,” said Greg Taylor, chief investment officer of Purpose Investments, which runs the Purpose Marijuana Opportunities Fund. The fund divested from Canopy Growth earlier this year, due in part to concerns that the company was struggling to grow at scale at some of its biggest greenhouse facilities in British Columbia and Quebec. The scale-up challenges were reflected in Canopy’s most recent quarterly earnings, which saw the company write down $24 million in operating expenses for greenhouse facilities that were “not yet cultivating, cultivating but not yet harvesting, or had under-utilized capacity.” Linton has long argued that his growth strategy for Canopy was a long-term one — multiple international acquisitions of “key intellectual property and brand assets” would enable Canopy to cement its position as a global leader in the cannabis space. The industry is evolving and maturing and most importantly, normalizing. The professionalism of governance in cannabis is welcome, natural and perhaps even late in coming Hamish Sutherland, CEO, cannabis-focused VC firm White Sheep Corp. Over his tenure at the company, Linton orchestrated countless mergers and acquisitions, including Constellation’s entry into the cannabis space, a $150 million investment to build a hemp facility in New York State, and most recently, the $3.4 billion option to purchase multi-state operator Acreage Holdings, the largest American cannabis company by market value at the time. “The next wave is going to come, and we’ll be way at the front,” Linton told CNBC’s Jim Cramer a day after Canopy announced the Acreage deal, and less than three months before being fired by the company’s board. But Canopy’s spending habits, and promises of future returns left investors, including Constellation, increasingly uneasy. Since the end of April, the company’s stock has declined by approximately 23 per cent, with a large chunk of that value erosion taking place in June, immediately after Canopy announced its first quarterly earnings that reflected a full three months of recreational cannabis sales. The results were much weaker than expected. “There is an impatience on the part of investors in a nascent industry that is matched only by a sense of entitlement of executives that they sustain their relationship or leadership of their corporate children,” said Hamish Sutherland, chief executive officer of White Sheep Corp. a cannabis-focused venture capital firm based out of Toronto. “The industry is evolving and maturing and most importantly, normalizing. The professionalism of governance in cannabis is welcome, natural and perhaps even late in coming,” Sutherland added. But Neil Selfe, a long-time friend to Linton and financial advisor to Canopy in both the Acreage and Constellation deals characterized Linton’s ouster not so much as investor impatience but a move by Constellation’s new CEO to “put a mark on both Constellation and Canopy.” Subscribe - https://www.youtube.com/c/RICHTVLIVE Visit - http://www.richtvlive.com/ a FREE community for stocks, sports, travel, and trending topics. #CANOPYGROWTH #BRUCELINTON #RICHTVLIVE