Earlier in April, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau had taken the first steps in legalizing cannabis for recreational purposes in the country, which will fulfill his campaign promises. The proposed legislation called the Act to Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances, and the goal is to implement the legislation by July 2018. According to a cannabis research firm, Arcview Market Research, North American sales of legal cannabis products grew by 34% in 2016 to $6.9 billion, but illicit market sales are estimated to be $46.4 billion. Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp., Canopy Growth Corporation, Aurora Cannabis Inc., Aphria Inc., Organigram Holdings Inc.
The consulting firm, Deloitte has estimated in a research report that annual sales of recreational cannabis in Canada could be as high as C$8.7 billion($6.5 billion). These numbers suggest the cannabis industry could soon become larger than Canada's spirits market, which is valued at approximately$5 billion. According to a report by Forbes, Vivien Azer, Managing Director at Cowen & Co. said, "When you consider ancillaries such as growers, testing labs, security, etc., the economic impact could range from $12.7 to $22.6 billion. Of note, these numbers do not include the impact of tourism, business taxes, licensing fees and paraphernalia sales, which could drive the economic impact higher."
Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp. is pleased to introduce its 14 streaming partners and 16 sites across 6 provinces.
Streaming Partners: Chuck Rifici, Chairman and CEO of Cannabis Wheaton stated: "Cannabis Wheaton management and advisors have long had a strong presence in the industry. This has allowed us to engage with those who we believe are the medical cannabis leaders, as well as those we have identified as future leaders in a legalized cannabis environment. The company has assembled a critical mass of streaming partners at various stages, ranging from sales license, cultivation license, affirmation letter holders and advanced pre-license companies, which all will benefit from a symbiotic relationship with CW and with each other.
As the number of component companies grow, the benefits grow within the system - that is the key to the critical mass that CW begins its life with - and that will allow it to scale further, increasing the value of the platform from the perspective of the Company and the underlying LPs and applicants, with every new partnership.
By leveraging the collective experience of our team (See May 8, 2017 News Release) and our cross-country platform, we are enabling the next generation of LPs - LP 2.0. Cannabis Wheaton believes that this is a powerful model for the industry going into an adult recreational market and we are proud to be the only company of seasoned professionals from the cannabis space to have had such a strong validation, from businesses spanning the spectrum of development and maturity. We will continue to profile our partners more specifically and extensively in the days and weeks ahead, so that shareholders and stakeholders alike can learn more about the unique and dynamic companies in the CW family."
As previously disclosed, Cannabis Wheaton's first cohort of streaming partners includes 14 outstanding companies in six provinces across Canada - including 2 sales license holders, 2 cultivation license holders, 4 affirmation letter holders and 6 advanced pre-affirmation stage applicants. This consists of licensed producers of cannabis (LPs) (pursuant to the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR)) and LP applicants. Collectively, our streaming agreements include future capacity of approximately 1,300,000 equivalent square feet of cannabis cultivation and production capacity net to Cannabis Wheaton by the end of 2019, according to industry recognized production averages.
Under each streaming agreement, upon the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent including having sufficient capital available for financing, performance of satisfactory due diligence and receipt by certain streaming partners of applicable regulatory approvals, Cannabis Wheaton will provide financing to the applicable streaming partner in consideration for: (i) the issuance of an equity interest in the streaming partner at an agreed-upon valuation; and (ii) an allocation of a portion of the streaming partner's cannabis production yield at either a fixed price or a cost-plus price. The yield component will be for a defined period of time ranging from 10 to 99 years depending on the streaming partner.
Canopy Growth Corporation is a world-leading diversified cannabis company, offering diverse brands and curated cannabis strain varieties in dried and oil extract forms. Recently, the company announced the closing of the previously announced acquisition of rTrees Producers Limited Inc., a late-stage applicant in Health Canada's Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. If and when licensed, the site will operate as Tweed Grasslands ("Tweed Grasslands") and become the newest facility to joinCanada's largest network of legal, licensed cannabis producers owned and operated by Canopy Growth. Tweed Grasslands will operate a 90,000 sq. ft. facility in Yorkton with the capacity to expand operations to over 300,000 sq. ft., as the markets for medical and recreational cannabis develop.
On April 20, 2017, Aurora Cannabis Inc. announced that the company has commenced sales of a new product line of ingestible cannabis oils called Aurora Drops. The Company's ingestible cannabis oils come in 30 ml glass bottles with a child resistant certified cap and dropper to allow for the easy and accurate dosing of small amounts of the high potency fluids, and are produced using CGMP compliant supercritical CO2 extraction technology, as well as using an MCT carrier oil sourced from coconut oil.
Aphria Inc. produces, supplies and sells medical cannabis. On April 19,2017, Aphria and Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. announced plans for the joint distribution of dried medical cannabis in the maritime provinces andQuebec. Aphria and Tetra will enter into a joint supply agreement, with Aphria supplying dried medical cannabis under its ACMPR license, and Tetra packaging the product using the manufacturing process developed for its in-progress clinical drug trial for PPP001. The formulation and packaging will be completed by Tetra, under its CDSA dealer's licence, at its New Brunswickfacility.
Organigram Holdings Inc. is focused on producing the highest quality medical marijuana for patients in Canada. Organigram's facility is located in Moncton, New Brunswick and the Company is regulated by the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR"). Recently, Advanced Extraction Systems Inc. (AESI) announced the completion of an agreement with Organigram to build the first in a series of custom CO2 Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) Systems for producing high-quality cannabis extracts on a commercial scale. CO2 extraction produces contaminant free oil extracts for the global medical marijuana industry. Unlike organic solvent extraction methods, CO2 extraction is clean and green and is quickly becoming the gold standard for residual free cannabis extracts.
