OUR 9TH YEAR OF PROVIDING PROPRIETARY CAPITAL MARKETS INTELLIGENCE ON THE CANNABIS / HEMP / PSYCHEDELIC SECTORS

Capital Raises

Capital Raises Summary

Each week, Viridian publishes insights and analysis on completed capital raise transactions in the prior week, focusing on all equity and debt deals. Our analysis includes:

  • Summary
  • Outlook
  • Best & Worst Perfromers

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YTD Analysis

Cannabis capital raises are off 65.5% YTD:

  • Total Equity issuance is off 75.0%, and total debt issuance is down 52.8%.
  • U.S. debt is down only 47.4%, while Canadian debt is down a more significant 76.0%.
  • At 58.7% of total capital raised, debt remains the highest in history for comparable periods.
  • Public companies accounted for 73.9% of total financing YTD, down from 80.2% in 2021.
  • The graph below shows that U.S. activity dominated capital raises for the first fifty-one weeks of 2022, with 74.7% of all capital raised.
  • International capital raises of $319.8M represented 7.4% of total capital raises, exceeding the previous record of 6.5% in 2019.

Market Commentary and Outlook

OUTLOOK

  • Cannabis stock prices (measured by the MSOS ETF) are now off 71.8% YTD and trading at multi-year lows. We expect a bottoming of prices to occur as year-end tax loss selling is completed.
  • We, sadly, do not see any near-term catalyst to propel a price recovery in early 2023. Senator Schumer announced that he would “do his best” to work on SAFE in 2023 but given his track record, his announcement provided little comfort for the market. We continue to be skeptical that 60 votes are present to push the bill through on a stand-alone basis, despite our belief that SAFE with a little + is probably the best the industry can expect in 2023. This year’s vital issue is that no legislator feels that his political career rests on his cannabis vote. And that tells us that very little is likely to happen anytime soon. Value investors will continue to creep into the market, but we expect this to occur slowly, given the recent blood bath.
  • Attention and hopes have turned to descheduling/rescheduling, but we are skeptical of this happening in 2023, although technically, it could happen at any moment. We are cynical enough to think Biden may keep that in his back pocket for the election. The public has forgotten that on the campaign trail, Biden revealed his belief that cannabis should be on schedule 2. This change would have little near-term benefit for either the top-tier MSOs or the liquidity-starved tier 3s and social equity participants. One unintended consequence it might produce is to allow cannabis companies access to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, a move that might accelerate the consolidation of the industry.
  • Meanwhile, commoditization-driven pricing declines, inflationary cost increases, an impending recession, and a restricted capital market continue to grind on the industry with no end in sight. Both large and small operators are tightening their belts with enhanced cost controls, tighter working capital management, and reduced capital spending plans. These moves are necessary and appropriate but will result in somewhat attenuated growth. Restructuring is likely to be the new M&A of 2023.
  • The good news is that this period of belt-tightening and consolidation will result in a healthier industry better positioned to face legalization challenges when and if it arrives. And fundamentally, cannabis stocks are still incredibly cheap. The problem is finding the catalyst that will change that.

This Week Sector Focus

The U.S. Cultivation & Retail sector capital raises are down 71.6% YTD, but equity capital raised is down approximately 96.3%.

  • Debt financing is down 50.1% YTD but accounts for about 94.0% of all capital raised; private companies raised 8.7% of it.
  • 3% of total capital raises YTD were completed by public companies compared to 88.4% in 2021.
  • In 2022, there have been no equity deals above $25M.

Capital Raises vs Stock Prices

Best and Worst Stock Performers

YTD Returns by Public Company Category

  • Tier 3s, the category that stood most to gain from SAFE, lost another notch of ranking in terms of YTD returns. Investors are rightfully concerned about the liquidity of smaller companies in the No SAFE capital crunch environment. Tier 1s lost two notches demonstrating that liquidity is not always a benefit.

 

Best and Worst Performers of the last week and YTD

  • Top gainers this week included capital providers Chicago Atlantic (REFI: Nasdaq) and New Lake Capital (NLCP: OTCQX), both of which gain from the continued capital squeeze; Nova Cannabis (NOVC: CSE), up on the news of its joint venture with Sundial,  and a trio of well-performing smaller competitors, Schwazze (SHWZ: CSE), Vibe (VIBE: CSE), and Vext (VEXT: CSE) who might be up either on M&A speculation or on the realization that some of the smaller players will be sustainable even in the no SAFE environment.
  • Top losers included California heavy operators: StateHouse (STHZ: CSE), Lowell Farms (LOWL: CSE), 4Front (FFNT: CSE), and MedMen (MMEN: CSE). HEXO was down 33% on the week after a 14 to 1 reverse split of its stock. A reverse split, in the absence of any other good news, often fails to halt the slide of a stock. How long will the company stay above Nasdaq listing requirements?

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