Chill Brands
Chill Brands has seen its stock price drop by more than 30% this week following news that the UK government is planning to ban disposable vapes.
Earlier this week (January 29), the UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that his government is set to introduce a ban on disposable vapes as part of a consultation on smoking and vaping launched last October.
No solid date was given for the implementation of the ban, but Health Secretary Victoria Atkins informed the BBC that she was confident the bill would pass parliament before the next election, suggesting that it could come into force early next year.
Once the bill has passed through parliament it is understood that retailers would have six months to implement the changes.
Alongside a comprehensive ban on disposable vapes, the new legislation would introduce new limits on the sale of refillable vapes in an effort to prevent them being sold or marketed towards minors.
According to the government, a further public consultation is set to be held to decide which flavours should be banned and which refillable vapes should be sold, though the Prime Minister made it clear that it was important to ‘maintain vapes for adult smokers who want to stop’.
The announcement comes as Chill Brands continues to double down on its vaping strategy, announcing weeks earlier that it has now signed a ‘seven figure purchase order’ for its ‘Chill Zero nicotine free vapour products’ to be sold in Morrisons supermarkets.
The CBD retailer’s CEO Callum Sommerton called this deal ‘a resounding validation of our product’s appeal’, seeing the company secure a supply chain debt financing facility of £1m to facilitate the ‘working capital needs of the order’.
Chills’ vaping products are now sold in 150 WHSmith travel locations, Morrisons supermarkets across the UK, in the branded forecourts of Shell, BP and Esso petrol stations as of January 2024, and in Smoker Friendly stores in nine US states.
The company recently announced a further equity fundraise totalling £2.4m through a placing, subscription and capitalisation, signalling that the money raised would be targeted at funding the uptake of its vape products ‘which continue to exceed our expectations’.
“Sales and distribution of the company’s vape products have expanded rapidly since their launch in August 2023. The funds raised will be deployed to support further growth as Chill Brands continues to record increasing demand for its products from customers and additional retail store chains.”
Given Chill’s significant investment in the future of its vaping products, the news of the looming ban has caused concern amongst many of the brand’s investors.
In a statement addressing the new legislation published by Chill this week, the retailer said that its vaping products are ‘differentiated through the inclusion of USB-C recharging ports’, suggesting that this may exclude them from the upcoming ban, though this was not confirmed.
Furthermore, it said that it is preparing to launch a ‘fully compliant’ reusable device and will now accelerate its efforts to bring this product to market, and will work with ‘existing contracted retailers to prepare them to stock this range extension’.
Voyager Life
Aquis-listed CBD retailer Voyager Life announced the acquisition of Amphora Health, which reportedly has 23 ingestible CBD products validated on the FSA’s novel foods list.
As part of the takeover deal, Voyager will issue 416,666 new ordinary shares of £0.01 each in Voyager at a price of 12p per share to Amphora’s shareholders, totalling around £50,000.
A further 416,666 shares ‘may be issued’ in the event that sales of Amphora’s products exceed £100,000 in the 24-month period from completion of the deal. The deal is due to close on February 29, 2024.
Founded in 2020, Amphora also reportedly manufactures vaping products, but these are non-disposable and are sold in cartridge form with rechargeable batteries.
In the year to July 31 2022, its last available accounts, Amphora reported sales of £69,000 with current inventories of £50,000.
It’s understood that Amphora will be moved to Voyager’s existing premises meaning no additional overhead costs are expected. This also reportedly means ‘no members of the Amphora team’ will be employed by Voyager.
Nick Tulloch, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Voyager, said: “This acquisition achieves two objectives for us. Importantly, it provides us with 23 products validated on the FSA’s novel foods list, thereby further opening up the UK market for our ingestible CBD products. Just as significantly, it brings us into the potentially lucrative vape market with four established formulations.
“In both cases, we will aim to bring manufacturing of Amphora products into our VoyagerCann manufacturing facility, thereby lowering the cost of production and enhancing margins.
“It is also important to note, as has been the case with many of our operations, this acquisition has been achieved at very low cost. Several of our competitors have spent considerable sums on novel foods compliance and product development. The opportunity to combine Amphora’s business with ours at a modest price is expected to be beneficial for all shareholders.”
Pharma C / Mortgage Chat PLC
Pharma C has moved to further distance itself from the cannabis industry this week, officially changing its name to Mortgage Chat PLC and amending its ticker on the Aquis Stock Exchange.
Last month, Business of Cannabis reported that the investment company, which was initially set up to focus purely on cannabis businesses, was diversifying its investment strategy to allow it to focus ‘on the emerging AI sector’.
While the company’s directors stated that they were ‘pleased with the progress’ made by its sole investee Product Earth, the ‘background of geopolitical instability and negative sentiment in the capital markets towards the medical cannabis industry’, had urged it to diversify its portfolio.
On January 24, 2024, the company officially changed its name, and now trades under the ticker MCAI.
The company says it will ‘make further announcements regarding its strategy’ in due course.
