We start this week’s EU Cannabis Stocks Review with some breaking news from Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies, after the company’s co-founder calls for a general meeting in an attempt enact a dramatic management overhaul.
Elsewhere despite signs of more US capital flooding into the European cannabis market and more major acquisition news, only two outliers managed to make any gains last week as wider market conditions continued to weigh on stock performance.
Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies
In a major development over the weekend OCT’s co-founder Gavin Sathianathan, who stepped down from the company in November but still retains an 8.14% stake, has demanded that the six current directors be removed.
Sathianathan has called for a general meeting to remove his co-founder Neil Mahapatra, alongside directors Julie Pomeroy, John Lucas, Cheryl Dhillon, Bishrut Mukherjee and Richard Hathaway.
In their place, Sathianathan has put forward three of his own choices including James Brodie, Richard Bedford and Richard Grethe as new directors.
It comes just months after an ill-fated finance deal between Mahapatra’s company Kingsley Capital Partners and merchant bank Brown Shipley, which breached market rules, led to the then Executive Chairman Mahapatra being removed from his position, and Sathianathan to quit ‘with immediate effect’.
The news sent OCT’s shares dropping double digits and it has struggled to make any significant gains since.
While the markets have only been trading for a few hours following the news, stocks seem to have edged up this morning.
Akanda
Next to a company not yet on our stocks list, Akanda, which is expected to list on the NASDAQ in the near future with some estimates putting this as early as February 25.
Earlier this month, BusinessCann reported that Akanda had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list 4m new shares at between $4 and $6, seeing it raise up to $27.6 million, including a 600,000 share over-allotment option.
Last week Akanda revised its terms, reducing the proceeds it planned to raise by 20%, reducing its share price to the low end of its initial filing at $4.
This would see Akanda raise a total of $18.6m including the share over-allotment, achieving a market cap of around $116m.
The UK-based company, which has a cultivation facility in Lesotho, South Africa, plans to use the funds from its listing to expand its UK operations, with $13m earmarked to ‘building out our network of pharmacies, clinicians and other innovative channels’.
MGC Pharmaceuticals
During the week financial services company Cannacord Genuity published its latest analysis on MGC, giving it a “Speculative Buy” rating with a price target of 7.2p.
Cannacord Genuity says that it has previously estimated that MGC will generate £11m in full year revenues, and now needs a ‘significant sales boost in H2FY22’ to meet this.
It added that with five months left of FY22 ‘management remains optimistic’ and it continued to ‘regard the shares as a Speculative Buy with a price target of 7.2p.
With its current cash flow projections and ongoing trials in key markets for CimetrA and ArtemiC, it added that if ‘sales receipts do not rise significantly’ in H2FY22 ‘further near-term funding might be required’.
The report came the same week as MGC’s general meeting, and neither managed to have much impact on its stock price during the week, seeing a dip of around 4%.
Apollon, Love Hemp and Yooma Wellness
Three of the five cannabis operators BusinessCann monitors on the Aquis stock exchange saw no change this week.
This speaks to a wider lack of activity and liquidity on the exchange which has encouraged both Apollon and Love Hemp to explore up-listing elsewhere.
Apollon, which is planning to list on the OTCQB Market (“OTCQB”) in the United States, told BusinessCann last week that while the lack of liquidity was ‘not purely an Aquis phenomenon’, it did have a number of issues.
These include ‘investors ability to access the exchange’, although ‘Aquis is making steps to address those issues’, and the ‘propagation of news we put out’.
Similarly, Love Hemp is currently in the process of up-listing from Aquis to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), citing access to greater capital as its key reason.
Chill Brands
This week’s biggest riser by some margin was Chill Brands, which saw its stock jump more than 30% throughout the week.
The rise came despite any significant announcements from the company or market analysts other than a number of changes to its US site and the replenishment of stock in the UK.
Some investors saw the rise as a promising sign, with one stating that the double digit increase ‘in a scared Market on absolutely no news except the gummies have arrived in UK’ was a significant achievement.
Others were more sceptical, pointing out that the rise follows a consistent fall in stock values since March 2021, with prices rising from their lowest value since July 2020.