As markets across Europe continue to be hammered by international tensions, gas price increases and a looming cost of living crisis, cannabis stocks largely struggled to make any significant gains. However, a number of companies managed to buck this wider trend thanks to news of plans for further decriminalisation in Israel.
The week’s biggest riser was Israeli cannabis company Intercure which saw its stock jump nearly 11% this week.
Intercure, which has called itself the ‘most profitable and fastest growing’ cannabis company outside of North America, released its preliminary results for Q4 2021 this week reporting potentially huge revenue increases.
While its full financial figures are not due to be published until March, Intercure says it expects revenues to hit over CAD$31m for the quarter, representing a three-fold year-on-year increase.
It added that EBITDA was expected to increase during the period, but gave no prospective figures.
For the full year, Intercure said revenues were expected to top CAD$87m marking a 250% year-on-year growth rate.
With European expansion plans, including an upcoming high-street launch in the UK, Intercure believes this growth rate will continue into 2022.
Ananda Developments has seen its stock on the Aquis Stock Exchange tumble this week, despite it issuing its first major update for a number of months.
The UK cannabis cultivator announced this week that it had officially started its first phase of growth, and had planted the first seeds at its Lincolnshire facility.
This first research phase will see Ananda self-cross a number of strains for six generations in order to establish strains with both consistent profiles and that grow well in the UK.
Despite the progress Ananda’s shares fell over 10% throughout the week, dipping to levels not seen since December.
Many investors reacted positively to the news, stating that the company’s share price was a ‘bargain’ and represented a good opportunity.
Others pointed to the fact that there was still a long wait for investors before the company, which doesn’t yet have a GMP licence, is set to begin generating revenue. It’s first phase is expected to take around 18 months to complete.
Cannovum, alongside its German cannabis stablemates like Synbiotic, has been riding high since December last year amid news of the country’s upcoming adult-use legalisation.
In late November following the election, Cannovum’s stocks jumped over 60% in a week to over €9 as investors scrambled to capitalise on the German opportunity.
This week however, Cannovum’s stocks have fallen to levels only seen once since before November.
It followed a release from the company that it would be launching its Medical Education Platform, a free virtual training platform for medical cannabis aiming to socially destigmatise it for ‘many patients who could be helped by it’.
Following the announcement, Cannovum’s stock fell from a near-monthly peak of €6.85 to €6.15.
Yooma Wellness also had a tough week on the markets, seeing its stock fall to a near all time low of 11p, down over 15% this week.
This continued a downward trend seen in its stock performance since late December, when the CBD company’s stock value fell off a cliff, plummeting from 50p to around 13p in less than a month.
Weeks before the dropoff, Yooma released its Q3 results, seeing revenues dip slightly from $2.17m in Q2 to $2.13m. Despite gross profits more than doubling from $242,708 in Q2 to $560,107, Yooma saw net losses top $2.6m during the period, down from $3.1m.
In an article published by Proactive Investors this week, Yooma’s CEO Jordan Greenberg said the company has now taken a step back from its flurry of acquisitions, and will now work to integrate these additions and refine their operations before looking towards further M&As.
According to the article, Yooma is also considering a step up from Aquis, which it listed on last summer, onto the LSE.
Last week’s news that Chill Brands was stepping away from its original timeline retail ‘rollout timeline’ sent the company’s stock dropping around 30%.
Chill has managed to stabilise its any further sell offs, seeing a modest uptick this week, after announcing plans to partner with same and next-day delivery company Fabric.
Investors reacted, for the most part, favourably to the news seeing it as a step toward solving the supply chain issues which have dogged the rollout of its products across the US for months.
Others questioned whether Fabric, a young micro-fulfilment company currently with a limited number of fulfilment centres in key locations like Manhattan, could match the sales boost promised by the introduction of its products to 88,000 stores, which it says is still on track to be achieved.
