The tragic developments in Ukraine hit global markets hard last week, and cannabis stocks even harder. As Europe’s worst fears were realised on Thursday investors across the globe scrambled to transfer their capital to traditional safe havens like gold and Government debt, seeing riskier stocks such as cannabis bear the brunt.
The stock price declines, many of which reach well into double digits, came at the tail end of what was a jam-packed week of announcements from across the sector.
Like Chill Brands just weeks earlier, Cellular Goods started the week by informing investors of a planned strategy change.
Since launching its inaugural product range in December 2021, Cellular said its ‘total revenues had been below internal forecasts’.
It attributed the poor sales to its inhibition to advertise on key social media platforms, naming ‘Google, and Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram’ directly, due to their blanket policies regarding cannabis-related companies.
This has reportedly delayed the company’s anticipated ‘omnichannel’ marketing drive, which has been promised to take place in February, a month it says beauty and wellness products often sell best.
According to the company, this forced it to ‘overhaul the original campaign… resulting in a deferment of the full marketing launch’, which is now due to ‘go live imminently’.
The news saw stock prices drop by nearly 35% in the first half of the week, before levelling out in the second half.
Danish cultivator Stenocare was the only cannabis company tracked by BusinessCann that managed to keep its stock prices from falling throughout the week.
On Friday its stocks jumped over 9% as it released its Q4 results, alongside an announcement that it is launching three oil products in the UK market.
Stenocare admitted that its ‘endurance was tested again in terms of commercial traction’ throughout Q4 and 2021, seeing its losses before tax increase slightly throughout the year.
However investors were drawn to the company’s revenue prospects for the coming year, with three medical cannabis oil products now approved by UK regulators.
The company expects the products to be available to patients in the UK in ‘60 to 90 days’.
It’s CEO Thomas Skovlund Schnegelsberg said: “Stenocare now becomes one of few suppliers to UK patients. By adding the UK, including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – the list of markets in which STENOCARE branded products are – or soon will be – available has grown to 6, including Denmark and Sweden, and more are in the pipeline for this year”.
Conversely Kanabo’s announcement on Monday of its expansion into the UK medical market via a £14m deal to acquire telemedicine operator The GP Service did little to help its stock performance.
The acquisition will reportedly allow medical cannabis patients to get an appointment with a registered GP within 30 minutes, and get a prescription sent to one of 4200 pharmacies within an hour.
While investors reacted largely positively to the deal, market sentiment regarding the announcement of an oversubscribed £2.25 million fundraising on the same day was less favourable.
Kanabo’s fundraise saw it offer 28,125,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 8p per share, representing around 7% of the company’s ordinary share capital.
However, each placing share issued only has half a warrant attached, meaning investors have the right to subscribe for the other half of the share at a price of 18p for a period of 18 months following admission.
Though this tactic seemingly did little to put off new investors, this alongside further dilution seemed to deter a number of existing shareholders.
