Here are some snippets from a recently published LA Biz Jnl piece explaining what’s been happening behind the scenes at MedMen and it still appears that they aren’t out of the rough seas that previous management at the company sailed them into.
Let’s hope that LA Biz apply the magnifying glass to High Times next as they have also been very quiet of late too.
LA Biz write
MedMen has dug itself a deep hole, and drastic measures may be in order.
A regulatory filing in Canada revealed that the company could be up for sale. As recently as March, MedMen’s management raised concerns in its filings that it may not have the cash to pay its bills.
The company has laid off a large chunk of its workforce. It canceled a $682 million strategic acquisition of PharmaCann in October 2019 to focus on retail operations in California and other states. And it has had a revolving door for chief financial officers.
Local billionaire Don Hankey’s Hankey Capital, a private lender that sometimes provides bridge financing for businesses in a tough spot, is charging MedMen a 15.5% interest rate on $77 million in loans. Hankey Capital has warrants on the debt that gives the lender the right to buy the company’s stock on favorable terms in the future.
‘A major restructuring’
“They are in the middle innings of a major restructuring, undercapitalized and with a severely stressed balance sheet where they are trying to right the ship,” said Paul Penney, chief investment officer with Boston-based KreditForce, a merchant bank that lends in emerging growth industries.
“The previous management team was growth at all cost with very little adherence to the balance sheet or cash flow,” Penney said. “They’ve curbed the losses and plugged the hole on losses going south. Now they are selling noncore assets and finding cheaper and more affordable debt. They are doing the rational things that they should have been doing for a long time.”
In February, New York-based Ascend Wellness Holdings Inc. bought 86.7% of MedMen’s cannabis operation in New York for $63 million and has an option to buy the rest contingent on the launch of a marijuana market in the state.
“My assumption is that they sold part of their New York assets at a cheap rate. But they’d be foolish to sell the company now, especially if they cleaned it up and improved the valuation. Then they’d get more if it were sold,” said Jonathan Decourcey, director of research with Viridian Capital Advisors, which analyzes corporate finance solutions in the cannabis industry.
Read the full article at https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/jul/26/struggling-medmen-seeks-restructuring-turnaround/?utm_source=pocket_mylist&mc_cid=8d5afb3383&mc_eid=8292ba8d17
