MedMen Archives - Green Market Report

StaffMay 30, 2023
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The Daily Hit is a recap of the top financial news stories for May 30, 2023.

On The Site

Two Dozen Publicly Traded U.S. Cannabis Companies Lost $4 Billion Last Year

Two dozen of the top plant-touching publicly traded marijuana companies in the United States posted a cumulative financial loss of more than $4 billion in 2022 against nearly $9 billion in revenue, according to analysis of filings by Green Market Report. Read more here.

New York Cannabis Regulators Propose Settlement for Lawsuit Hindering Retail Licensing

New York marijuana industry regulators on Tuesday gave initial approval to a settlement deal that is intended to end a legal fight that has stalled retail cannabis permits in the Finger Lakes Region. Read more here.

Numinus Wellness Shares Soar as Landmark Clinical Study of Psilocybin Therapy Begins

Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX: NUMI) announced on Tuesday that its subsidiary, Cedar Clinical Research, has begun studying a potential new therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) using COMP360 psilocybin. As a result, shares of NUMI jumped more than 30% to lately sell at 19 cents on the news as of the Phase 3 trial was released on Tuesday morning. Read more here.

Entourage Health Revenue Rises on Pre-Rolls, Medical Marijuana

Entourage Health Corp. (TSX-V: ENTG) (OTCQX: ETRGF) announced Tuesday a 24% sequential increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2023 ending March 31, with a significant contribution from its medical cannabis stream and adult-use pre-roll sales. Read more here.

YourWay Cannabis Can’t Find An Auditor For Filings

YourWay Cannabis Brands Inc. (CSE: YOUR)(OTC: YOURF) has been delayed in issuing its financial reports because it can’t find an auditor. The company said that since the resignation of its previous auditor Macias Gini & O’Connell LLP in December 2022, it hasn’t been able to find a replacement. Read more here.

In Other News

Minnesota

Surrounded by dozens of cheering people in green clothes, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill Tuesday to legalize recreational marijuana for people over the age of 21, making Minnesota the 23rd state to legalize the substance for adults. Read more here.

Ohio

Ohioans 21 and older would be able to cultivate, purchase and possess marijuana if a bipartisan bill passes in the Ohio Statehouse, possibly circumventing a ballot measure campaign to force legalization through. Read more here.

North Carolina

A North Carolina state House of Representatives committee has taken up a medical marijuana legalization bill already approved by the state Senate, and activists are hopeful this year the state may embrace MMJ. Read more here.


Debra BorchardtMarch 28, 2023
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MedMen (OTC: MMNFF) will have to pony up more than $3 million for its co-founder and former CEO Adam Bierman.

An arbitrator ruled that Bieman was entitled to $3,063,300, plus costs of $49,243.34, for a total award of $3,112,543.34 related to his separation from the company. The base award represents the value of Bierman’s super voting shares and a bonus of 12 million common shares, as of August 2020.

Beleaguered MedMen was once billed as the first unicorn of cannabis, meaning the company had a billion-dollar valuation before going public, but now it is selling off parts and drowning in debt.

“After three long years, I’m glad the truth has come out and that I can finally share my story,” Bierman said. “The court found MedMen, as well as the former executive chairman, guilty of fraud. This judgment completes the factual narrative as I passionately chased the end of prohibition.”

However, the win could be cold comfort for Bierman as MedMen recently reported that it has a working capital deficit of a whopping $137 million and noted that it is a going concern. Medmen stated that it had already defaulted on debt with a senior lender and would need to obtain an extension or refinance.

The company has just $15 million in cash and equivalents on the books and a market cap of only $25 million. The stock was selling for less than two cents a share.

$2 Billion

According to the court document, MedMen went public on May 29, 2018, with its stock first listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Days before the IPO, Bierman, as CEO of MedMen, executed an employment agreement for himself, which provided among its benefits:

  • $1.5 million in base salary.
  • An equity grant based on a time vesting schedule.
  • A special IPO bonus of $4 million if the company reached a $2 billion valuation.

Bierman received the valuation bonus in September 2018.

However, the company never revisited those lofty valuations. The stock was selling at roughly $3.54 at the beginning of 2019 but plunged to just roughly 53 cents by the end of 2019.

MedMen Falls

During this time, however, MedMen experienced some setbacks.

Before the IPO, MedMen agreed to buy PharmaCann, but the deal ultimately fell apart in fall 2019. MedMen’s stock fell, and the company needed to restructure as it cycled through several chief financial officers.

The final award statement claims that it was the failure of that deal that caused the stock price to fall, but the company also was reporting heavy losses and not paying its vendors. In addition, the co-founders were accused of enriching themselves as the company struggled.

“In December 2019, an investor died before completing his $20 million investment into the company. Initially, Ben Rose committed that Wicklow Capital, MedMen’s then-largest equity investor, would make up this shortfall. Rose was both a representative of Wicklow and executive chairman of MedMen. But the commitment soon morphed into an ultimatum: To obtain the cash infusion on Christmas, Bierman, Modlin, and Ganan had to sign personal guarantees on the money, or Wicklow would allow MedMen to miss payroll and other obligations. In May 2019, Bierman reduced his salary to $50,000 and changed his equity grant to be discretionary and based on performance, for ‘investor sentiment morale,'” the statement read.

Bierman’s Fiery Exit

According to the statement, on Jan. 24, 2020, Bierman called Rose to tell him he was thinking of stepping down as CEO.

“The next Monday (Jan. 27), Bierman met with Rose and John McCarthy, Wicklow’s general counsel, at MedMen’s offices to negotiate the terms of Bierman’s exit. … At times Rose chastised and cursed at Bierman. And at some point, the negotiations became so contentious that Ganan had to physically restrain Rose when he got up and moved as though he was going to strike Bierman.”

However, despite an oral agreement between Rose and Bierman for 18 million shares, the written separation agreement made no mention of Bierman’s right to a specified number.

According to the board minutes, it was determined that the consideration MedMen would pay Bierman to surrender his super voting shares would be put “through a more rigorous valuation process.”

Super Voting Value

According to the final award statement, Equity Methods valued the super voting shares at $951,300. FW Cook, on the other hand, valued the 2019 excess contribution at about negative $4.9 million, essentially concluding that no compensation was owed to Bierman for this portion.

Bierman contended that MedMen breached the separation agreement in three main ways:

  • Relying on the Equity Methods report, which contained manifest errors, to value the super voting shares.
  • Relying on the FW Cook report, again with manifest errors, to value the 2019 excess contribution.
  • Failing to issue any shares or cash for the super voting shares.

The arbitrator ruled that the Equity Methods report did not contain manifest errors and also denied Bierman’s request for “a multiple of two and a half times the 3.7 million shares” owed to him, because the claimed fraud was not “proven by clear and convincing evidence.”

With this case behind him, Bierman said he is looking at getting back into the cannabis game, noting that he is working on a few projects. One is a new retail concept based on the convenience store model with low overhead and higher margins.


Debra BorchardtOctober 3, 2022
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It seems MedMen’s (OTC: MMNFF) recent pushback against Thor Equities is having a rippling effect across the real estate market. Last week, Green Market Report published a story about MedMen’s legal efforts with regard to the rental payments for a property in Chicago. MedMen had signed a lease on a property with Thor Equities, but then quit paying the rent. Thor Equities says MedMen owes them almost $1 million. The complaint notes that there isn’t any disagreement over the lease and the rent not being paid. MedMen would prefer not to have to pay the money that is owed.

The issue that is irritating some cannabis industry insiders is that MedMen doesn’t want Thor Equities to move the case from the New York Federal court where it was originally filed to a California state court. MedMen wants the case to stay in New York and is arguing that the lease contract isn’t enforceable because cannabis is federally illegal. Real estate companies were already leery of renting to cannabis businesses and this argument is another reason to stay away.

Kristin Jordan, the founder of Park Jordan is a commercial real estate broker and lawyer in New York and consults with cannabis companies. The first applicants for New York are called the Justice applicants because they, or their family members, have previously been arrested and convicted of an applicable cannabis offense. She said, “I recently spoke with a prominent NYC broker and was informed that his clients have received upwards of 12 LOI’s (letters of intent) from CBRE, the firm tapped by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York to secure sites for the Justice applicants. He said the landlords do not understand the program and are not interested in this at all.” DASNY (Dormitory Authority of the State of New York) is the agency chosen to oversee the financing of the build-out construction of the retail sites.

Thor Equities was successful in the courts in California against High Times which took over a lease contract when it acquired a license from Harvest Health. The court ruled that the back rent had to be paid and that the contract was enforceable. High Times owes $5 million in back rent.

If MedMen is successful in its argument in New York, it would easily scare away most landlords if they think a cannabis tenant could just walk away or that they would get in trouble for renting to a company that is operating in a federally illegal industry. So far, the judge in the case has been critical of Thor Equities and has made the company reword its complaints. That has put the real estate community on edge. What if the case stays in New York & what if Medmen wins? What landlord would ever sign a contract with a cannabis company if the courts won’t enforce the contract?

In the early days of the cannabis industry, most companies raised money to outright buy the properties they wanted to occupy. Banks wouldn’t lend for a mortgage and landlords didn’t want to rent to them, so they paid cash. Cannabis businesses often ended up in depressed areas of real estate because prices were more affordable. As more states legalized cannabis, landlords had begun to gain some comfort with renting. 

If cannabis companies have to go back to the days of buying properties, it could further dampen efforts in new markets like New York. Commercial real estate is incredibly expensive even in the most undesirable neighborhoods.


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The Green Market Report focuses on the financial news of the rapidly growing cannabis industry. Our target approach filters out the daily noise and does a deep dive into the financial, business and economic side of the cannabis industry. Our team is cultivating the industry’s critical news into one source and providing open source insights and data analysis


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