William SumnerJanuary 31, 2018
Liberty Leaf Holdings Ltd. (LIBFF) today announced that it has been included in the Solactive Emerging Marijuana Growers Index.
Similar to Solactive’s Junior Marijuana Growers Index, the Emerging Marijuana Growers Index tracks a basket of publicly listed cannabis companies with significant business activities in cannabis cultivation and/or distribution. The junior index primarily focuses North American publicly-listed small-capitalization companies.
Although most cannabis indices focus on larger cannabis companies, the Junior Marijuana Growers Index focuses on minor companies with smaller market capitalization. Companies listed on the index are required to have a minimum market cap of CAD $50 million and a maximum of CAD $500 million. Existing members need to have a market cap of at most CAD $750 million.
Liberty Leaf’s listing will help the company move one step closer to becoming included in the Horizons Junior Marijuana Growers ETF. Owned by Horizons ETFs and still pending approval, the ETF hopes to replicate the performance of Solactive’s Junior Marijuana Growers Index; using it as its underlying index.
Solactive AG is a Frankfurt-based index provider that focuses on the development, calculation, and distribution of tailor-made indices over all asset classes. As of January 2017, Solactive AG served approximately 350 clients in Europe, America, and Asia, with approximately USD $100 billion invested in products linked to indices calculated by the Company globally, primarily via 250 exchange-traded funds from a number of well-known providers.
Unlike the popular Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF, which is focused on marijuana-related biotech companies, the Junior Marijuana Growers ETF will focus solely on small-scale cannabis cultivators.
“We look forward to broadening our shareholder base through our inclusion in the index, and ultimately, the ETF,” said Liberty Leaf Holdings President and CEO Will Rascan in a statement. “It should also help to expand our reach to an even larger audience of fund managers and investors who are becoming increasingly interested in the cannabis sector.”
Last week, Liberty Leaf also announced that it had closed a non-brokered private placement financing for a total of $2 million; allotting five million units, comprised of one common share and half of a share purchase warrant, at a price of $0.40 per unit.
Proceeds from the private placement will go towards facility build-outs for the company’s North Road Ventures and Just Kush Enterprises operations.
