Yahoo Finance Cannabis Profits In Focus: CEO’s of HEXO, Icanic Brands, Tilray, and Aurora Cannabis Discuss Next Wave of Global Growth Opportunities and Brands Innovation
NEW YORK, Dec. 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wall Street Reporter, the trusted name in financial news since 1843, has published reports on the latest comments and insights from leaders at: Tilray, Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY), Icanic Brands (OTC: ICNAF) (CSE: ICAN), Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) (TSX: ACB), and HEXO Corp. (NYSE: HEXO)
Cannabis leaders are focusing on innovation in premium branding, global expansion, and tight operational execution in the drive towards profitability. Wall Street Reporter highlights the latest comments from industry thought leaders:
Icanic Brands (OTC: ICNAF) (CSE: ICAN) CEO Brandon Kou: ”Ready to Scale with Quality Brands, and a Superior Gross Margin Profile”
“The Tesla of Cannabis” is what some savvy investors are calling Icanic Brands (OTC: ICNAF) (CSE: ICAN), after its recent presentation at Wall Street Reporter’s “Investors Discovery Day” livestream. ICNAF is a leader in the California market, and specifically in the pre-rolled space, with its award-winning “Ganja Gold” brand, sold in hundreds of retail outlets. A key component of ICNAF’s success is its pre-roll manufacturing technologies which produce consistent, high-quality pre rolls at high gross margins - a major competitive advantage in the cannabis industry.
Watch ICNAF Investors Discovery Day 12/4 Livestream: https://bit.ly/3gbJJVf
In his livestream presentation, ICNAF CEO Brandon Kou outlines the company’s growth strategy, based on a “three pillar approach”: sales platform, technology, and vertical integration which lead to a superior gross margin profile. With a profitable foundation established, ICNAF is now at an inflection point where it’s ready to start scaling revenues and expand with strategic M&A opportunities. December 4, 2020 VIDEO: https://bit.ly/3gbJJVf
December 1 - ICNF reports $C7.9 million revenues and $560,000 in positive adjusted EBITDA for FY 2020. ICNAF also announces expansion to its new California facility which will house ICNAF’s second automated pre-roll machinery, being put into production in Q1-2021, resulting in a significant increase in overall production capacity. Over the past 12 months, ICNAF has seen a significant increased demand for its pre-roll brands (Ganja Gold and Taylors) and the addition of automation equipment that has been sourced and developed to keep up with the demand requires a much larger physical manufacturing facility.
November 10 - Ganja Gold has been recognized by LeafLink as Fastest Growing pre-rolls in the nation. LeafLink analyzes orders between 1,700+ cannabis brands and 5,500+ retailers, in North America. The Fastest-Growing categories represent the most popular brands and products on the platform in 2020.
Watch ICNAF Investors Discovery Day 12/4 Livestream: https://bit.ly/3gbJJVf
HEXO Corp. (NYSE: HEXO) CEO Sebastien St.Louis: ”Now On Path Towards Positive Earnings Growth”
“...Despite the many dire economic and social consequences the pandemic has caused, the cannabis industry continues to grow. And that’s a testament to the consumer demand for safe and legal product that we offer. The industry has a $2.9 billion run rate and continues to grow. We remain in a top four market share position closing in on the third spot and increasing the gap between number of ourselves and the number five and number six LPs…. We’ve been deliberate and selective in our launch of 2.0 products. We’ve launched vape pens, our Hash products and they’ve been overwhelming successes. Great quality reviews and we are number one in the Hash category. We continued to lead the way with Original Stash, including our 28 gram package format, which is a high quality consistent product priced to compete directly with the illicit market. This was an industry first and HEXO reset the Canadian market for dried flower as a result, many of our competitors scrambled to duplicate our efforts.
“...While we strive for consistent positive EBITDA, we’re also focused on learning from the past. It’s not our intention to overpay for assets or overbuild our capacity. With today’s announcement, we feel we’ve put ourselves on a path towards positive earnings per share. Our capital-light global strategy to partner with Fortune 500 companies continues...We have a lot of work to do, but the good news is that our revenues are growing. Our yields and volume sold have improved. Our normalized gross margin is healthy, and our costs continue to come down. Our adjusted EBITDA loss improved materially in the fourth quarter. And we hope to be EBITDA positive very soon…”
HEXO Corp. (NYSE: HEXO) Q4 2020 Earnings Highlights: https://bit.ly/2JKlC4b
Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) (TSX: ACB) CEO, Miguel Martin: “Focused on Delivering ‘Quality Revenue’ through Premium Brands”
“...the consumer has demonstrated very dynamic tendencies with market share moving very quickly between brands, unlike in more stable CPG categories. This provides us with a great opening for our pivot to premium brands….Data from Canada and other mature markets indicate that premium and super premium brands have been and will continue to be successful in all formats. Therefore, Aurora has a real opportunity for a more articulated and balanced portfolio offering with a greater focus on higher margin and sustainable premium assets, such as vapes, pre-rolls and premium flower offerings across multiple price tiers....
We are also working to expand our leading concentrates and to refocus our dried flower business toward higher gross profit dollar pools...The key of course, is to ensure that in doing so we are delivering more dollars to the gross profit line versus simply just delivering low margin revenue. We are therefore much more interested in our market share within premium and super premium categories, along with our market share of categories, such as vapor, pre-rolls and concentrates that are margin accretive compared to our market share in the deep discount flower business...our intention is to generate not just revenue but quality revenue, that will deliver a healthy gross profit dollar as opposed to essentially just a gross margin percentage.”
Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) Earnings Call Highlights: https://bit.ly/3lgMGWB
Tilray, Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY) CEO, Brendan Kennedy: “Europe Cannabis is Next Big Growth Opportunity”
“...We are operating in an efficient manner across our entire business, global medical cannabis, Canadian adult use-cannabis and global hemp. With the completion of our significant cost reductions, we are now poised to leverage our cost structure and ensure we are one of the global winners in this industry. We have ample cash availability on our ATM to execute our strategy...With our infrastructure in place, we will continue to focus on building brands and developing products that resonate with consumers and established Tilray as the most trusted cannabis and hemp company in the world.”
“...I think that we'll see possibly the entire EU legalize cannabis for medical-use over the course of the next, let's call it, 18 months...We are committed to long-term profitable growth in Europe as regulations continue to change and country markets develop...We are continuing to see increases in both the number of patients in Germany with cannabis prescriptions, as well as the number of doctors who are writing prescriptions for these patients... We believe that we are effectively building brand awareness similar to the way that we did in Canada four years ago and expect to see continued patient and revenue growth given Germany's large population base. In fact, we believe that the adoption curve in Germany is occurring at a faster pace compared to Canada during 2014 and 2015. Recently, we have seen a number of competitors either cease European operations or significantly reduced their presence there. We believe this will become a long-term strategic advantage for Tilray. The commitments we have made to the EU market with our Portugal GMP campus and regional leadership team based in Germany, position us well to continue to capture market share in Germany and more broadly in Europe...”
Tilray, Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY) Earnings Call Highlights: https://bit.ly/3m2MqdY
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