SMITHS FALLS, ON, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Canopy Growth Corporation
(TSX: WEED) ("Canopy Growth" or "the Company"), today released
further details regarding the newly formed cannabis streaming and
strategic support platform, Canopy Rivers Corporation ("Canopy
Rivers").
With a core focus on lean operations and capital efficiency, the
operations and management at Canopy Rivers will be limited to
select strategic members from Canopy Growth's industry leading
internal executive suite, supplemented with tier one external
business development, financial, accounting, and legal
professionals retained under contract.
Bruce Linton will act as Chairman
to the board of directors at Canopy Rivers, with additional board
seats, all reserved for independent directors, including one or
more independent director(s) of the Company, representing the
interests of the external capital providers and strategic
counterparties to be determined in due course.
Canopy Rivers has engaged XIB Consulting Inc. ("XIB") to provide
business management and corporate development consultation
services. XIB's principals, Sean
McNulty and Peter
Hatziioannou will take leading roles on the mandate and
leverage their significant industry experience, robust relationship
network, and their internal support team comprised entirely of
former finance professionals from tier one domestic and
international investment banks.
Canopy Rivers has retained Cassels
Brock & Blackwell LLP ("Cassels") to act as legal
counsel. Cassels, one of the most highly regarded law firms in
Canada, has considerable
experience working within the Canadian cannabis sector and is
ideally positioned to leverage their insight and perspective gained
from working with multi‑billion dollar global companies
specializing in the structuring of royalty and streaming
transactions.
Canopy Rivers has engaged Deloitte LLP ("Deloitte") to provide
accounting and audit services. Deloitte, who also acts as
auditors for Canopy Growth, has specialized expertise pertaining to
the Canadian cannabis landscape, and can draw on unique experience
from acting as auditors and advisors to several streaming and
royalty companies.
Canopy Rivers, supported by this lean and specialized group of
operating partners, plans to enter agreements to purchase a portion
of cannabis production in exchange for upfront capital, strategic
support, and genetics materials as may be required. Canopy Rivers
plans to engage in strategic transactions with both Licensed
Producers ("LP's") and selected LP applicants. For those that have
received a pre-license inspection affirmation letter, Canopy Rivers
will leverage best operating and infrastructure practices
developed by partner Canopy Growth to help streamline
and simplify the licensing process, de-risking their
access to growth capital, and supplementing their operating
practices and methodologies.
Each potential streaming partner will be evaluated separately,
and individual streaming and support service contracts entered by
Canopy Rivers will be priced and structured consistently with the
risks, value proposition, and requirements of our
counterparties. Capital invested in each streaming partner may
involve an upfront payment, may include additional license or
production based milestones payments, and may also involve equity
or and/or equity linked securities.
"In a market with extremely limited access to traditional debt
and non-dilutive capital, streaming agreements with Canopy Rivers
facilitate a lower cost, less dilutive source of growth capital
that is directly connected to an invaluable operational support
platform," said Bruce Linton,
Chairman of Canopy Rivers.
Canopy Rivers' relationship and joint venture agreement with
Canopy Growth also provides streaming partners with potential
access to the industry's largest portfolio of patients and
potential consumers via Canopy Growth's Tweed Main Street and Craft
Grow programs and platform.
From a Canopy Growth perspective, this strategic agreement with
Canopy Rivers provides the Company with a secure, and predictable
source of incremental cannabis supply, increased diversification of
its products available for sale, and an ideal partner to generate
referral and introduction opportunities for Tweed Main Street and
Canopy's Craft Grow programs and platforms.
Here's to Future Growth (and Streaming).
About Canopy Rivers Corporation
Canopy Rivers is a
newly-formed and wholly-owned subsidiary of Canopy Growth focused
on free cash flow generation and the aggregation of wholesale
supply. Canopy Rivers will enter streaming agreements to purchase a
portion of cannabis harvested from licensed producers in exchange
for an upfront capital and additional ongoing payments upon
delivery of the product. In return, Canopy Rivers will be supplied
with high-quality cannabis at predictable costs. Partners of Canopy
Rivers will benefit from Canopy Growth's world-leading expertise
within the cannabis market while still allowing the partners to
maintain day-to-day control over operational and strategic
initiatives. For more information visit www.canopyrivers.com.
About Canopy Growth Corporation
Canopy Growth is a world-leading diversified cannabis company,
offering diverse brands and curated cannabis strain varieties in
dried and oil extract forms. Through its wholly‑owned
subsidiaries, Canopy Growth operates numerous state-of-the-art
production facilities with over half a million square feet of
indoor and greenhouse production capacity. Canopy Growth has
established partnerships with leading sector names
in Canada and abroad. For more information
visit www.canopygrowth.com.
About XIB Consulting Inc.
XIB Consulting Inc, a
Toronto-based capital markets
consulting and advisory firm that specializes in the Canadian
cannabis industry. With considerable experience in mergers and
acquisition advisory, institutional equity sales, and event-driven
hedge fund management, XIB offers clients corporate consulting
services from a unique perspective in the Canadian capital markets.
XIB and its principals have been pioneers within the sector
providing capital markets consulting and advisory services to many
of the leading cannabis companies in Canada.
Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements. Often, but
not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use
of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is
expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not
anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases
or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could",
"would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results,
performance or achievements of Canopy Growth Corporation, Tweed
Inc., Tweed Farms Inc., Mettrum Health Corp., or Bedrocan Canada
Inc. to be materially different from any future results,
performance or achievements expressed or implied by the
forward-looking statements. Examples of such statements include
future operational and production capacity, the impact of enhanced
infrastructure and production capabilities, and forecasted
available product selection. The forward-looking statements
included in this news release are made as of the date of this news
release and Canopy Growth Corp. does not undertake an obligation to
publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new
information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by
applicable securities legislation.
Neither the TSX Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider
(as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Exchange) accepts
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Canopy Growth Corporation