Canopy Growth, Organa Brands, Green House Seeds Collaborate
to bring New Products to Canadian Market and Beyond
SMITHS FALLS, ON, DENVER
and AMSTERDAM, Nov. 17, 2017
/CNW/ - Green House Holdings North America Inc. ("Green
House"), its affiliate in the
Netherlands, GHSC Trading B.V., National Concessions Group
Inc. ("Organa Brands") and Canopy Growth Corporation
("Canopy Growth" or "the Company") (TSX: WEED), together
three of the most storied and successful global cannabis businesses
are pleased to announce the planned creation of a collaborative
joint venture (the "JV").
To establish the JV, Canopy Growth will allocate a portion of
ownership in ACMPR-licensed Agripharm Corp. ("Agripharm"), a 20,000
sq. ft. indoor growing facility located in Creemore, Ontario, to its new partners. Canopy
Growth will retain 40% ownership of Agripharm, while Green House
and Organa Brands will own 40% and 20%, respectively, of Agripharm.
In exchange for the issuance of shares, Green House and Organa
Brands have granted an exclusive, royalty-free licence in
Canada to certain proprietary
technology, trademarks, genetics, know-how and other intellectual
property to Agripharm, subject to compliance with applicable
law.
The JV will create a new Canadian home-base for Green House and
Organa Brands where they will work together with Canopy Growth to
produce cannabis products for the Canadian market. Pursuant to the
JV, the Company has the right to purchase all of the cannabis
products produced by Agripharm to be exclusively distributed via
Canopy Growth's national channels, subject to limited exceptions.
In addition, the Company will sublicense the proprietary
technology, trademarks, genetics, know-how and other intellectual
property from Agripharm in order to ensure that Canopy Growth is
able to satisfy consumer demand across Canada for the suite of Green House and Organa
Brands products.
Although Agripharm is focused on the Canadian market, Canopy
Growth, Green House, Organa Brands and their respective affiliates
will also explore other federally-legal international opportunities
as they arise, including with respect to medical research and
development opportunities, product distribution platforms, and
brick-and-mortar retail locations. Agripharm will not conduct any
business in the United States.
"Our business has separated itself from the competition by
focusing on brands and products that resonate with people but also
because we've found creative ways to collaborate with like-minded
businesses to increase the breadth of our product offering," said
Mark Zekulin, President, Canopy
Growth. "From world-class breeders like our partners DNA Genetics
and now Green House Seeds, to sector innovators like Organa Brands,
to cultural icons like Snoop Dogg, we work with the best in order
to bring the best possible cannabis forward to our customers."
The JV is expected to close on or about December 1, 2017. Operationally, Canopy
Growth will transfer oversight to its new collaborators who will
operate a pristine licensed facility with modular growing rooms
designed to produce only the very best cannabis flowers. Green
House will oversee day-to-day operations and bring their own
expertise into cultivation, while Organa will implement world-class
extraction functions as new and novel value-add products become
part of the regulatory environment. Canopy Rivers
Corporation, a partly-owned subsidiary of Canopy Growth, has also
entered into an agreement to provide the JV with up to $20 million in funding for the expansion of the
facility in exchange for ongoing royalty payments and a warrant to
acquire up to 4% of the issued and outstanding common
shares.
"For 30 years Green House Brands has been at the forefront of
cannabis legalization by advocating for its normalization and
expansion into new territories," said Arjan
Roskam, the founder of Green House Brands. "We're now
operating in four continents (Europe, Africa, South
America and North America)
and thanks to this new partnership with these two prominent market
leaders in the industry, Canopy and Organa Brands, we will create
even more opportunities globally to help the world access cannabis
in a legal way. This epic move will allow us to maintain our
position as a world leader in genetics and cannabis retail, while
alerting the cannabis consumer that we will continue striving to
make cannabis available worldwide for all medicinal and
recreational consumers one day."
Canopy Growth, Green House, and Organa Brands each bring a
unique set of skills that are strategically complementary to one
another. Canopy Growth has built an online distribution platform
that touches every province and territory in Canada as well as 7 international markets;
Green House is a genetic leader that has bred some of the world's
most sought-after strains; and Organa Brands is an extract product
innovator. Together, the JV is positioned to take sought after
genetics, insert those genetics into consumer-friendly ingestion
formats, and put them on stores shelves across the country, and
abroad.
"We are incredibly excited about this new partnership - since
the inception of Organa Brands, one of the key tenets of our
business has been forming smart partnerships with mutually
beneficial results. Working with Canopy and Green House has been a
surreal moment as we continue to fully recognize the impact of what
this deal means for the industry as a whole" said Organa Brands
Co-Founder, Jeremy Heidl. "We
couldn't have asked for better partners in Canada and beyond- this new global partnership
will prove to be a defining moment for all parties involved."
Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
acted as legal counsel to Canopy Growth with respect to the JV,
Dentons Canada LLP acted as legal counsel to Green House, and
Stikeman Elliott LLP acted as legal counsel to Organa Brands.
For more information on this new partnership click here.
Here's to Future Growth.
About Canopy Growth Corporation
Canopy Growth is a world-leading diversified cannabis company,
offering distinct brands and curated cannabis varieties in dried,
oil and capsule forms. Through its wholly‑owned subsidiaries,
Canopy Growth operates numerous state-of-the-art production
facilities with over half a million square feet of GMP-certified
indoor and greenhouse production capacity, all to an unparalleled
level of quality assurance procedures and testing. Canopy
Growth has established partnerships with leading sector names
in Canada and abroad, with interests and operations
spanning four continents. The Company is proudly dedicated to
educating healthcare practitioners, providing consistent access to
high quality cannabis products, conducting robust clinical
research, and furthering the public's understanding of cannabis.
For more information visit www.canopygrowth.com
About Green House Holdings North America Inc.
Green
House Brands is bringing the most awarded and recognized cannabis
brand in the world to the North American market. Established in
1985 in Amsterdam, the Green House
Brands portfolio includes five leading marijuana businesses -
Strain Hunters, Green House Seed Co., Green House Feeding, Green
House Coffee shops & King of Cannabis — as seen on VICE &
National Geographic. Green House assets have won the company
numerous accolades, including over 40 High Times Cannabis Cups and
200+ awards for top genetics, establishing the company's leadership
in the global cannabis industry. Green House was a pioneer in the
development of the European cannabis coffee shop market, where its
Green House Coffee shops in the
Netherlands and Strain Hunters Clubs in Spain remain market leaders. As Strain
Hunters, the company has been featured in documentary series on HBO
and VICE, highlighting its globetrotting journeys to find the
rarest landrace strains of cannabis. Green House and Strain Hunters
media has over 150M views and has one of the most powerful
marketing platforms in the industry. Green House enters the rapidly
developing legal North American cannabis markets with all of its
enterprises. For more information please visit
www.greenhousebrands.com
About Organa Brands
Organa Brands revolutionized the
cannabis industry with the introduction of supercritical
CO₂extracted cannabis oil in 2010 and the introduction of the
groundbreaking O.penVAPE device in 2012. Today, the company is home
to the world's largest consumer cannabis brands. After developing
O.penVAPE, Bakked, and Organa Labs into world-class brands with
nationwide distribution, the company acquired The Magic Buzz, and
entered into a joint venture to form District Edibles. Organa
Brands sells one of its products every 4 seconds around the world,
and has delivered over one billion puffs through its flagship
O.penVAPE line. A brand incubator and pioneer in the cannabis
space, Organa Brands utilizes its 12 production facilities in 11
states and Jamaica to manufacture
its extensive catalog of products. Organa Brands sells its cannabis
products in over 1,200 retail locations with ancillary hardware
sold in thousands of retailers globally– making it the largest
cannabis-oil-based consumer products company in the United States. Agripharm– a joint venture
between Organa Brands, Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX: WEED), and
the world-renowned Greenhouse Seed Company– ushers in a new era of
international distribution for the three brand powerhouses. Organa
Brands is committed to dominating the global cannabis market
through the marriage of science and technology, all for the benefit
of the consumer. For more information, please visit
www.OrganaBrands.com
Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information
This news
release contains forward-looking information. Often, but not
always, forward-looking information 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 information involves known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results,
performance or achievements of Canopy Growth, its subsidiaries or
the JV to be materially different from any future results,
performance or achievements expressed or implied by the
forward-looking information contained in this news release.
Examples of such statements include the issuance of additional
common shares, the contribution to be made by Green House and
Organa Brands, the purchase of cannabis products by Canopy Growth
from Agripharm, the Company's expectations about its positioning
and branding in the Canadian market, the Company's collaborative
efforts with Green House and Organa Brands internationally, and the
expansion of the Agripharm facility. Risks, uncertainties and other
factors involved with forward-looking information could cause
actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to
differ materially from those expressed or implied by such
forward-looking information, including risks associated with:
timelines for expansion, including with respect to construction and
Health Canada's approval process; availability of additional
financing; third-party and regulatory approvals; and such risks
contained in the Company's annual information form dated
June 28, 2017 and filed with Canadian
securities regulators available on the Company's issuer profile on
SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the
assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking
information in this press release are reasonable, undue reliance
should not be placed on such information and no assurance can be
given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or
at all. The forward-looking information included in this news
release are made as of the date of this news release and the
Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such
forward-looking information to reflect new information, subsequent
events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities
legislation.
SOURCE Canopy Growth Corporation