- Slang (SLNG) owns a suite of brands including OpenVape
- The company doesn't plan to grow marijuana or open its own retail stores
- Canopy has a warrant that allows it to acquire 32 million shares in Slang, or about 15 per cent of the company, contingent on the U.S. legalizing cannabis at the federal level.
From Kristine Owram, BNN Bloomberg:
Two cannabis entrepreneurs who sold their first pot company to Canopy Growth Corp. for $430 million hit pay dirt again after their cannabis-brand company surged in its trading debut.
Slang Worldwide Inc., co-founded by Peter Miller and Billy Levy, began trading Tuesday on the Canadian Securities Exchange through a direct listing. The stock jumped 19 per cent to $1.79 at 10:16 a.m. after listing at $1.50, giving the company a market value of about $645 million. That’s more valuable than Mettrum Health Corp. when Miller and Levy sold it in early 2017 to Canopy, the world’s largest cannabis company.
Unlike Mettrum, Slang won’t be growing pot and it has no plans to open its own retail stores. Instead, it’s focused on brands and distribution, particularly in the U.S. where it’s already in 10 states and plans to be in 10 more before the end of the year. As legalization of recreational pot spreads around the world, cannabis is shifting from an agricultural product to a consumer-packaged good, Miller said.
Slang owns several cannabis brands, including O.penVape, the second-best selling U.S. legal cannabis product with US$187 million of sales from 2014 through November 2018, according to data from cannabis research firm BDS Analytics that was shared by Slang. The company, which sells its products in 2,600 stores, reported $21 million of consolidated revenue in the nine months ended Sept. 30 and a net loss of about $24 million.
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