Transferring Canadian B2C Medical Cannabis Business to Medicibis Better Aligns Resources to More Promising, Near-Term Opportunities
TORONTO, Feb. 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lifeist Wellness Inc. (“Lifeist” or the “Company”) (TSXV: LFST) (FRANKFURT: M5B) (OTCMKTS: NXTTF), a health-tech company that leverages advancements in science and technology to enable you to find your path to wellness, today announced a strategic move designed to continue to sharpen the Company’s focus. The streamlining of the Company around wellness strategies with higher growth and profitability potential represents a continuation of a renewed commitment by Lifeist to create and return value to shareholders.
“We were proud to be one of the first companies in Canada to enter the online business-to-consumer (B2C) medical cannabis space and to provide high quality products to patients, but the time has come to realign our focus. The regulatory and consumer conditions for medical cannabis in Canada have evolved such that achieving success would require significant and ongoing investments without a growth trajectory and near-term returns to support it,” commented Meni Morim, Lifeist’s Chief Executive Officer. “Accordingly, we have moved decisively to realign all our resources on more promising near-term opportunities, particularly our cannabis B2B distribution and manufacturing businesses, and our recently-launched nutraceutical initiative, each of which enjoy a clearer path to growth with higher near-term profit potential.”
Daniel Stern, CEO of CannMart, added, “We have entered into an agreement with Medicibis, operators of Mendocannabis.ca to facilitate and complete the transfer of our registered medical patients to Medicibis and we are confident in Medicibis’ ability to provide the same care and kindness we provided through our cannmart.com platform. CannMart’s B2B recreational cannabis platform (as opposed to its B2C medical platform), which includes the distribution and logistics business together with CannMart Labs, is the overwhelming driver of our cannabis business. It is growing to be about 90% of our cannabis revenue and has been delivering substantially all of the gross margin contribution, making the B2C business less relevant and no longer core to our long-term strategy. Formalizing this shift enables CannMart to put resources where it can create the most value.”
“Providing Canadian cannabis patients a platform to purchase their medicine will always be Mendo’s focus. We understand that change is hard, and we look forward to earning the trust of every single CannMart patient that transitions to our platform through our compassion pricing, diverse selection of products, and unparalleled service,” said Jay Schwartz, Chief Operating Officer of Mendo.
Mark Shapiro, Mendo Chief Commercial Officer, added, “Patients are our passion at Mendo and today’s announcement reflects that core value. We are delighted to give those that choose to transfer, a new home. The importance of having a plan, in this case a preferred medical provider for patients to easily transfer to, is essential to ensure Canadian cannabis patients continue to have their needs met and receive their medicine from trusted sources.”
Mendo will offer CannMart patients a discount of 10% on two orders of the new member's choice to further ease the transition. Also, If a patient's medical document is expired or is expiring this year, Mendo will cover the cost for renewal upon transfer to their platform.
Kronos Capital Partners acted as financial advisor to Lifeist in connection with the agreement relating to the transfer of patients.
B2B Recreational Cannabis Focus
Within cannabis, Lifeist’s strategic focus is to be the pre-eminent value-added distribution platform and manufacturer of higher margin products serving the cannabis 2.0 consumer. The Company believes that these areas offer the greatest potential for growth and value creation for shareholders.
As a distributor, CannMart has established supply agreements with provincial government cannabis control boards and retailing bodies in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, and most recently added Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, constituting access to approximately 73% of adult Canadians. It is now the trusted distribution partner for 10 LPs and 21 brands in addition to in-house brands Roilty and Mezzero and 3 licensed brands. Most recently CannMart added LPs including J2 Science, Embark Health, TorrCann, JMF Growers family and Loosh Brands to its growing list of partners and also added cannabis-cause brand TobaGrown under license agreement.
Meanwhile, CannMart Labs began commercial production in November 2021 with live resin products and is now considering developing new formats to expand the portfolio of cannabis 2.0 products. Earlier this month, CannMart’s cannabis 2.0 consumer-focused house brand “Roilty'' won the prestigious “Canadian LP Brand of the Year'' award at the 2021 ADCANN Awards, only months after the brand’s initial launch.
Collectively, CannMart’s B2B revenue stream represented approximately 90% of Lifeist’s cannabis revenue for the nine months ended August 31, 2021 and for the twelve months ended November 30, 2020, and has delivered substantially all of the revenue growth and gross margin contribution during each of these periods.
About Lifeist Wellness Inc.
Sitting at the forefront of the post-pandemic wellness revolution, Lifeist is a portfolio of wellness companies leveraging advancements in science and technology to enable individuals to find their personalized path to wellness. Portfolio business units include: CannMart, which operates a B2B wholesale distribution business facilitating recreational sales to Canadian provincial government control boards; CannMart Labs, a BHO extraction facility for the production of high margin cannabis 2.0 products; and the CannMart.com marketplace, which provides Canadian medical customers with a diverse selection of cannabis products from a multitude of federally licensed cultivators and its U.S. customers with access to hemp-derived CBD and smoking accessories; Australian Vapes, the country’s largest online retailer of vaporizers and accessories; Findify, a leading AI-powered search and discovery platform; and Mikra, a biosciences and consumer wellness company seeking to develop innovative therapies for cellular health and recovery.
Information on Lifeist and its businesses can be accessed through the links below:
www.lifeist.com
www.cannmart.com
www.australianvaporizers.com.au
www.wearemikra.com
About Medicibis
Medicibis operates out of a 20,000 sq.ft. cannabis cultivation facility located 15 minutes from downtown Montreal in St. Jean Sur Richelieu. Medicibis also operates an online portal for medical patients that ships nationwide through their website mendocannabis.ca. Mendo's menu has been carefully curated to offer a variety of sought-after products from licensed producers from all over Canada. Mendo is positioned to become one of the leading suppliers of medical cannabis to patients and veterans in the country.
Contacts
Lifeist Wellness Inc.
Meni Morim, CEO
Matt Chesler, CFA, Investor Relations
Ph: 647-362-0390
Email: [email protected]
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release or has in any way approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release.
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not historical in nature contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information can be identified by words or phrases such as “may”, “expect”, “likely”, “should”, “would”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “potential”, “proposed”, “estimate”, “believe” or the negative of these terms, or other similar words, expressions and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions “may” or “will” happen.
The forward-looking information contained herein, including, without limitation, statements related to the development of future products by Cannmart Labs. While we consider these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to management, there is no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this press release. Such factors include, without limitation: the determination of B2B revenues of CannMart being materially less than anticipated. Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company’s current MD&A and annual information form, both of which have been filed under the Company’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
Source: Lifeist Wellness Inc.
Source: Lifeist Wellness Inc.