When Cannabis Wheaton made headlines as one of the first companies to apply the streaming business model to the cannabis industry back in May, the pastures looked green. And yet, only a month later, Cannabis Wheaton seemed to have stumbled with a June 5th press release that announced the termination of an $80 million financing deal with a pair of investment banks amid swirling rumours and accusations of conflicts of interest.
The conflict of interest rumours originated from the fact that employees of the two investment banks, Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity, owned approximately 8% of Cannabis Wheaton’s outstanding shares. That these shares were bought for pennies before the announcement of the deal was not good optics for any of the parties involved, even if all of this information was disclosed in a May 23rd press release from Cannabis Wheaton.
Cannabis Wheaton, which provides cannabis growers seed money in exchange for a piece of their future harvest, has vigorously defended itself, claiming that it has “been the subject of multiple inflammatory false or misleading reports, published primarily online by persons seeking to discredit the Company”.
Although that $80 million financing deal fell through, Cannabis Wheaton bounced back the next day, announcing on June 6th that they had just entered a new $50 million financing agreement with Mackie Research Capital Corporation.
In a Bloomberg interview, Cannabis Wheaton CEO Chuck Rifici said the new deal with Mackie Research is essentially a relaunch as the original, now terminated, financing deal with Eight Capital and Canaccord was made for $50 million and later upsized to $80 million.