TORONTO, May 19, 2020 /CNW/ – Cannabis Growth Opportunity Corporation (“CGOC“, or the “Company“) (CSE: CGOC), a cannabis focused investment corporation with both public and private cannabis holdings, is pleased to announce that the Company has completed its investment in Grown Rogue International Inc. (CSE: GRIN) (“Grown Rogue“), as initially announced on February 10, 2020. Grown Rogue is a vertically-integrated, multi-state operator, cannabis company with operations in Oregon, California and Michigan.
Pursuant to a subscription agreement, CGOC had committed to invest up to a total of Cdn. $1,500,000 in Grown Rogue though a non-brokered private placement offering (the “Offering“) of units (the “Units“), at a price of Cdn. $0.10 per Unit. Each Unit is comprised of one common share (the “Grown Rogue Shares“) and one common share purchase warrant (the “Grown Rogue Warrants“) in the capital of Grown Rogue. On February 10, 2020, the Company completed an initial investment of Cdn. $500,000 in Grown Rogue and purchased a total of 5,000,000 Units. Furthermore, CGOC had agreed to complete the remaining Cdn. $1,000,000 investment upon the satisfaction of certain corporate milestone events by Grown Rogue.
On May 15, 2020, CGOC completed its remaining Cdn. $1,000,000 investment in Grown Rogue and purchased an additional 10,000,000 Units, at a price of Cdn. $0.10 per Unit. Each Warrant entitles CGOC to purchase one additional Grown Rogue Share for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance at an exercise price of Cdn. $0.13 per share. Furthermore, Grown Rogue may accelerate the expiration date of the Grown Rogue Warrants to a period of 30 days following written notice to the Company in the event that the Grown Rogue Shares close at or above Cdn. $0.25 per share for a period of 10 consecutive trading days on the Canadian Securities Exchange. Proceeds from the Offering are intended to be used by Grown Rogue for general corporate purposes. In connection with the Offering, Grown Rogue has agreed to provide CGOC with a pre-emptive right to participate in future offerings of Grown Rogue securities in order to maintain its respective percentage of ownership at the time of such offering. In addition, Grown Rogue has agreed to nominate one board member of Grown Rogue as recommended by CGOC at future shareholder meetings and the ability, if the Company does not have its nominee on Grown Rogue’s board of directors, to appoint a board observer.
Sean Conacher, Chief Executive Officer of CGOC, commented, “We are thrilled to be increasing our investment in Grown Rogue and to be supporting them in their continued success. They are operationally among the best-in-class and we salute them on their progress and accomplishments thus far in Michigan where we believe there is an opportunity for Grown Rogue to establish significant market share.”
All securities issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a mandatory hold period of four months and a day under applicable Canadian securities laws.
Early Warning Disclosure Pursuant to National Instrument 62-103
Prior to the completion of the Offering, CGOC held 20,000,000 Grown Rogue Shares and 5,000,000 Grown Rogue Warrants. As of the date hereof, after giving effect to the Offering, the Company beneficially owns or controls 30,000,000 Grown Rogue Shares and 15,000,000 Grown Rogue Warrants, representing approximately 28.19% of the issued and outstanding Grown Rogue Shares on a non-diluted basis and approximately 37.06% of the issued and outstanding Grown Rogue Shares on a partially diluted basis, assuming the exercise of all of the Grown Rogue Warrants by the Company.
The Grown Rogue Shares and the Grown Rogue Warrants were acquired for investment purposes. While Company currently has no plans or intentions with respect to the Grown Rogue securities, the Company may from time to time acquire additional securities of Grown Rogue, may sell all or a portion of its securities of Grown Rogue or may continue to hold the Grown Rogue Shares and Grown Rogue Warrants, or other securities of Grown Rogue, depending on market conditions, the Company’s view of Grown Rogue’s prospects, other investment opportunities and other factors considered relevant the Company.
A copy of the early warning report to be filed by the Company will be available under Grown Rogue’s issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or by contacting Sean Conacher, CEO at (647) 660-0566. The Company’s head office is located at 240 Richmond Street West, Suite 4163, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1V6.
About Grown Rogue
Grown Rogue (CSE: GRIN) is a vertically-integrated, multi-state cannabis family of brands on a mission to inspire consumers to “enhance experiences” through cannabis. Grown Rogue has combined an expert management team, award winning cultivation team, state of the art indoor and outdoor manufacturing facilities, and consumer insight-based product categorization, to create innovative products thoughtfully curated from “seed to experience”. The Grown Rogue family of products includes sun-grown and indoor premium flower, patented nitrogen sealed pre-rolls along with chocolate edibles featuring a partnership with a world‐renowned chocolatier.
About CGOC
CGOC is an investment corporation that offers unique global exposure to the emerging global cannabis sector. CGOC’s main objective is to provide shareholders long-term total return through its actively managed portfolio of securities, both public and private, operating in, or that derive a portion of their revenue or earnings from products or services related to the cannabis industry.
Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements with respect to the Company. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with the Company’s business plan and matters relating thereto, and risks associated with the Company’s investments and financial objectives, as well as other risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those detailed from time to time in the Company’s public filings on SEDAR. Forward-looking statements are made based on management’s beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Cannabis Growth Opportunity Corporation
For further information: Please contact Cannabis Growth Opportunity Corporation: Sean Conacher, CEO, Tel: (647) 660-0566; Website – www.cgocorp.com; Investor Relations – Email: [email protected]
Former chief executive officer of RBC Dominion Securities Tony Fell is campaigning to require the Canadian financial industry to account for inflation in how it reports investment returns.Neville Elder/Handout
While the average Canadian is fixated on the price of gasoline and groceries, inflation may be quietly killing their investment returns.
Compounded across many years, even modest inflation can deal a powerful blow to a standard investment portfolio. And investors commonly underappreciate the threat.
But a legend of the Canadian investment banking industry is trying to change that.
Tony Fell, the former chief executive officer of RBC Dominion Securities, is campaigning to require the Canadian financial industry to account for inflation in how it reports investment returns.
“I think they will find this very hard to argue against,” he said in an interview. “It’s a matter of transparency and reporting integrity. But that doesn’t mean it will happen.”
Mr. Fell made his case in a recent letter to the Ontario Securities Commission, arguing that Canadian investors are being misled. He has not yet received a response from the regulator.
Canadians with an investment account receive a statement at least once a year detailing how their investments have performed. For the most part, rates of return are calculated on a nominal basis, meaning they have no inflation component factored in.
A real return, on the other hand, accounts for the hit to purchasing power from rising consumer prices.
These figures, Mr. Fell argues, would give investors a clearer picture of how much they have gained from a given investment.
And since Statistics Canada calculates inflation on a monthly basis, the investment industry would already have access to the data it needs to make the switch to real returns. It would be very little trouble and no extra cost, Mr. Fell said.
Still, he said he expects the investment industry will resist his proposal. “The mutual-fund lobby is so strong, and nobody wants to rock the boat too much.”
He points to the battle to inform Canadians of the investment fees they pay. For 30 years, investor advocates have been pushing for improvements to disclosure.
One major set of regulatory changes, which took effect in 2016, required financial companies to disclose how much clients paid for financial advice.
But the reforms left out one major component of mutual-fund fees. The cost of advice is there, but many investors still don’t see how much they pay in fund-management fees, which amount to billions of dollars paid by Canadians each year.
Total cost reporting, which should finally close the fee-disclosure gap, is set to come into effect in 2026. “It’s outrageous,” Mr. Fell said. “That should have been done years ago.”
So, it’s hard to imagine the industry warmly receiving his proposal, or the regulators enthusiastically pushing for its consideration.
The OSC said it agrees that retail investors need to be attuned to the effects of inflation, which is where investment advisers come in. “Professional advice requires an assessment of risk tolerance and risk appetite in order for an adviser to know their client, including the effect of the cost of living on achieving their financial objectives,” OSC spokesman Andy McNair-West said in an e-mail.
And yet, Mr. Fell said, the need exists for more formal reporting of inflation-adjusted performance.
Inflation often goes overlooked by the industry and investors alike. It can be seen in the celebration of stock indexes at all-time nominal highs, which wouldn’t look so great if inflation were factored in.
The inflationary extremes of the 1970s provide a stark illustration. In 1979, the S&P 500 index posted a total return of 18.5 per cent – a blockbuster year until you consider that inflation was 13.3 per cent.
That took the index’s real return down to a lacklustre 5.2 per cent.
More recently, investors in Canada and the United States piled into savings instruments promising 5-per-cent nominal rates of return. But the rate of inflation in Canada averaged 6.8 per cent in 2022, more than wiping out the return on things such as guaranteed investment certificates, in most cases.
“A lot of people don’t connect those dots,” said Dan Hallett, head of research at HighView Financial Group. “Over 10 years, even 2-per-cent inflation really eats away at purchasing power.”
He worries, however, that reporting after-inflation returns may confuse average investors, many of whom still fail to understand the basic investment fees they’re paying.
All the more reason to get Canadian investors thinking more about inflation, Mr. Fell argues.
“The impact of inflation on investing is sort of forgotten about,” he said. “The only way I can think of turning that around is to highlight it in investors’ statements.”
Capital gains tax hike a sure way to repel the tech sector
Published Apr 18, 2024 • Last updated 23 minutes ago • 4 minute read
If there’s an uncomfortable economic lesson of the past few years, it’s this: The vibes matter.
As much as economists point to data, the reality in politics and policy is that public expectations and perceptions are important too. And from a business perspective, the vibes of the 2024 federal budget are rancid.
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The budget document’s title is “Fairness For Every Generation” and in practice, what that meant was a “soak the rich” tax hike on capital gains.
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You can see how this looked like good politics. In her budget speech, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that only 0.13 per cent of Canadians with an average annual income of $1.4 million will pay higher taxes — hardly a sympathetic lot, at a time when many Canadians are struggling to pay for food and housing.
The problem is that the proposed capital gains tax hike won’t only soak a handful of rich Canadians as advertised. In its current design, it broadly punishes individuals and families of small business owners, tech entrepreneurs, dentists and countless others who have often spent decades trying to build their businesses for a potential once-in-a-lifetime capital gains event. Together, our analysis suggests that those people represent closer to 20 per cent of Canadians.
This tax proposal simply amounts to a systemic tapping on the brakes on the investment in a productive and prosperous future, being made by innovative, hardworking Canadians. And it does so at the very time Canada needs them to accelerate their investing.
But among the innovators and business leaders I talk to in the Canadian tech sector, this week’s budget was a chilling shock. There is a sincere and widespread belief that if something does not change, the budget will do widespread and irreparable damage to Canada’s tech sector.
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That’s why more than 1,000 CEOs have signed a public letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland at ProsperityForEveryGeneration.ca, calling on the government to stop this tax hike. Innovators understand what’s at stake.
Firstly, we are at a moment when capital is harder to access than at any time in the past generation. Higher interest rates and economic uncertainty mean that many high-growth companies with innovative products struggle to secure growth capital on favourable terms.
South of the border, we’re seeing strong growth, driven by significant government investment through strong industrial policy, alongside significant growth in bleeding-edge artificial intelligence applications. The U.S. is an exciting place to invest right now.
And capital is highly mobile. If Canada is seen as an unfriendly place to invest, due to high taxes, investors will simply take their money elsewhere, and propel the growth of promising tech companies in other countries.
What’s more, highly skilled talent is more mobile than ever before, and among innovative high-growth companies, stock options — subject to capital gains tax — are a key form of compensation.
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We’re not talking purely about CEOs and tech founders here either. The dedicated early players of a promising tech startup earn their stock options with sweat equity. Their dedication, taking a risk in the prime of their career, is often the key ingredient for the success of future innovation champions.
Innovators are intimately aware of these concerns, because this isn’t the first time the Liberal government has tried to tax stock options. Nearly a decade ago, they promised to hike taxes on stock options in their 2015 campaign platform, and it took years of public advocacy from tech leaders to help the government understand the potential unintended damage that a reckless tax hike could do on the ability to attract and retain talent.
All along the way, we were assured by the government that they knew what they were doing, and there was nothing to worry about. In truth, after many frank conversations, they changed course.
In the days and weeks ahead, I’m expecting to hear the same kind of thing again. Already we’ve heard from government officials pointing to the “Canadian Entrepreneurs’ Incentive” carve-out, which will soften the blow of higher capital gains tax rates overall. The details of this carve-out are not yet fully clear, and it’s possible that the government will tinker with the thresholds to help mitigate the damage of a tax hike on capital gains.
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But the reality is that without a significant change in messaging, the danger to Canada’s economy is real.
Capital gains are taxed at a different rate because they are taxes on investment. Every investment comes with risk; you are not guaranteed to make a profit. The tax code takes this into account.
If the vibes are off, and the global perception of Canada is that we’re not a place where the investment risk is worth it, because the federal government is just going to tax you to death, then we simply won’t see capital or talent flow to Canada.
Innovation and entrepreneurship are about hope. You fundamentally need to be an optimist to risk it all, and invest yourself in growing a business. Right now, Canada’s federal government is not sending a hopeful vibe. And the vibes matter.
Benjamin Bergen is president, Council of Canadian Innovators.
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‘If I try to put myself back into the shoes of me as a 21-year-old, all I can tell you is this: I was hungry,’ writes Gary Stevenson in his recently released memoir, The Trading Game, which tells the story of how the son of a Post Office worker briefly became the highest-paid trader working on Citi’s bond trading floor at London’s Canary Wharf. He sits down with host Claer Barrett to talk about what he learned about trading and how the wider economy works – and why he’s worried.
Find Gary @garyseconomics on YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Read Gary Stevenson’s recent FT Magazine profile by Miles Ellingham.
For more tips on how to organise your money, sign up to Claer’s email series ‘Sort Your Financial Life Out With Claer Barrett’ at FT.com/moneycourse.
If you would like to be a guest on a future episode of Money Clinic, email us at money@ft.com or send Claer a DM on social media — she’s @ClaerB on X, Instagram and TikTok.
Want more?
Check out Claer’s column, The hunt for good value UK stocks.
Listen to more episodes, such as Investment Masterclass: An insider’s view of the City of London, Investment masterclass: what’s one of the world’s leading investors buying?, and more.
Presented by Claer Barrett. Produced by Tamara Kormornick. Our executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio.
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