Three titans of the North American hemp industry on Monday announced they had joined forces to build out the U.S. hemp supply chain.
Geoff Whaling is the Pennsylvania-based Chairman of the National Hemp Association who is credited with launching the first Hemp Industrial Park in the Southern Tier of New York State.
Bruce Linton is the founder and former CEO of Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC), the world's largest cannabis company and the first marijuana firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Tim Saunders was Canopy Growth's executive vice president and chief financial officer.
The trio _ all Canadian born _ announced the formation of Collective Growth and said the new company had received preliminary approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue an IPO worth $150 million March 17 on the NASDAQ.
The funds raised by Collective Growth will be used to build "decortication" and processing facilities in the United States.
Both Whaling and Linton played a significant role in legalizing industrial hemp in the U.S. in 2018.
Though farmers embraced hemp enthusiastically after legalization, many found that there was no market for their crops because there were very few places to have it processed into a marketable good.
Whaling's nonprofit National Hemp Association partnered in January with New Holland Agriculture, the farm machinery giant, to assure farmers there will be a market for their industrial products and the infrastructure to support it.
"We're telling them that if they grow it, we will come" to process it, Whaling said. "It an absolutely essential next step if we're going to rekindle the hemp industry to reach the potential of being a great competitive commodity crop."
Whaling said there's no time to waste.
"Unless we get the infrastructure in place, and do it on a commercial scale within the next 12 to 16 months, I'm afraid interest by farmers and end users will start to wane," Whaling said.
Linton said he was fired in June 2019 from Canopy after the beer and liquor giant Constellation Brands spent $4 billion for a 38% stake in the company. When the Canopy stock slumped on weaker-than-expected Canadian sales, the new board ejected Linton without ceremony.
Whaling, who served as a strategic adviser to Canopy Growth, has had a long relationship with Linton that dates back to the 2013 founding of that company.
According to Zephus Ltd., Collective Growth was formed as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The cash shell intends to sell 15 million units, of which 262,500 are earmarked for financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald.
