Canopy to temporarily shut down corporate-owned stores to prevent COVID-19 spread 

Canopy Growth Corp. is temporarily shutting down its corporate-owned cannabis stores across the country Tuesday due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Canopy, which owns 23 legal cannabis stores in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, will close its stores for an undetermined period of time at 5 p.m. local. “After hearing a lot of the public health advice we’ve been receiving related to limiting social interactions, in particular retail, we felt it was in our best interest for our consumers and our employees and close down those 23 stores and drive the consumer traffic to online traffic channels,” Canopy’s CEO David Klein told BNN Bloomberg. Canopy has at least five other cannabis stores it doesn’t own, but helps to operate, across the country.

Hexo slumps after announcing Q2 results will be delayed; expects ‘significant’ impairment loss

Shares of Quebec-based Hexo plunged more than 30 per cent after it announced it will delay the release of its upcoming quarterly results due to “certain exceptional circumstances” and expects to report a “significant impairment” loss that could be as much as $280 million in the quarter. Hexo said it will amend its Q4 2019 and Q1 2020 MD&A after receiving comments from the Ontario Securities Commission during disclosure review by the regulator. Desjardins analyst John Chu expects the impairment to be related to Hexo’s acquisition of Newstrike Brands last year in an all-stock deal worth $263 million.  

Lift & Co. to temporarily lay off staff, shut down non-profitable business due to COVID-19 outbreak 

Lift & Co. shares moved to an all-time low on Tuesday after the cannabis technology company announced it is temporarily laying off an unspecified amount of staff and shutting 'non-profitable' business lines due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The company - which runs a bi-annual cannabis event and an education platform for pot retailers - will shut down its Cohesion unit, which provides consumer data to retailers, according to Lift CFO Kasia Malz in a phone interview with BNN Bloomberg. Lift’s CEO Matei Olaru declined to specify how many staff will be laid off, or how many staff the company has in total when reached by BNN Bloomberg.

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