Green light for a listing
Coast medicinal cannabis company PharmaCann looks to join ASX
THE two men behind Gold Coast-founded medicinal cannabis company PharmaCann have taken a $6m step towards a 2021 ASX listing by securing a major facility that makes listed drugs.
Victor Caprio and Nick Quinn say the move caps a giant year of progress for PharmaCann, one that has seen it provide medicinal cannabis education to more than 1000
doctors. The company also has started distributing its products to all of Australia’s major chemist chains and has improved its monthly profitability more than five-fold.
Mr Caprio, a 37-year-old Canadian, this week said talks already were under way with brokers over a 2021 initial public offering that would seek to raise about $10m.
The money would be used for domestic and international expansion, with Europe, the biggest medicinal cannabis market in the world, a key target.
“Nick and I have put $450,000 of our own money into the business and have taken a dozen strategic investors aboard,” Mr Caprio said.
“We will retain controlling shareholdings after the IPO.”
Mr Quinn, 31, said he and his partner wanted PharmaCann to be a highly credible business that produced solid and reliable returns.
“We aren’t here to make big salaries — we want to benefit from dividends,” he said.
“We will let our figures speak for themselves — there’ll be no hype from us.”
The plant PharmaCann is buying is in Redland Bay and has been family-run for more than 20 years.
Mr Caprio said the plant was netting $800,000 a year, a figure that was expected to climb to $1.2m once PharmaCann lines were added to its production runs.
He said PharmaCann also was in the process of fitting out a New Zealand distribution centre in Dunedin and securing operating licences.
The company already has a secure Gold Coast “vault” for its products, one that comes with seismic activity sensors.
Medicinal cannabis was legalised in 2016 and PharmaCann in late 2017 became the seventh group in Australia to gain a licence.
Mr Caprio said the company was well positioned for expansion.