Chill Manufacturers
Chill Manufacturers has seen its share worth dive by almost 40% this week after information emerged that its CEO, Callum Sommerton, had been suspended amid allegations of insider buying and selling.
The shock announcement got here simply days after the corporate’s largest investor despatched a requisition letter to request a common assembly be known as so shareholders may vote on the ousting of two administrators.
On Monday (April 22), Chill Manufacturers printed an RNS stating that it had now employed legislation agency Fieldfisher to conduct an impartial investigation into allegations surrounding the ‘use of inside data’.
As such, Mr Sommerton, who has helmed the CBD and vaping firm since 2022, has been ‘suspended in reference to these allegations’ whereas the investigation is performed.
The assertion makes it clear that ‘the suspension doesn’t represent disciplinary motion’ and ‘doesn’t indicate any assumption’ of misconduct.
STATEMENT
I’m shocked and upset by the allegations made in opposition to me, which I imagine are with out advantage. I’m assured that I will likely be vindicated. I’ll keep away from additional remark presently to permit the method to progress.
— Callum Sommerton (@callumsomm) April 22, 2024
Mr Sommerton took to X to handle the allegations, stating: “I’m shocked and upset by the allegations made in opposition to me, which I imagine are with out advantage. I’m assured that I will likely be vindicated. I’ll keep away from additional remark presently to permit the method to progress.”
The character of the allegations, who levelled them, and whether or not they’re linked to final week’s requisition request are at the moment unclear.
If the requisition request, levelled by Jonathan Mark Swann, who owns 12.58% of the corporate’s whole voting rights, was made legally, the corporate has 28 days to name a common assembly.
Throughout this assembly, shareholders will vote on whether or not to oust two American administrators, Antonio Russo and Trevor Taylor ‘with instant impact’, and substitute them with two relative unknowns.
The pair have held varied senior roles on the firm and have been co-CEO’s throughout one among Chill Manufacturers’ most turbulent intervals.
SynBiotic
German hashish group SynBiotic has bought its second firm in 4 months, including Croatian cannabinoid extracts and isolates producer Ilesol Prescribed drugs to its roster.
Whereas SynBiotic has quite a lot of CBD manufacturers already included in its portfolio, this acquisition will present it with an ‘impartial manufacturing facility for refining extracts and manufacturing isolates’ for the primary time.
Ilesol has its personal 3,400sq m manufacturing facility in Varaždin, Croatia, and specialises in producing CBD, beauty merchandise and dietary dietary supplements.
This facility will allow SynBiotic to ‘produce CBD isolates with the made in EU label’ and distribute them via its already established provide chains.
“We’re thus integrating one other essential course of step into our provide chain,” mentioned Daniel Kruse, Managing Director of SynBiotic.
“The in-house manufacturing and refinement of hemp and hashish extracts and corresponding isolates is a gigantic aggressive benefit. The marketplace for hemp extracts and CBD isolates alone is a progress market value billions. The cosmetics trade has lengthy since found hemp and CBD for itself and demand is rising considerably.”
By leveraging its subsidiaries Solidmind and Hempro, the group additionally suggests Ilesol’s beauty vary will ‘match completely into (its) distribution programme’.
It comes after SynBiotic’s acquisition of Austrian agency Bushdoctor in January, which not solely supplied the corporate with a foothold in a brand new market, however positioned it to capitalise on the anticipated growth in residence cultivation following the current hashish reforms in Germany.
Ilesol provides one other market to SynBiotic’s community, in what Mr Kruse known as a ‘logical step in direction of a powerful market place all through Europe’.
Hellenic Dynamics
The Greek medical hashish cultivator has additionally seen an uptick of round 30% this week after securing €1m in new funding.
On Monday (April 22), Hellenic mentioned that its subsidiary Hellenic Dynamics SA has entered right into a 15-year secured mortgage settlement with a ‘European funding and consulting home’.
The mortgage has an rate of interest of three.5% and Hellenic will solely repay curiosity for the primary six months.
It says the funds will likely be used to ‘full the present part of funding on the Hellenic facility’ together with an growth of its cultivation capability and R&D testing of strains.
Dr Fillipos Papadopoulos, Govt Director of Hellenic Dynamics, mentioned: “By securing the mortgage settlement, Hellenic Dynamics SA will considerably scale back the median value of financing for the corporate in its progress stage.
“The dedication to a 15-year mortgage underpins the method that the corporate is taking to ship prime quality hashish merchandise into world markets. We’re additionally in superior discussions on extra financing with quite a lot of events for expedited progress, and additional bulletins will likely be launched to the market in the end.”
It got here days after Hellenic introduced that Riverfort Securities Ltd will subscribe to purchase shares to repay a part of a mortgage and curiosity from an earlier mezzanine mortgage. The quantity owed, £39,287.67, will likely be paid with 1,833,850 new shares at 2.14 pence every.
These new shares have been submitted to the London Inventory Trade on April 17, 2024.
