I would like to welcome new shareholders who have joined the team since the last time we provided an update. There have been a lot of changes with the business and I’m excited to provide you with the exciting changes. First, I am honored to have been asked to step into the CEO role earlier this year. I immediately asked Christopher Chabot to move into the COO role as he has been an operational consultant for High Times for the previous two years.
Our future's so bright as we begin to weave our business verticals together, add new stores and bring live events back! As Covid comes to an end, you will see new changes to Media, Events, Stores/Delivery, and Licensing.
Let's get into it!
Corporate Update
Transfer Agent
You should have received a mailed notification that we have changed stock transfer agents from VStock to EQ. As part of that notification, you should be able to log into their portal and view your shares. When you login, you will see a $0 value for your shares. That only means that there is no public price for the shares but doesn’t reflect what the shares are worth as a private company. If you did not receive this mailed notification, please call EQ @ 1-866-877-6270.
Financial Audits
We have been working hard to complete financial audits for 2019, 2020, and 2021. We got behind on this work for many reasons but we’re back on track and will be current in the coming months.
Public Listing
As we finalize our audits, we have been working on the public listing strategy. There are many ways to list High Times and we’re exploring them all. While we don’t have a date yet, we will continue to provide updates as we monitor the markets and explore our options.
Media
Print
As we have for the better part of 50 years, we continue to publish our physical magazine every month, and we look forward to our new Editor-in-Chief, Ellen Holland’s, leadership in this effort. While we were proud to be one of the first printing, it’s even more empowering being one of the last. I hope all of you receive the magazine to your homes, but if not, you can subscribe here.
Online
We never paused the dozens of stories per week that we post on hightimes.com and we continue to search for the most interesting stories on the market to keep our readers interested and engaged. We hope you all get a lot out of reading the website, and welcome any of your suggestions for potential stories. You can email our editors directly here.
We are gearing up to launch our brand new contributor section, welcoming in the leading voices from across the industry to share their perspectives, praise, and criticisms, to our readers. We are excited to create a space for a different side of industry commentary, and know there will soon be something both empowering and humorous for everyone in this new category.
Social (IG / FB / Twitter)
Together with online we have continued to be very active with social media activities and we continue to make announcements on our channels about High Times’ own cannabis operations including delivery and retail stores.
We are working on new media efforts including Podcasts, new YouTube Channel, TikTok, and live streaming with platforms. We will share more details as this comes together.
We are also working on developing social presence for each of the individual retail stores in an effort to more directly reach our specific communities, and to double down on strengthening our connection to those markets.
Events
Cannabis Cup
We continue to push forward with the Cannabis Cup People’s Choice in different markets for 2022. For those of you that have not been around long enough to have heard about the transition, the People's Choice competition was developed in the early days of COVID to continue to engage with our loyal and active customer base. Next events on deck are Michigan, Southern California, Colorado, and Alaska.
We expect to bring back the live Cannabis Cup festivals late this year with a full slate of events in 2023. We are excited to test a new live events model where we can sell cannabis directly to attendees in states where we hold the appropriate licenses. We have historically generated revenue through ticket sales, sponsorships, and vendor booths. We allowed our vendors to sell directly to festival attendees if they have a retail license or partner with another retailer. This new model in states like California allows us to become the retailer of record which should generate significantly more revenue per event than in years past.
Other Events
High Times 100: as in years past, High Times honored the 100 most influential people in the cannabis industry in 2021. They appear in this month’s issue of the magazine and we hosted an event for them on May 24th in Los Angeles.
We are also working on bringing our cannabis event model to other notable festivals and events, with one major mainstream festival announcement coming in the next few weeks.
California Cannabis Delivery & Stores
Delivery
We entered an exclusive partnership with Ginger Commerce for Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) delivery. This allows brands to advertise their products directly to consumers and convert them on their own channels like their websites without having to sell into retail stores or delivery services. This is a new and evolving theme in CA cannabis and we expect it to become a major piece of the industry in the years to come.
We are working on a mobile app for the Apple Store which will allow customers to place orders directly from the App.
For the second year in a row, our own delivery service will be selling Cannabis Cup judging kits to the public for the Southern CA Cannabis Cup. This is one of the exciting ways that our business verticals come together to create a more powerful High Times.
Stores
We’ve come a long way since we announced our intention to move into the “plant touching” space. We have completed the acquisition and integration of a couple of companies and today we find ourselves operating seven California retail stores. Six of them are under the High Times brand and one under the Have a Heart brand. We recently opened High Times Blythe on Jan 6th and High Times San Bernardino on Feb 24th (see store photos below).
We are pushing the envelope with how the cannabis retail experience should be for customers. Where we are allowed by local law, we offer an open floor plan which allows our customers to shop freely by using a shopping basket and interacting with the inventory much like a Whole Foods. We’ve worked hard on creating inviting spaces that are well marked for easy navigation.
Google Review from 'Leafster': LOVE LOVE LOVE this place. The same person on Yelp said same. I live in Paso Robles and drive all the way out to them to pick up my stuff!! They always have great deals going on (sign up for their texts) and the people that work there are so sweet and helpful!! Also whenever I go visit them there is no line what so ever."
We look forward to opening more locations in 2022 and beyond. We have several deals in the pipeline and hope to announce them soon.
THC Products
High Times THC products have been available in our stores for more than nine months. We are working on lining up new flower suppliers to elevate the quality of the brand. We will be rolling out updated products in the months ahead. We look forward to launching High Times products into other stores in California later this year.
Check out our branded THC product's packaging:
Licensing
Accessories
Dean Gelfand and David Baker have returned to High Times to focus on licensing. They will mostly do deals around apparel, accessories, glassware, and anything else that makes sense. We’re excited to be pushing this initiative and excited to see High Times pop up around the globe.
For 4/20 this year we released two collaborative collections with cultural cornerstones. The first being a hoodie and tee with RipnDip, as well as the revival of an older collaboration from the 70’s with the Furry Freak Brothers, which is entering its second season as an animated series on Fox’s TUBI platform.
THC Brand
We are focusing on licensing the High Time brands for THC products to best-in-class operators across the country. The way the laws are set up, we have to work with different partners in each state we can’t ship across state lines. The best way to get the brand into each of these markets is to sign licensing deals much like we did with Red, White, and Bloom in Michigan and Florida.
We recently hired Brett Fink to focus on building out this strategy. He has significant cannabis experience helping launch the Old Pal brand in California and setting up these same licensing agreements across the country.
Retail
We continue to explore opportunities for licensing our name to retail operators that need to differentiate themselves from the pack.
People
Glen Leibowitz has been with us for more than six months as a CFO consultant mostly focused on completing our audits. He comes from Apollo Global and has several years of experience with Acreage Holdings as their CFO.
Blake Helling joined us as our Corporate Controller setting up a robust financial team as he gets us ready to be a public company.
Dane Diseth has joined us to head up our marketing efforts for both the retail and delivery locations. She has several years of experience in the cannabis industry and is based in Los Angeles.
Austin Minor has joined the team to lead our centralized buying efforts for both the retail and delivery locations in California. She comes to us with more than 5+ years of California industry experience and we are thrilled to welcome her aboard.
Steven Van Zile joined us as the VP of Retail. He comes with decades of experience in traditional retail working in food, wine, and spirits. He most recently joined us from cannabis retailer MedMen where he opened and managed stores.
Jim Casey joined as our IT Manager where he’s working on centralizing all technology initiatives across the company.
Brett Fink is heading up THC brand licensing deals across the country. He was an early employee of California cannabis brand Old Pal and helped them scale through state licensing deals. He joined us most recently from his own consulting firm, Greater Holdings, where he helped brands of all sizes scale via licensing deals.
Ellen Holland is our new Editor in Chief. She comes to us with many years of cannabis experience writing for several magazines and most recently managing the Ed Rosenthal online publication.
Hightimes Holding Corp. is offering securities through the use of an Offering Statement that has been qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission under Tier II of Regulation A. A copy of the Final Offering Circular that forms a part of the Offering Statement may be obtained from hightimesinvestor.com
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