FP Article: The Visionary: Bruce Linton, Canopy Growth
The Visionary: Bruce Linton, Canopy Growth
A day after his company announced the biggest deal in the history of the cannabis industry, an audience with Bruce Linton had become a hot ticket. Originally, though, he was just supposed to give an early-morning PowerPoint presentation.
“I thought, ‘How the hell am I actually going to get anybody to attend?’” he said to his audience.
“And so then I orchestrated to get $5 billion invested. Because I didn’t want to be here by myself.” The chairman and co-CEO of cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. looked and sounded confident that August morning, as he sat in front of a full room at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. His good mood was just- ified. Linton and Smiths Falls, Ont.-based Canopy had announced a day earlier that U.S. alcoholic beverage giant Constellation Brands Inc. would be boosting its stake in Canopy to around 38%. As Linton had noted, this worked out to an investment of about another $5 billion. The terms of the deal are such that Constellation, a Fortune 500 company, could increase its stake even further and become majority owner of Canopy.
The investment was the biggest yet in the cannabis sector, according to the two companies, and it followed an earlier investment by Constellation that had teed Canopy up to become a top player. Moreover, it sparked speculation that other big-name consumer companies may want to get into cannabis. Global giant Diageo PLC is one reported possibility.
The Constellation deal also puts Linton at the forefront of a part of the industry that isn’t even legal yet in this country. Of course, recreational cannabis isn’t quite yet legal either, though Canada will shortly become the first G7 country to take such a plunge. No wonder that audience with him in August was a full house. As he sat back, Linton weighed in on a wide variety of cannabis-related topics, as the blunt-talking exec has become a sort of spokesperson for his entire industry. “What I’ve learned is that if you’re not fairly specific and clear in your own head, and fairly specific and clear in how you express where you want to go, the best outcome could be random luck, because you’re easily misinterpreted,” Linton says.
After the Q&A in August, Linton allowed a scrum of media and conference attendees to form around him and lob questions for a length of time that would give any PR person nightmares. Selfies were taken. A green-and-white “Toronto Marijuana Leafs” jersey was produced and handed to Linton. The scene was a bit different than the one where Linton began his business career. According to his company bio, he started out at Ottawa-based firm Newbridge Networks Corp., which was gobbled up by French phone company Alcatel 18 years ago. But Linton has not strayed too far from those roots. He also co-chairs Martello Technologies Group Inc. alongside Terry Matthews, the billionaire founder of Newbridge. “To me, it’s something that means quite a bit,” says Linton of working with a former boss and mentor.
From Newbridge, Linton worked in leadership positions at webHancer Corp. and CrossKeys Systems Corp., before co-founding the company that would grow to be Canopy. His technology background might have shone through a bit in August, when he predicted there would be “Google-like” company in the cannabis industry. “Canopy is a tech company that produces and converts and commercializes marijuana,” he says. “Everything in tech is about how we go from creating one idea to one million units the fastest.”
Meanwhile, when acting as a de facto cannabis industry spokesperson, Linton tends to give a good quote. After the latest Constellation transaction was announced, and Canopy’s stock price took flight, Linton assured BNN that his lifestyle would not be in for any major changes. This, of course, was despite Linton owning approximately 2.8 million shares of Canopy, which are now worth more than $190 million, according to recent Bloomberg data. “I don’t think I need anything,” Linton told the business television network. “I got this suit at Winners. It looks okay on TV.”
Canopy still has some big plans, including one to tap the emerging medical marijuana market in Latin America. Linton has suggested Canopy could go even further with the added capital from Constellation. “This is really rocket fuel,” he says. “We’re going to be expanding production, we’re going to be doing more research, we’re going to develop more intellectual property, we’re going to create more leading brands, we’re going to have more products, and we’re going to be way more global.”
Full article source here:
https://business.financialpost.com/financial-post-magazine/the-cannabis-power-list-movers-and-shakers-were-buzzing-about-in-the-pot-world