The guy is a JOKEHe makes one excuse after another and blames everything under the sun but never says it is a " company failure " .. First he is quoted telling investors the stay at home will increase sales and now he says different ... stick to one lame story and run with it !! Dope Canopy Growth cites "growing pains" to explain lacklustre first quarter Momentum also depends on the economy continuing to re-open. Author of the article:James Bagnall Publishing date:Aug 06, 2021 Last Updated 20 hours ago 2 minute read Canopy Growth's new Tweed visitor centre in Smith Falls, August 23, 2018. Photo by Jean Levac/Postmedia 129843 Canopy Growth's global ambitions have been scaled back to concentrate on premium products. The goal now is profits. PHOTO BY JEAN LEVAC /Postmedia News This is a complicated business. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Those words, uttered Friday by Canopy Growth CEO David Klein towards the end of an hour-long conference call, summed up his companys ongoing challenges very well. While the Smiths Falls cannabis giant generated net revenues of $136 million for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30 up 23 per cent year over year it lost $64 million on an adjusted basis and shed some market share. The fault, Klein said, lay within growing pains, he explained. He and his colleague, chief financial officer Mike Lee, spent part of the call talking about the various challenges of running a new business. In particular, the executives promised to do a better job of planning operations, forecasting demand for products and moving them through the manufacturing plants. STORY CONTINUES BELOW To be fair, this is not an easy business to get right, not least because its still very new and heavily and unevenly regulated. Canada legalized recreational marijuana in October 2018 and followed up a year later by legalizing the sale of cannabis-infused drinks and foods. Dozens of U.S. states have since followed suit, but the U.S. federal government hasnt yet. To achieve economies of scale in a competitive business, Klein needs plenty of heft. Although Canopy Growth is posting revenues at the annual rate of more than $540 million, the company doesnt expect to produce profits until its fourth quarter ending next March 31. And that projection hangs on two very large assumptions: first, that revenues will grow strongly in both Canada and the United States during the next three quarters; and, second, that relatively more of Canopy Growths sales involve premium products with fatter profit margins. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Momentum also depends on the economy continuing to re-open. During the pandemic, when sales were mostly online, the company found it difficult to market its premium products. People go with what they know, the executives observed. It takes in-store persuasion to create a shift. In the nearly 20 months since Klein took over as top gun at Canopy Growth, he has profoundly changed the physical shape of the firm. Klein, a former executive with wine, beer and spirits giant Constellation Brands, has sacked one-quarter of Canopy Growths workforce and launched dozens of new cannabis and related products. After closing sites last December in Saskatchewan, Scarborough, Bowmanville, Fredericton and St. Johns, the size of Canopy Growths Canadian workforce shrank by 1,000 to roughly 2,400 as of March 31. Not quite half operate out of company headquarters in Smiths Falls. The base of employees outside Canada slipped a comparatively modest 160 to 900.