Bowman is all talk, no details Unlike queerlashs useless posts that little to do with Hexo, along with the link to after hours trading (yawn) - here's an actual article on.....Hexo!
Another company on a confidence-boosting mission is Canadian cannabis grower Hexo Corp. (HEXO), which today lost 2.5 cents to 27.5 cents on 3.31 million shares -- a long, long way down from last year's high of $14. CEO Charlie Bowman has spent the three weeks doing the media rounds with interviewers from The Globe and Mail, BNN, La Presse, Investing News Network and more. His latest effort appeared on the MJBizDaily website this morning and focused on his plan to "get Hexo back on solid ground."
Most of the plan revolves around cost cuts, or in the euphemism-dotted corporate-speak favoured by Mr. Bowman, "streamlining" and "right-sizing." Hexo now has 570 employees, down from 1,277 a year earlier. It has closed unnecessary facilities and jettisoned underperforming brands. "[We] had to get to where you had your cost of goods and manufacturing down, to where you can actually start turning cash out of the operations as opposed to burning cash," explained Mr. Bowman. (Whether Hexo has actually accomplished this switch from burning to turning, Mr. Bowman and his interviewer were apparently happy to leave unsaid.)
Mr. Bowman also lauded Hexo's "tremendous" progress in repairing its balance sheet. "We've taken the impairments [and] we've realigned the balance sheet. So the balance sheet's clean now," he said. Impairments were only part of the problem; the balance sheet began listing heavily last year after Hexo closed $1.2-billion in acquisitions (one of which, Zenabis Global, has since entered bankruptcy protection). "There was a debt structure that was unsustainable," acknowledged Mr. Bowman, "[but] that's now been addressed with the Tilray debt purchase."
He was referring to a wide-ranging agreement that closed last month between Hexo and Tilray Brands Inc. (TLRY: $4.84), down 36 cents to $4.84 on 2.73 million shares. The larger company gave the smaller one a financial lifeline, but with some restrictive commercial strings attached. Mr. Bowman expressed no concern about that and said Tilray is a "great company." He is open to an even cozier relationship one day, suggesting that Tilray could make a takeover offer for Hexo, in which case "they're going to acquire the best cannabis company in the world." Despite his admirable efforts, both Tilray and Hexo ended the day down