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Bright Green Corp., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company with conditional approval from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to produce federally legal cannabis, on Tuesday filed plans to directly list its shares for trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “BGXX”.
Bright Green Corp. disclosed 157.6 million shares of stock held privately by 425 stockholders of record as of Feb. 28. Based on a price of $4 a share in a private stock sale in January, the company’s current valuation is about $630 million, which would make it larger than many U.S. cannabis companies that trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange and the OTC market.
“We will operate legally under all applicable laws and be authorized by the federal government to sell cannabis commercially for research and manufacturing purposes, export cannabis for international cannabis research purposes, and sell cannabis to DEA-registered pharmaceutical companies for the production of medical cannabis products and preparations,” Bright Green Corp. said in its prospectus.
Bright Green Corp. is working with EF Hutton, a division of Benchmark Investments LLC, to list its shares and to propose a public market price when the stock debuts.
The company in May, 2021, entered into the memorandum of agreement with the DEA to grow cannabis for federally sanctioned research. Bright Green Corp. expects to win final registration in May, contingent upon completion of construction and a successful inspection by the DEA of the company’s grow facilities.
“We plan to sell cannabis to research institutions pursuant to our conditional approval from the DEA,” the company said. “Sales of THC cannabis products will be made only via bona fide supply agreements from existing DEA registrants, and not directly to consumers.”
Bright Green said it plans to receive a Controlled Substances Bulk Manufacturing License from the DEA, although there is no guarantee it will win final approval.
“Given the competitiveness of the process to obtain a DEA registration to cultivate and process cannabis, and the continued federal illegality of cannabis in the U.S., we believe we will be uniquely positioned to capture significant parts of the cannabis research supply market,” the company said.
See: Cresco Labs is buying Columbia Care in major cannabis merger that will create biggest U.S. player
Bright Green Corp. traces its roots to April, 2019, when it was incorporated in Delaware. In May, 2019, it agreed to acquire 110 acres in two parcels and a completed greenhouse in Grants, N.M. In late 2020, it received an option to buy 510 acres near its land in Grants for $5,000 an acre, or about $2.6 million.
The company’s facilities include a 22-acre greenhouse to cultivate non-cannabis herbs and medicinal plants. It plans to build two 57-acre greenhouses and a 2-acre Fast Start University Greenhouse. Bright Green said it signed an agreement with Dalsem Complete Greenhouse Projects BV.
The company is at a pre-revenue phase and led by CEO Edward A. Robinson, a former executive at BMW Financial Services, and Chairman Terry Rafih, owner and CEO of Rafih Automotive Group, one of the largest auto dealership networks in Canada.
Also Read: MORE Act likely to flop in Senate after House vote this week: Analyst
The Cannabis ETF
THCX,
has fallen 6% in the year to date, while the AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF
MSOS,
has fallen 19.7%. The S&P 500
SPX,
has fallen about 3%.
