"MRMD: The Undervalued Cannabis Stock with 14 Consecutive Growth Quarters" Jon Levine, CEO of MariMed joins Dan Humiston to discusses the evolution of MariMed from a cannabis advising company into one of the industry's leading multi-state operators. The company's strategic plan involves rolling up partners, expanding organically in current states, and exploring opportunities in new markets. They also touch upon the potential impacts of cannabis rescheduling from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, and how MariMed's conservative financial approach has led to 14 consecutive quarters of growth. John provides insights into their growth strategies and their stock symbol, MRMD. He emphasizes the importance of responsible growth in the cannabis industry. Produced by PodConx
"MRMD: The Undervalued Cannabis Stock with 14 Consecutive Growth Quarters"
Jon Levine, CEO of MariMed joins Dan Humiston to discusses the evolution of MariMed from a cannabis advising company into one of the industry's leading multi-state operators. The company's strategic plan involves rolling up partners, expanding organically in current states, and exploring opportunities in new markets. They also touch upon the potential impacts of cannabis rescheduling from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, and how MariMed's conservative financial approach has led to 14 consecutive quarters of growth. John provides insights into their growth strategies and their stock symbol, MRMD. He emphasizes the importance of responsible growth in the cannabis industry.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
MariMed -https://marimedinc.com/
Jon Levine - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-levine-85550a9/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00] Today in the MJ Bulls raising cannabis capital podcast. We are joined by John Levine, the CEO of Meramed. John, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Dan. Great to be here.
Well, I'm really glad that you could join us. Had Bob on the show a few years ago and I just want to say how sorry I was. to hear of his passing. It was a great interview and there were so many things that I wanted, that we talked about that I'm afraid a lot of our listeners haven't had an opportunity to hear.
So I might be repeating myself if you listened to this show a couple years ago, but it's worth listening again because this is A company that's doing it different than a lot of companies we've had on the show, and I really want to dive into that. Maybe to get things started, I was hoping that maybe you could tell the story of how you transitioned MaryMed from a cannabis advising company into one of the industry's leading...
multi state operations.
So we went from a consulting advising company, and in 2018, as the market had changed where a lot of states had [00:01:00] allowed for profit entities. We decided to start rolling up our partners that we helped win licenses and advise into business and help them run their day to day operations that were easily able to move those into our portfolio.
We were able to successfully roll up Massachusetts and Illinois back in 2018 and we continued through Maryland. This past 22 and we're just now waiting for our last one that we started, which was Delaware to go for profit, which could happen when they go adult use. And that's a very good thing because they're another successful operation that we started and won that application many years ago.
And it's very easy to roll these in when you've set them up from scratch using the same SOP, same accounting, and everything else. Because we ran the back office, the front office, we helped hire, [00:02:00] we ran all the stuff, it was our SOPs. So as we did that, we just kept expanding along with other licenses that we either won or bought over the last couple of years.
And the company now went from a 6 million entity to a 130 plus million. And we're going to continue to grow at a very rapid race.
Oh that's such a great story, such a great story. I think I counted four, but it seems there's, I think you're in more than four states total how many are you in right now?
We're in Massachusetts, Illinois. We're in Delaware as a management company, Maryland. We just opened our first dispensary in Ohio. And we're in the process of building out a processing center in Missouri. So we'll be in a total of six states.
That is so great. Now, you talked about a lot of the [00:03:00] growth, or all of the growth was working with you. Partners that you established developed over the years, but moving forward, you're going to run out of those eventually. So what will growth look like in the future? Will you continue through the sort of acquisition acquiring type of motor?
Mostly will come from organic growth.
Well, our strategic plan is to continue the roll up of our partners. We still, as I said, have Delaware, but then in each of the states that we're in, we want to build out and grow in those states to the maximum allowed by the state codes. So here in Massachusetts, we successfully expanded into two additional dispensaries in Massachusetts this year, and that gives us two additional licenses which we've applied to the state for, and then we'll be maxed out in Massachusetts.
Illinois, we just successfully opened our fifth retail dispensary, and we have five more to go. So [00:04:00] we're looking for abilities to either purchase or to apply for five additional licenses, as well as we're finishing up our cultivation and craft grow in the state of Illinois that will make us fully vertical in that state also.
Then in Maryland, we opened up our dispensary. Along with buying the license of cultivation and processing and are fully in vertical within that state this year. And we're hoping to be able to expand to additional dispensaries, which are another three, but they have a moratorium for five years. So it may not be as quick as we would like, but we will eventually grow in that state.
And then, as I said, we opened up in the state of Ohio. Well, we can buy another four Retail licenses and we can also get a cultivation and processing there to become fully vertical. So our goal is to be as a fully vertical operation in every state, and those are just some of the states that [00:05:00] we're working on presently to become fully vertical.
Then we're looking to be able to expand and to additional states with restrictions on the number of licenses or that are gonna have application processes like we just applied for in Texas. Then we're also waiting for Kentucky to come online with their application. So we're going to look to expand into those states and states that are now basically growing like the state of New Jersey, New York.
We're looking at opportunities in that state, in those states where we can either buy licenses that people have, or we can apply and open our own from the application process. Yeah. New York is a. State with a lot of illicit situations, but we do feel that there is a future there is the one of the largest states in the country with California and Texas.
It's a state that we can't just ignore. So we're looking to get in there. So we'll take [00:06:00] the opportunities to grow in those states. Then The last piece of our strategic plan. Which is our branded products to expand our branded products into every state that we're in, plus be able to license like we do in Puerto Rico and Maine and Rhode Island, but we're also expanding our product lines.
We want to find those innovated ideas and expand on them so that we have top winning brands in every state that are under our control. That we can put out there that are top sellers like our Betty's, Eddie's, our Vibations, and Bubby's. And I think that is a great concentration, is to expand our brands with new ideas in a market that's all about brands for the future.
Yeah. Well, you have a great video on your website that did it'll highlight some of those products and some of your advantages with products, which we could probably spend a whole interview discussing, but in the in the. Our goal to get this in on time, a couple [00:07:00] other questions that I want to make sure that we touch on before we run out of time, , the growth strategy, which I talked about in the beginning of the interview was you're very conservative, very methodical, very conscious of how you're spending your money and not getting too far over your skis too early which I think is really paid off for you.
I know that I saw in your, in some place where you've had 14 consecutive growth quarters, which is just, it's astounding considering how most of the industry is doing right now. But I'm going to ask you with , .
Cannabis moving from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, what type of impact will that have on your operation?
Oh, we're very excited to be seeing the rescheduling. If that were to happen, then the 280E tax law goes away, which basically saves us, cash flow wise, millions of dollars. That, those millions can be put back into research and development, we can go into medical research, we can [00:08:00] expand our business a little quicker through positive cash flow that we're already generating.
That's just extra cash that we find. That means we don't have to go out and raise equity or borrow money at stupid rates and expand the business a little faster. You talk about our conservative balance sheet that we have today, that's part of the reason we haven't grown. Quite as fast as everybody else is because we've been working on growing through cashflow without having to borrow monies that are going to put us into a big bind.
Yeah, I remember when I, my interview with Bob, I was just so impressed with how, I don't want to say frugal, but you were just smart about it is, and it was so refreshing because a lot of other companies were not. , and those companies right now are suffering and clearly 14 consecutive growth quarters.
You're not, you should be commended for that. So as we as we wrap up you publicly traded, what's your symbol of the [00:09:00] people can look up?
MRMD, Mr. MD
Okay,
one to remember. And it's a one that I wish more people knew about because our stock is way undervalued. As you said, we've been very conservative with our balance sheet, not over borrowing, but we've grown through just natural growth from cash flow versus borrowing stupid money to growth as fast as we can.
We were one of the first in the industry to have multiple states, but we just didn't use that the way that everybody else did, and run up and borrow a lot of money, or... Raise a lot of money to grow and buy without understanding what they were buying. We've done everything the proper way of growing it at a slower pace, but doing it the right way with the same SOPs, the same format, the same training, so that our facilities have been all very successful every year, every quarter.
man. Good for you. I give you a lot of credit. Sometimes it's hard when you're watching your [00:10:00] competitors going, growing fast, and you're saying, well, what are we doing wrong? Well. You weren't doing anything wrong. You were doing everything right. I'm going to have all of Merrimet's information in the show notes, including their stock symbol with links.
So if anybody missed it, we can just go to the show notes and grab it. And if you're interested in working with John or his team, I'm sure somebody over there would be more than happy to speak with you, John, we got a lot more to talk about, we're going to have to do this one more time because there's, we just scratched the surface, but I really appreciate you being on the show today.
It was great to finally meet you. I enjoy your listening to your story.
Dan, I appreciate you having me on the show and I would love to come back anytime. Cause like you said, we've only just scratched the surface. We didn't get down to the nitty gritty about how great this business is and how much we're going to keep growing. Those 14 are going to become consecutive numbers way above that.