4Front Holdings, LLC CEO Josh Rosen provides details regarding the company’s merger with Cannex Capital Group (CNSX:CNNX) (OTCMKTS:CNXXF). Rosen believes the companies are a great strategic fit because Cannex has significant expertise as a cultivator and processor, while 4Front’s strengths are its retail and regulatory knowledge. The merger allows the combined company to apply its knowledge and expertise, refined in established cannabis markets like Washington State, to new jurisdictions with less competition. In particular, Rosen is excited about the opportunity states like Massachusetts and Illinois provide, as those jurisdictions move toward full recreational legalization. The new company has a footprint on both coasts, the potential to become a leading multi-state operator, and represents “a hybrid of West and East that just doesn’t exist in the industry today.”
Transcript:
James West: Joining me is Josh Rosen. He’s the CEO of 4Front, right?
James West: Now tell me, Josh: are you now the CEO of Cannex Capital as well?
Josh Rosen: Not formally, no.
James West: Not formally?
Josh Rosen: But announced merger, yes.
James West: Oh, that’s interesting. So tell me how that whole transaction came about? It sort of came out of left field from where I sit, having had some exposure to Cannex. But so how did you guys get involved, and how did you end up sort of coming to this merger?
Josh Rosen: Yeah, certainly. So it actually goes back, we formed 4Front back in, kind of the germination was 2010; our origins going back to 2010. Formed 4Front in 2011, though we’re a private company, so not a well-known commodity at this point relative to public markets, unlike Cannex, in this case.
And so we’re a multi-state operator in the US, and ultimately, what, two years ago, I first interacted, someone referenced Leo Gontmakher, the COO at Cannex – or actually pre-dated Cannex, it was a company called Northwest Cannabis Solutions at the time. Kind of immediately did a tour of Leo’s cultivation and processing operation in Washington. It was at the time, and still to this day, one of the most impressive single operations we’ve seen, and been around for a while, and then more recently, you know, prior to putting this together, kind of re-did that diligence trip.
When we come across folks that we like in the industry, I tend to put it on my calendar to check in with them once a quarter or so.
Josh Rosen: Had kind of consistently checked in with Leo and his team, followed the progress through the getting public with Cannex and stayed engaged, and then went back and visited his facilities. And since then he had expanded Northwest Cannabis Solutions and related entities into a second facility, a cultivation facility done a