Canada’s pot shortage is a boon for Supreme Cannabis, says this fund manager

A supply shortage of legal weed may be killing the buzz for pot retailers and their customers but a lack of production by some of Canada’s bigger pot companies is turning into good fortune for players like Supreme Cannabis (Supreme Cannabis Stock Quote, Chart TSX:FIRE), who are cleaning up in the wholesale market, says James Hodgins of Curvature Hedge Strategies.

“What’s interesting about them is that they were kind of late getting their license as a producer. They ended up becoming more of a white label wholesaler into companies like [Canopy Growth], and that has been a fantastic place to be because there’s a shortage of flower,” said Hodgins, president and chief investment officer at Curvature, to BNN Bloomberg on Monday.

Not enough stock on the shelves has been an ongoing issue for private as well as provincial cannabis retailers, as the industry makes its way through the first few months of a legal rec market. In March, Health Canada reported sales of dried cannabis for the month of January which were down 3.7 per cent from December and the lowest sales numbers since the market opened in October.

Supreme, which is expected to release its quarterly financials later this month, posted its second quarter fiscal 2019 results in mid-February, coming in with a loss of $1.55 million on revenue of $7.72 million, a 359-per-cent increase year-over-year.

Hodgins says Supreme’s upcoming Q3 should be favourable.

“Supreme is getting good pricing on their products and they’re selling everything that they can produce without having too much of the infrastructure costs that the other LPs would have. So in terms of the financials, we expect them to be quite strong,” he says.

Last week, Supreme Cannabis announced the launch of Cambium Plant Sciences, a subsidiary aimed at genetics research. The company plans to put $14 million into the venture, including the construction of a 34,000 square foot research facility in Goderich, Ontario.

Year-to-date, FIRE is up 53 per cent.