Aurora Cannabis co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Terry Booth is retiring and Executive Chairman Michael Singer will take over in the interim amid a major reshuffling of one of the world’s largest cannabis companies that struggled mightily through 2019.
“We are confident these changes are needed to recalibrate our business to reach profitability as quickly as possible and be ready for long term, sustainable growth we know will come.”
Aurora (NYSE: ACB), the most popular cannabis stock, also will cut jobs to “better align with the short-term market reality and focus on reaching profitability,” and cut costs across many areas of the business, Booth said in a memo to employees, which was first reported by Reuters.
The memo also notes the company has begun the search for a permanent CEO without providing a timeframe, and said details will come as they are available.
“We are confident these changes are needed to recalibrate our business to reach profitability as quickly as possible and be ready for long term, sustainable growth we know will come,” Booth said.
Singer will take leadership amid growing criticism of the company’s aggressive global expansion while there are a lot of uncertainties regarding demand and rising costs. The company is no longer giving estimates of when it will become profitable.
This news comes on the heels of the first good news the company has gotten in months after announcing its products were selling again in Germany following a two-month suspension of medical marijuana sales while health authorities reviewed the its production process.
German pharmacies said the review concerned a method Aurora used in regard to the shelf life of its cannabis flower.
Aurora also got EU Good Manufacturing Practice certification for its Aurora River production facility, which is of the utmost importance to the company’s bottom line considering it is banking on making big bucks overseas.
ACB is down a whopping 80% over the past year as the cannabis sector as a whole has been hammered, and shares were halted Thursday after news of Booth’s resignation broke and the stock had already fallen 5.6%.
Full disclosure: The author of this piece holds a small position in Aurora Cannabis.
