Gatineau medical marijuana facility stocks trading on TSX Venture

CTV Ottawa: Weed grower hits stock market Gatineau-based Hydropothecary begins trading on the markets, and the weed business takes off. CTV's Joanne Schnurr reports.

There's a new listing today on the Toronto Stock Market's Venture Exchange.

"THCX" is the symbol for The Hydropothecary Corporation, Quebec's only licensed producer of medical marijuana. Hydropothecary is located on farm land in Masson-Angers about 30 kilometres north of Ottawa.

It was a successful day on the market for the company.  When the TSX closed today, the stock was worth $1.55 and the company's value had gone from $50 million to $150-million.

For the company chief executive officer, there was great anticipation as he toured local media around the 42-thousand square foot facility, watching the TSX Venture Exchange closely as moved from building to building.

“Right now, we are in our brand new glass-roofed facility, built from ground up to grow the best marijuana in the world,” Sebastien St-Louis said, the excitement in his voice clearly audible.

St-Louis and his partners have poured their heart and soul into the facility, along with about $20 million dollars in investor's money.

This is the story of two brothers-in-law, St-Louis and Adam Miron, who had an idea four years ago, and like many startups, the work began in the basement of one of their homes.

Now, there are about 40-thousand plants helping Hydroppothecary produce 36 hundred kilograms of medical marijuana a year.

Today, the company went public on the TSX Venture Exchange.

“1.3 million shares traded in first twenty minutes,” says St-Louis, “So very exciting from that perspective.”

Hydropothecary is one of 40 producers that are licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada and now one of 8 that are listed publicly on stock exchanges in Canada.  There's huge interest in this industry with the move towards legalizing recreational use.

Canopy Growth out of Smiths Falls was on the TSX Venture for several months. As of yesterday, it started trading on the composite index; the first marijuana company it says to do so.  The CEO of Canopy Growth, Bruce, Linton, says it's a validation of the stock and the sector.

I’m” seeing that in who the interested potential shareholders are, the diligence they're doing so,” Linton told the Business News Network, “It’s a  much larger scale crowd of potential investors than a couple years ago when I was handing the hat around to anyone who might fund us.”

There is no hat being passed around the Hydropothecary anymore either.  Hydropothecary is planning an expansion six times its current size, an additional 250-thousand square feet and hiring every week.

“Like a lot of entrepreneurs,” St-Louis says, “I have a big appetite. The market is so big that we almost can't almost help but grow with it.”