Queensland Bauxite has been known as a pot stock since last year when it set out to become “the premier hemp food company in Australia”.
But it was only today at a meeting in Sydney that shareholders officially approved its transition from mining to pot.
A new name might take a bit longer to settle on however.
At a shareholder meeting on Friday, Queensland Bauxite (ASX:QBL) director Shalom Feldman said Australia’s top pot stock Cann Group (ASX:CAN) had objected to the miner adopting “Cann Global” as its new moniker.
A vocal handful of the 30-odd shareholders attending the EGM were similarly unimpressed.
While they appreciated the ‘global’ part of the name, they dismissed the new name as confusing — and too close to a myriad of other cannabis companies popping up, including Cann.
Chairperson Pnina Feldman said her suggestion was “Joint Ventures Ltd” — but it didn’t pass board scrutiny.
Ms Feldman did commit the board to taking suggestions from shareholders for a new name, although Mr Feldman said they’d already reserved the ticker CGB with the ASX.
Finally making the shift from bauxite to pot
The extraordinary general meeting was held to ratify Queensland Bauxite’s shift from wannabe bauxite explorer to cannabis company, a shift that began in March 2017 with the purchase of 55 per cent of Medical Cannabis Ltd.
The move has not sat well with some original shareholders who wanted recognition of the fact they invested in a bauxite explorer.
They are in the minority however. On Friday shareholders overwhelmingly approved the issue of 1.7 billion shares as payment for the remainder of Medical Cannabis Ltd and the acquisition of grower MedCann, and a capital raising, as well as another 63 million management shares.
All up the share issues will dilute the current register by 48 per cent — a fact that caused consternation among some Queensland Bauxite’s shareholders.
One forthright shareholder, while supportive of the reasons for the dilution, pressed the board on whether the share issues were now over.
“Are eight cylinders in the car now, or do we need to buy more?” he said.
“We don’t see any significant further dilution unless we see something really exciting,” Mr Feldman said.
Hemp heaven
Part of Queensland Bauxite’s new look is as a hemp seed farmer.
A little known retail distributor called T12 and its owners Sam and Sebastian Edwards were recipients of management shares ratified at the Friday meeting.
Queensland Bauxite is distributing hemp seed product, despite a disappointing initial hemp harvest where they got 80 tonnes of a promised 500 tonnes of seeds.
Mr Feldman says the company has planted 500 hectares of hemp this year, most of which is under irrigation so risk from drought is lessened, and is aiming for the 500 tonnes target.
The company imported hemp genetic material from China, which hemp and cannabis expert Andrew Kavasilas says is growing well.
In spite of the disappointing first run, he said the plant is so hardy one crop they wrote off 12 weeks ago is bouncing back.
But they’re now running into problems with State laws around hemp food products and police marijuana saliva tests in particular, which he says can pick up trace amounts of cannabidiol from hemp foods.