“I don’t want some stock … I want them to come with that cheque. Cause they got it.”

He’s still haunted by the mountain of money he let slip away.

Powerhouse pot entrepreneur Berner said he was offered $800 million for his Cookies clothing and cannabis business when it was just getting going — a missed opportunity that still rattles around inside the prolific rapper’s head.

“Look it still fucks with me,” Berner said on The Premium Pete Show, before offering a rare glimpse into how he runs his company. “I mean, I had to think about it for a while. I want people out there to be motivated and I want people out there to know that the first deal is not the best deal,” he said.

“I cannot wait to write my book about it. I’m gonna write a book called the best deal.”

In the interview, granted early last year before the financial fortunes of the Canadian cannabis industry took a sharp nosedive, Berner said he was definitely looking for a big payday, but the mostly stock offering from a licensed Canadian producer didn’t do it for him.

“I looked at it like this, if the first deal I got was 800 million bucks and it’s mostly stock — and the stock game could be great and then drop — and everyone’s going public right now, what would happen if I turned it down? That there makes me pretty much a boss to do that,” he said.

“So, instead of taking $800 million, I took $10 million in cash for 10 percent of my company as a friends and family round to invest in infrastructure,” he reported.

As stock values drop across the board, it would appear Berner made a savvy move. “I don’t want some stock,” said Berner, who has been credited with some of the world’s most popular marijuana strains, including Girl Scout Cookies, Gelato and Snowman.

“I don’t want to have to learn how to sell stock or wait and play that game. I want one of the big alcohol companies when it’s time to come cash me the fuck out. I want Heineken to come cash me out; I want Southern one to come cash me out,” he said. “I want them to come with that cheque. Cause they got it.”

Berner pointed to the $4.1 billion investment that Constellation Brands, makers of Corona beer, had recently made in producer Canopy Growth. The deal has since proven disastrous for Constellation, which announced last month that it has written down the fair value of its investment in the Canadian company by a whopping $534 million this quarter.

Canopy’s former CEO Mark Zekulin, who departed the company in December, has blamed Canopy’s financial woes on an excess of product and an inadequate number of retailers from which to sell it. Both companies are now pinning hopes on new CEO David Klein, who took over on Jan. 14 after a stint as Constellation’s chief financial officer.

Berner sounded skeptical of the deal from the start, but it may have shown him the way forward. “We’re talking about a publicly traded company in Canada that doesn’t have the most revenue — I think their revenue was negative a lot,” he said. “Or whatever it was, they don’t have hella money, they just have the brands. So, I’m building a house of brands,” he added.

“I’ll look at that 800 million dollars like, ‘Thank God, I didn’t do that.’ Or maybe I won’t. But that’s the risk I was willing to take.”

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