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It’s never easy being left at the altar, but for cannabis company Newstrike Resources Ltd., the pain could be relatively short-lived.

Within hours of being publicly dropped by would-be suitor CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. early Wednesday morning — for a $9.5 million termination fee — Newstrike CEO Jay Wilgar was fielding calls from investment bankers.

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By mid-afternoon, the company had locked up $50 million in financing, and by early evening they’d secured $30 million more.

“We had non-stop phone calls coming in from investment banks, it was crazy,” said Wilgar, who secured the financing from a consortium of underwriters including INFOR Financial Inc., Cormark Securities Inc., Eight Capital Inc. and Haywood Securities Inc. “It got to the point where we literally had several of them argue over what size each got to take.”

Financing

The financing wasn’t cheap. By issuing shares at $1.32, the bankers received an 11 per cent discount to Newstrike’s Wednesday closing price of $1.47, on top of six per cent underwriting fees.