- Cannabis retailer MedMen let go of 85 employees in March, filings reveal.
- The company also made six hires, for a net loss of 79 employees.
- MedMen is in the midst of a months-long restructuring process in a bid to cut costs.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
California cannabis retailer MedMen let go of 85 employees in March, according to a Canadian Securities Exchange filing reviewed by Business Insider.
MedMen also made six hires in March, for a net loss of 79 employees, the form shows. These layoffs come after MedMen has aggressively cut costs by shedding employees in recent months.
The company laid off 128 employees in February — a net loss of 113 employees when accounting for new hires — and cut approximately 40% of its corporate workforce in November and December. That brings MedMen's total net loss of employees to 519 over the past five months, according to Michael Miller, a financial consultant to the cannabis industry.
A spokesperson for MedMen declined to comment.
On Thursday afternoon, MedMen's shares were trading at $0.19 per share, down from more than $3 a year ago.
A months-long restructuring plan
The layoffs come amid a months-long restructuring plan put into place by the company's board and former CEO Adam Bierman. MedMen has engaged a turnaround firm, FTI Consulting, to assist with the process.
Bierman stepped down and surrendered his Class A super-voting shares February 1. Ryan Lissack, MedMen's chief operating officer, took over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
Andrew Modlin, MedMen's president and cofounder, surrendered his super-voting shares in December.
"With the markets collapsing, and investors wanting to see different types of results from these companies, we're probably six months behind repositioning the business," Bierman told Business Insider in a January interview. "As a result, our stock price has been punished. I think that it was on us to enter into the restructuring; it was on us to execute our way through the restructuring."
Downbeat earnings, and a decline in cash
The March layoffs are the latest in a long line of setbacks for the once high-flying cannabis retailer.
In February, former CFO James Parker filed a wrongful-dismissal suit, alleging there was rampant spending and an unhealthy work environment within the company. And a planned $680 million all-stock acquisition of the Illinois cannabis company PharmaCann was terminated in October.
And a parade of senior execs left the company in recent months, including David Dancer, the company's former chief marketing officer, Ben Cook, the company's former COO, among others.
MedMen reported downbeat earnings in its last quarterly report in February. The company reported $44.1 million in revenue and missing the lowest analyst estimate by almost $4 million. The company lost $35.1 million as measured by Ebitda.
The company said it had cash and cash equivalents at the end of its second fiscal quarter of 2020 valued at $26 million, down from $33.8 million as of mid-2019.
MedMen is far from the only cannabis company to lay off employees in recent months.
Leafly, a cannabis news and information site, laid off nearly 40% of its workforce, or 91 employees in March. Green Bits, a Silicon Valley cannabis tech startup, cut 40 employees on March 9, as Business Insider reported. Greenlane Holdings, a cannabis vaporizer and accessories company, laid off 31 employees in February, and cannabis cultivator Acreage Holdings eliminated 40 workers after a strategic review in February.
Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email jberke@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM @jfberke. Encrypted messaging app Signal number available upon request.
- Read more:
- Pot stockpiles, supply chain disruptions, and CBD hand sanitizer: How the cannabis industry is preparing for — and reeling from — the coronavirus pandemic
- Green Bits, a cannabis startup backed by Tiger Global, quietly terminated over 40 employees in a bid to cut costs
- Embattled cannabis retailer MedMen quietly terminated 128 people in February, filings reveal
- Cannabis company Acreage just cut 40 jobs following a strategic review, and it's the latest sign of a tough environment for cannabis sellers
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: The reason some men go bald, according to a dermatologist