A billboard calling for investors in then start-up company Greenfern Medicinal Marijuana. The company is now in receivership.
A billboard calling for investors in then start-up company Greenfern Medicinal Marijuana. The company is now in receivership.
Failed medical marijuana company Greenfern Industries owes creditors $1.2 million and additional claims are expected, according to receivers Waterstone Insolvency’s first report, released today.*
Debt funders Emdex Ltd pushed the company into receivership in February, following confirmation that the previously NZX-traded company could not meet its payment obligations.
At thetime, Emdex was owed $221,000 and a second debt funder, CFS Debt Fund LP, was owed $743,000.
The two parties are secured creditors, as is co-founder Daniel Casey (owed $50,000 plus interest, which has not yet been quantified).
In addition, parties related to sleep aid company SleepDrops, including Kirsten Taylor, have indicated an intention to submit subordinated secured claims, the report notes – Taylor was the chair of Greenfern briefly from December 2024 to February 2025.
Greenfern Industries co-founder Dan Casey is now working in Abu Dhabi, according to his Linkedin page.
Greenfern ceased operating in late February. The value of its assets has not been estimated, but is constituted mainly by a purpose-built marijuana facility in Taranaki, including a small hydro-electric power plant, situated on 1477sq m of land, divided across three titles.
The property is listed for sale by Bayleys through a “private treaty” tender process, the deadline for which is June 5.
The company’s intellectual property is yet to be valued, but the report notes that initial indications are not promising.
Greenfern joins a wave of failed and faltering medical marijuana companies, including Cannasouth, which was placed in receivership last week, and Medical Kiwi (also known as Aether Pacific Pharmaceuticals), which is in liquidation.
Formerly NZX-listed Cannasouth entered voluntary administration in March last year, and from June 2024 until last Friday operated under a deed of arrangement with its creditors.
However, funders who provided an injection of debt under the deed have now put the company into receivership. Receiver Kevin J. Davies told the Herald he intends to publish a first report within weeks.
The companies were all formed in or around 2018, when the New Zealand medical marijuana industry was midwifed by the passage of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Act, which required the Government to provide a regulatory framework for a medicinal cannabis industry.
The start-up companies were eager to supply the anticipated market, both at home and abroad, particularly in Europe and North America.
But stiff competition for contracts abroad, a tiny domestic market and New Zealand regulatory standards that were decried by many in the sector as unduly onerous (they were loosened last year) all snagged and impeded many of the young firms.
Some of the companies also relied on very optimistic and in some cases illegal descriptions of their businesses to attract investors.
Very little of the millions of dollars in the failed companies’ debt is likely to be repaid.
Greenfern was formed in 2018, went public on the NZX in 2021 and never emerged from its growth stage to turn a profit; it was always reliant on debt and equity financing to operate.
Shareholders had invested more than $10.5m in the company by March 2023, according to its last annual report. That shareholder capital is now lost.
Founder Casey, who stepped down as managing director in August last year, did not respond to a request for comment. According to his Linkedin page, he is now in Abu Dhabi working for a consultancy that specialises in project management.
Former Cannasouth interim chief executive David Pettersen declined to speak to the Herald about the company’s predicament.
The company’s 2024 deed of arrangement with creditors listed a $500,000 loan and some $2.3m in convertible notes.
*Waterstone’s original report contained incorrect figures for Greenfern’s debt. It subsequently issued a revised report and the Herald story has been updated with the revised figures.
