High Times assets to be sold to the highest bidders

The once-iconic brand High Times is now selling off its assets in order to satisfy the lenders it didn’t pay back.

High Times magazine was founded in 1974 by Thomas Forcade, but under the leadership of Adam Levin, who was part of an investment team that acquired the brand in 2017 and served as chairman, it expanded into direct plant-touching endeavors.

For sale

Despite owning several dispensary licenses in California and a popular website, High Times neglected to pay back the $28.8 million it owed to ExWorks the company that helped Adam Levin and his investors buy the property. That company went into receivership as well, triggering a chain of events that put the High Times assets up for sale.

Stephen Kunkle was tapped to act as receiver for ExWorks, and he turned to Kevin Singer to sell the High Times assets. Singer reached out to Greenlife Business Group, which specializes in selling cannabis assets.

Greenlife CEO Drew Mathews, who is handling the sales, noted that he has six different listings with High Times. All offers for the assets must be received by May 17, which is significantly shorter than the usual timeframe of “several month” to sell a property.

With a cultivation facility teeming with live plants and stores open and running, Mathews said Singer wanted to move quickly.

Mathews said he already has two offers on the 420.com property, which he believes will sell for around $100,000.

While he has received interest in the other properties, there have been no specific offers just yet. Mathews said that several of the stores are bleeding money, which could impact the prices offered. One property has months of unpaid rent.

The media properties themselves, which includes the name, could be valued as high as $7 million, Mathews said, although there aren’t any comparable deals to base that price on. That’s despite the brand now being stained with bankruptcy.

“If I had six to nine months to sell it, I could probably get close to $15 million, but I only have a couple of weeks,” he said.

High Times continues to have strong brand recognition for the website and the Cannabis Cup event, which could provide a foundation for revival, Mathews said. He also thinks High Times would be a great name for a consumption lounge.

Mathews also said he has heard rumors that Levin may try to buy back High Times through a pawn, which would allow him to dodge the unpaid bills and lawsuits and start over with a clean slate. However, Levin has been banned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from acting as an officer or director of any issuer that has a class of securities.

Mathews said for his part he just works to get the best price for the receiver.

He also said that he makes recommendations to the receiver on whether to take an offer, but ultimately the decision lies with the receiver. If a property doesn’t have an accepted offer by May 17, it will be turned over to an auction for sale, at which point it just goes to the highest bidder.

How it started

In 2017, Trans-High Corporation (THC), a combination of founder Tom Forcade’s heirs and civil rights attorney Michael Kennedy, sold the organization to Oreva Capital, a group of investors led by Levin, in a deal valued at as much as $70 million.

Levin borrowed a lot of the money for the acquisition from ExWorks. The plan was to quickly flip the acquisition by taking it public on the Nasdaq. Unfortunately, the exchange had zero interest in listing a company that it considered plant-touching due to the revenue-producing Cannabis Cups. High Times  also seemed uninterested in going public in Canada or at the Over-the-Counter Marketplace.

Instead, the company embarked on a years-long effort to sell its shares to unaccredited and accredited investors. During this time, High Times often pivoted wildly, from focusing on events to announcing purchases of high-profile event companies, most of which didn’t close. Then it changed course and decided to buy dispensary licenses, many of which were acquired from the Have A Heart group in California.

All the while, the company continued to sell more shares and use shares as payment for acquisitions, among other things. Separately, Levin was charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for not disclosing paid promotions around the High Times stock offerings, which resulted in his removal from the company.

The following are the assets listed for sale:

Opportunity 1: 

High Times Cannabis Operational Distribution, Manufacturing Type 7 & Delivery Business For Sale By Receivership Lynwood CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th (Los Angeles County) #1372

Data Room: Hightimes Lynwood, CA, Data Room

Details:
Address: 2290 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd Lynwood CA 90262
DBA: Pure CA LLC
Space: 9,000 Sq Ft
Rent: $24,975.00

Licenses:
Annual Commercial Distributor C11-0000292-LIC
Annual Commercial Retailer Non Storefront C9-0000072-LIC
Annual Manufacturer Type 7 CDPH-10001194

2023 Gross Revenues:
May: $399,946.20
June: $308,290.69
July: $228,628.45
August: $334,258.42
September: $141,273.34
October: $123,820.00
November: $285,649.14
December: $146,564.50

2024 Gross Revenues:
January: $247,100.34
February: $67,115.26
March: $56,498.62
April: $96,485.00

Opportunity 2: 

HighTimes Cannabis Cultivation Business For Sale By Receivership CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th, 300 LIGHTS W/ Distribution (City Of Sacramento, California) #1373

Data Room: Hightimes Sacramento, CA Data Room

Details:
Address: 6260 88th St Sacramento CA 95828
300 LIGHTS
DBA: Sapphire Enterprises, LLC
Space: 10,000 Sq Ft
Rent: $26,573.29
Dry Room Capable of 200lbs +
571 Fluorescent LED Lights Including Veg.
200 Gallon Fertigation System w/ 16 Dosing Pumps
20 Flowering Zones (5 Flowering Rooms 2 Tier, Nursery Tier 3 & Dry Room)
Assets Included: (2) Daikin 100 Ton Chillers, (7) Air Handlers, Enteliweb Environmental & Equipment Control Monitoring System, (13) Quest Dehumidifiers, 5lb oHaus Scale, Safe, Flower/ Sorter Classifier, Security System and Server, 420k BTU Electric Boiler

2023 Gross Revenues:
May: $220,916.80
June: $176,420.00
July:$147,594.92
August: $198,490.63
September: $138,281.16
October: $172,844.59
November: $137,473.19
December: $137,608.75

Licenses:
Cultivation Small Indoor Annual CCL20-0003197
Commercial Distributor Annual C11-0000254-LIC

Opportunity 3: 

7 High Times Cannabis Dispensary Portfolio For Sale By Receivership CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th (California) #1374

Data Room: Hightimes Retails Data Room

ALL 7  Retail Dispensaries are FULLY BUILT OUT and are Either Fully Operational or Fully Turn Key Ready to Open!!
Details:
Location 1: 1201 La Brea Ave N W Hollywood CA 90038
Entity: Flore Flora LLC
Space: 3,964 Sq Ft
Rent: $39,392
Provisional Commercial Retailer C10-0000600-LIC
Business License CCA-000002

Location 2: 590 E st S San Bernardino CA 92408
Entity: HAH 3, LLC
Space: 2400 SqFt
Rent: $20,000/Month
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000209-LIC
Retail Cannabis Business 971762
Cannabis Business Permit CBP22-001

Location 3: 345 Hemsted Dr Redding CA 96002
Entity: J@G Enterprises, Inc
Space: Toal 5,430 Sq Ft; (2,172 Sq Ft Main Building: Sales & Inventory Floor)
Rent: $13,708/ month
Consists of two buildings, Second Building is Office Space
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000535-LIC
Cannabis License CB-2020-00930

Location 4: 1550 Locust Ave Shasta Lake CA 96019
Entity: 530 Cannabis
Space: 1,900 Sq Ft
Rent: $4,424.63 (Increasing by 3% June 2024)
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000114-LIC
Commercial Cannabis Dispensary Business License CC20-01

Location 5: 1894 Hobsonway E Blythe CA 92225
Entity: HAH 1 LLC
Space: 2,412 Sq Ft
Rent: $11,034.61
Real Estate Value: $1.2M
2024 Gross Revenues YTD: $497,519.53
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000070-LIC

Location 6: 721 Broadway Oakland CA 94607
Entity: HAH 5 LLC – Oakland
Space: 9,100 Sq Ft
Rent: $45,930.67 (Has Not Been Paid in Months, Waiting on Total Amount Due)
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000068-LIC
Special Activity Permit CP22-166

Location 7: 286 5th St N Coalinga CA 93210
Entity:HAH Coalinga LLC
Space: 4,356 Sq Ft
Rent: $12,500/ month
Annual Commercial Retailer C10-0000014-LIC

Opportunity 4: 

Www.420.Com Complete Intellectual Property, An Asset Of High Times For Sale By Receivership CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th (California) #1375

Data Room: Hightimes 420.com IP Data Room

Opportunity 5:

Complete Intellectual Property Of Moxie For Sale By Receivership CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th (California) #1376

Data Room: Hightimes Moxie IP Data Room

Opportunity 6: 

High Times Intellectual Property Assets For Sale By Receivership CALL FOR OFFERS MAY 17th (California) #1377

Data Room: Hightimes & Cannabis Cup IP Data Room

Details:
IPRs (Branding, Internet Domain Name, Web addresses, Web pages, Website, URLs, Works of Authorship, Technology, Plant Varieties, All Industrial Property whether Registered or Unregistered)
Cannabis Cup Branding and IPRs
Cannabis Cup Branding
Cannabis Cup Registered Trademarks & Pending Applications
High Times Branding, Email, Salesforce and IPRs
High Times Registered Trademarks and Pending Applications
Hightimes.com
Dope Magazine
High Times Magazine
High Times Email Database
Chalice Cup

Media:
Digital Subscribers:  10,325 paying $45/year
Instagram Followers: 2.9MM
X (Twitter) Followers: 726.7k
Facebook Followers: 5.5MM
Website Stats: Monthly Users: 163k; views: 389k;
Percentage of Monthly Users by Country:
US – 13,4%
Canada – 10,2%
UK – 1%
Germany – 28,9%
Australia – 9,1%
India – 9,5%
South Africa – 66,1%
Average Engagement Time: 1m 32s
Average Daily Purchasers: 29
Returning Users: 21k
Monthly Revenue: $22k