Trulieve Cannabis is a Canadian seed to sale licensed cannabis firm. They produce medicinal cannabis products. The firm cultivates and produces its own products and sells them through Trulieve dispensaries.
Their rapid growth in Florida’s medicinal marijuana market made it seem as if Trulieve Cannabis stock forecast would always remain positive. However, that seems quite difficult seeing how many lawsuits this company is facing at the moment.
The people running Trulieve Cannabis Corp have been careless with the money and have been swindling investors for a long while.
Last year, investors filed a lawsuit against Trulieve Cannabis Corp for overstating their markup on the biological assets, inflating their gross profit, and engaging in an undisclosed real estate sale with the CEO’s husband. In other words, The company is facing a class-action lawsuit for lying to and defrauding its investors between 2018 and 2019.
This news alone can have an adverse effect on Trulieve Cannabis Corp stock price (TCNNF). The investors also allege that Trulieve made exaggerated claims about its product quality to mislead them.
Kim Rivers & J.T. Burnette: The Truth Behind Trulieve Cannabis Leadership
The class-action lawsuit isn’t the biggest worry on the minds of Trulieve Cannabis Corp leadership. Why? Because at the time of writing this column, they are facing a trial for a public corruption case.
The CEO, Kim Rivers and her spouse, J.T. Burnette are facing heat for their involvement in a large corruption scandal. J.T. Burnette is a hotelier and businessman. You can understand the depth of the case as FBI had planted multiple undercover agents to complete their investigation.
The public corruption probe started in 2015 and has led to indictments against former Mayor and City Commissioner Scott Maddox, Paige Carter-Smith, and J.T. Burnette.
During the trial, it was found that J.T. Burnette used to brag about the “purchasing power” of his wife, Kim Rivers. He would tell others how she was a “powerful weapon”. During his conversations with the undercover agents, Burnette said that city commissioners such as Gil Ziffer and Nancy Miller would call Kim to check her position on issues before voting.
That’s a big statement. And it shows just how corrupt the leadership of Trulieve Cannabis Corp is. Burnette had also said that he and Kim can sway individual commissioners. And he claimed to cut checks for some of their pet projects.
It’s an on-going trial but there are rumors that it will become a mistrial because two jurors have dropped out for different reasons. If another juror drops out, it will become a mistrial.
About The Trulieve Cannabis Stock
Trulieve Cannabis stock price is also suffering because of the corruption probe and its various lawsuits. The company has too high non-cash earnings and has a considerably high level of debt.
Currently, their profit margins are lower than last year’s. Last year, their profit margins were 20.4% while they are at 11.4% right now. Moreover, shareholders have been diluted in the past year which also increases the risks in Trulieve Cannabis stock.
Trulieve Cannabis Scam: Corruption, Low Quality Products, And The FBI
The public corruption I highlighted before has become a major reason why the investors filed a class action lawsuit against this company. Another reason behind their lawsuit is the Grizzly Report published recently.
The report highlights that Trulieve’s initial license approval could probably be a result of corruption and had multiple undisclosed conflicts of interest. J.T. Burnette, Trulieve CEO’s spouse, was the primary construction partner for this company. And he is currently a part of multiple public fund scandals in Florida.
What is Corruption?
A person or group in a position of authority may engage in corruption, which is a kind of dishonesty or a criminal offense, to obtain illegal benefits or exploit that position for one’s benefit.
The findings also revealed that many companies affiliated with Burnette sold real estate to Trulieve Cannabis Corp at huge profits. This suggests Kim Rivers was using the investors’ funds to fill the pockets of her husband.
The report highlighted that Trulieve is a part of multiple FBI investigations. Moreover, they discovered that Trulieve was using hoop houses to produce low-quality products. And those places are prone to weather damage and infestation.
Certainly, these are some hard-to-digest facts. Kim Rivers and her company have filed a lawsuit against Grizzly Reports for libel. However, the recent testimony in court suggests that their libel lawsuit doesn’t stand on solid ground. Burnette personally told undercover FBI agents that his wife can sway city commissioners through her wealth. I don’t think it can go worse than this.
You can find the report here.
Attach this file: https://seekingalpha.com/attachments/download/21981?source=content_type%3Areact%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link
A Lawsuit for Being Annoying: Trulieve Cannabis and its Texts
Apart from the class action lawsuit where investors allege that Trulieve Cannabis lied to them about their product and more, this cannabis firm is facing several other lawsuits.
In 2019, consumers filed a lawsuit against Trulieve for spamming them with thousands of texts.
The consumer only demanded $1.5k in damages. But Trulieve didn’t want anyone to find out about this lawsuit.
So, they posted tweets that day on how people can sign up for alerts and tried to bury this incident.
It’s not a huge lawsuit, yet, Trulieve couldn’t resist but bury a small news.
This marijuana company has a tendency to use unethical business practices to bury any negative news or reviews. Their sole reason is to ensure that the Trulieve stock forecast remains positive.
Trulieve isn’t the first company that uses this method to bury the truth. It’s a common strategy among shady enterprises. Rising S Company is another shady organization who uses this tactic. You should be wary of any organization that tries to silence consumers.
Using Fake PR To Manipulate Stock Holders
Trulieve spends excessively on its PR. The company doesn’t want anyone to hear about the class-action lawsuit they are facing. And they certainly don’t want anyone to read any articles on the public corruption case J.T. Burnette is facing.
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So, they spend heavily on PR networks which post multiple articles detailing the achievements and successes of this firm. The sole purpose of these useless posts is to deceive investors and stockholders into thinking “everything is fine”.
Trulieve Cannabis Managers Exploiting Employees
If you think Trulieve jobs are attractive, you are mistaken. According to the numerous employee reviews, Trulieve Cannabis is a terrible place to work at. Below are some of the reviews I found on their listings. You can understand just how terrible Trulieve jobs are by reading some of them:
Verdict
Right now, Trulieve Cannabis is facing a ton more competition in Florida than ever before. Three to four MSOs have entered the state and want to capitalize on the growing market. This cannabis firm hasn’t faced such stringent competition before and that can cause them to miss their Q2 revenue targets.
The new competitors are growing at a far more rapid pace than Trulieve and are adding more stores aggressively. For example, Curaleaf doubled its sales while Liberty Health tripled its sale of THC in July.
Considering this information with the rest, Trulieve Cannabis stock doesn’t seem like something that will grow exponentially. The company is on thin ice. And it can crumble any time.
Here it is, Sept 2022 and I go to a nice Trulieve about 2 miles from my house and pick up pretty much any product I want at a high price. But like most shopping there are a lot of sales offers in my email.
I was literally thrown out of the Tyrone store yesterday because I can not wear a mask! I am partially disabled. I made my order online and went to pick it up. I was greeted with where is your mask? I told him I am exempt medically and was told to leave the store and go somewhere else. This is the new policy. Are you kidding me? This business is run by N*AZ*I*S.
As a former employee…
They walked on the heads of the weak and used people to promote their products while giving their “influencers” first dibs.
That lie, cheat and corrupt and go behind anyone’s back to destroy them with their little minions.
They are already facing so much competition in the Florida market. Now their CEO has been named in one of the biggest public corruption cases of this century. Yeah, if I wanted to make a stock forecast for Trulieve Cannabis, I would say they will be going downhill in the coming days. Bribing city commissioners isn’t something that gives you the support of common investors.