Halo Collective’s Budega™ Dispensary in Westwood to Open May 27 and Hollywood Planned for June

TORONTO, May 21, 2022 /CNW/ – Halo Collective Inc. (“Halo” or the “Company”) (NEO: HALO) (OTCQX: HCANF) (Germany: A9KN) today announced that it expects all three of it’s Los Angeles dispensaries will be open by the end of June.

• The Grand Opening of Budega Westwood will be Friday, May 27. As previously announced, this premier retail establishment passed its Los Angeles inspection. The Budega Westwood (ZXC11, LLC) dispensary is strategically located between Westwood and Beverly Hills, right off Santa Monica Boulevard and within two miles of the University of Los Angeles California campus (“UCLA”) and the closest dispensary to the tourist district of Beverly Hills and Century City.
• Budega Hollywood, is expected to open in June. The Company has received its license from the State of California, and the final local inspection has been scheduled. Construction is progressing on plan.

“The Hollywood dispensary will be our first superstore, with 4,500 square feet, giving us the capacity for more than 1,000 SKUs,” commented Kiran Sidhu, Halo’s Chief Executive Officer. “Both of our Hollywood and Westwood dispensaries are strategically located, promising significant nearby foot traffic and access to locals and tourists alike. In addition, our Hollywood dispensary has ample parking on-site, and after a brief ramp-up period, we expect both dispensaries to contribute meaningfully to our revenue and operating profit contribution by the second half of 2022.”

Budega Hollywood will offer our vast product assortment, including many top-tier California brands such as Jungle Boys, Jeeter, 710 Labs, Alien Labs, Connected Cookies, and Kiva as well as highlight Budega’s line of branded products, which remain the top selling SKU’s at Budega’s North Hollywood location. In addition, the store will also stock Halo’s Hush™ branded cartridges, gummies, and pre-rolls. The store plans to operate Monday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Visit www.budega.com for more information or to place your order online.

“When these two locations open, Halo will have three Los Angeles dispensaries, each offering an unrivaled retail shopping experience, enabling us to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace and build brand equity,” said Ryan Kunkel, Halo’s Chairman.

California is the highest-grossing state for cannabis retail sales in the United States, with legal retail sales of $5.2 billion¹ in 2021, up 17% from 2020. California is projected to gross $7 billion by 2025.²  California is the largest legal cannabis market in the United States and is less saturated than other mature retail markets. In Los Angeles County, there are approximately 250 licenses³ for a population of 3.9 million across 500 square miles⁴, compared to Oregon, which has 4.3 million people and approximately 800 stores across 98,466 square miles⁵. There are roughly two licenses per 100,000 people in California, one of the lowest rates in the nation among states that support legal recreational sales. By comparison, Oregon has 18 retail shops for every 100,000 residents. Colorado boasts a similar ratio, and Washington state’s rate is more than triple California’s⁶.

Halo is a multi-national incubation company with assets and operations centered in both THC and non-THC sectors. For the THC sector, Halo is focused on the West Coast of the United States where it has vertically integrated operations covering the entire value chain from seed to sale. Halo cultivates, extracts, manufactures, and distributes quality cannabis flower, pre-rolls, vape carts, edibles, and concentrates. Halo sells these products under a portfolio of brands including Hush™, Winberry Farms™, Williams Wonder Farms, its retail brand Budega™, and under license agreements with Papa’s Herb®, DNA Genetics, and FlowerShop*. Halo has opened a dispensary in Los Angeles under the Budega™ brand in North Hollywood and plans to open two more in Hollywood, and Westwood in the second quarter of 2022. Halo also operates three Kushbar retail cannabis stores located in Alberta, Canada.

In the non-THC sector, Halo is expanding into health and wellness categories including CBD and functional supplements such as nootropic nutraceuticals and non-psychotropic mushrooms. Halo, through a series of acquisitions, is developing product offerings in the form of beverages (H2C Beverages), dissolvable strips (Dissolve Medical), capsules (Hushrooms™), and topical supplements (Hatshe) with proposed national distribution via a strategic agreement with SWAY Energy Corporation. Halo has entered a letter of intent to acquire Phytocann Holdings, one of Europe’s leading wellness CBD consumer packaged goods companies with a portfolio of value and premium brands including Ivory, Harvest Laboratoires, Easy Weed, Kanolia, Herboristerie Alexandra, Buddies and Ghosty Buds.

As an incubator, Halo has successfully acquired and integrated a variety of companies which were subsequently reorganized to create Akanda Corp. (NASDAQ: AKAN), an international medical cannabis and wellness company, of which Halo currently owns approximately 44% of the common shares. Halo has also acquired a range of software development assets, including CannPOS, Cannalift, CannaFeels, and a discrete sublingual dosing technology, Accudab. Halo intends to reorganize these entities (including their intellectual property and patent applications) into a subsidiary called Halo Tek Inc., and to complete a distribution of the shares of Halo Tek Inc. to shareholders on record, at a date to be determined.

For further information regarding Halo, see Halo’s disclosure documents on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Statements

This press release contains certain “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only Halo’s beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of Halo’s control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “plans”, “expects” or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “estimates”, “forecasts”, “intends”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, or “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will be taken”, “will continue”, “will occur” or “will be achieved”. Forward-looking information may relate to anticipated events or results including, but not limited to, the anticpated opening of the Company’s Budega dispensaries in Westwood and Hollywood and the prospects thereof, management’s plans regarding its portfolio of cannabis businesses, the expected contribution from the Company’s California dispensaries and the expected opening date thereof, the time and place for the Company’s earnings call, the expected size and capabilities of the final facility planned at Ukiah Ventures, the size of Halo’s planned cultivation facility in Northern California and the proposed spin-off by Halo Tek Inc.

By identifying such information and statements in this manner, Halo is alerting the reader that such information and statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such information and statements. In addition, in connection with the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release, Halo has made certain assumptions. Although Halo believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. Among others, the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information and statements are the following: inability of management to successfully integrate the operations of acquired businesses, changes in the consumer market for cannabis products, changes in the expected outcomes of the proposed changes to Halo’s operations, delays in obtaining required licenses or approvals necessary for the build-out of the Company’s cannabis operations, dispensaries or Canadian operations, the proposed spin-out with Halo Tek Inc., delays or unforeseen costs incurred in connection with construction, the ability of competitors to scale operations in Northern California, delays or unforeseen difficulties in connection with the cultivation and harvest of Halo’s raw material, changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; and the other risks disclosed in the Company’s annual information form dated March 31, 2022 and other disclosure documents  available on the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information or statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected.

The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Halo does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking information and statements attributable to Halo or persons acting on its behalf is expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice.

Third Party Information

This press release includes market and industry data that has been obtained from third party sources, including industry publications. The Company believes that the industry data is accurate and that its estimates and assumptions are reasonable, but there is no assurance as to the accuracy or completeness of this data. Third party sources generally state that the information contained therein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but there is no assurance as to the accuracy or completeness of included information. Although the data is believed to be reliable, the Company has not independently verified any of the data from third party sources referred to in this press release or ascertained the underlying economic assumptions relied upon by such sources

Non-Solicitation

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

SOURCE Halo Collective Inc.