• ChineseInvestors.com provides first platform for Chinese-centric CBD market
• The company boasts real-time services in Chinese character sets
• ChineseInvestors.com launched CBD navigation application

Founded in 1999, ChineseInvestors.com, Inc. (OTCQB: CIIX) aims to be a leading financial information website that provides real-time market commentary, analysis and education-related services to Chinese-speaking investors through its dynamic financial website, www.Chinesefn.com. ChineseInvestors.com, Inc. went public on the OTCQB Venture Market in January 2012, under the symbol CIIX (http://ibn.fm/MrTES).

Having recognized the unprecedented opportunities that lie within the American cannabis industry, the company started laying the foundations to capitalize on the ever-growing demand for cannabidiol-based nutrition and health products. The end of 2016 marked the company’s implementation of plans for its new website, its mobile application and its online distribution of CBD oils for the booming global industry of medical marijuana. Although marijuana use is illegal within the borders of China, cannabis-based oils that include hemp-based CBDs are legal. This unique opportunity opens a potential market of nearly two billion people for the company.

Following the launch of ChineseCBDoil.com in early 2017, the company noted that it was the first online CBD health products store in the Chinese language. The website shows a variety of nutritional supplements containing CBD, including soft gels, capsules and concentrates marketed to Chinese-speaking customers worldwide. It is the company’s intention to open up a retail store in the predominantly Chinese community of San Gabriel, California, which is also where the company’s headquarters is located (http://ibn.fm/AGXuh).

ChineseInvestors.com also launched the world’s first Chinese-language-based mobile cannabis navigation application. This ‘Yelp’ style social media application is set to contain a database of marijuana dispensaries and cannabis strains, along with platforms to review and discuss various cannabis products and maps that show the locations of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries. Alongside this, the application is set to offer cannabis business summaries and reports from Los Angeles, as well as other large cities, in an effort to provide customers with access to the best recommendations for local marijuana products. The application has been approved by the Apple store and is available for download.

In an effort to assist patients with Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, cirrhosis of the liver and a range of other physical and mental ailments, ChineseInvestors.com will continue its focus on investment in both the distribution and the R&D of CBD medicine and health products. With the company’s base of over 100,000 users, alongside its brand value built over the past 18 years, its mission is to become the leading Chinese medical marijuana-focused publicly traded company.

China has nearly 10 million patients that suffer from epilepsy, placing it among the most common diseases that Chinese researchers are eager to cure. Currently, in China, epilepsy cannot be wholly cured, with patients relying heavily on drugs or Chinese herbs to temporarily control the illness. In the United States, epilepsy has been successfully addressed through specialized surgical treatment. However, this option comes with a high risk factor. As a result, a majority of Chinese patients are inclined to seek conservative treatment methods in the field of Western medicine. CBD oil, therefore, has a huge potential within the market space for the treatment of epileptic cases that are located in the mainland or overseas.

Regarding clinical trials and research, ChineseInvestors.com intends to further study the efficacy of CBD oil for the treatment of the above-mentioned illnesses. Apart from that, the company will invest in CBD drug R&D enterprises with the goal of developing various CBD drugs that show positive results when used to combat epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. The application period for new drugs of this nature in China is two to four years, which is notably shorter than that of the FDA. It is the company’s goal to be the first company in China to use CBD oil to help mitigate the suffering of patients with epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.

The company also offers support services to its various partners, consultative services to smaller private companies that are considering becoming public entities and advertising and public relations-related support services.

With the further legalization of medical marijuana supported by studies, greater market sizes can be expected. With fewer drug side effects and further drug development, it is likely that the number of CBD products will increase, with more people likely to opt for these safer treatments. On a wider scale the problem of acute and chronic pain can be combatted, resulting in fewer production losses in the workplace.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ChineseInvestors.com

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• Company, exploring economics of cryptocurrency loans and an initial coin offering (ICO), has formed a 100 percent-owned subsidiary, Investment Evolution Crypto, LLC
• ACF Equity Research sees IEGH revenue reaching $8.2 million in FY2020 with positive EBITDA

IEG Holdings Corp. (OTCQB: IEGH) is a Las Vegas-based fintech provider of $5,000 and $10,000 unsecured, five-year consumer loans under the brand name ‘Mr. Amazing Loans’ on its website (www.MrAmazingLoans.com). It is licensed and/or holds certificates of authority to originate direct consumer loans in 20 states. The company provides loans through its online application portal to residents of those states. All loans are originated, processed and serviced out of the company’s centralized head office in Las Vegas. The company was launched in 2010.

ACF Equity Research projects the revenue of IEGH reaching $5.328 million in FY2019 and $8.227 million in FY2020, with positive EBITDA in both years (http://ibn.fm/p07y0). That projection is based on ACF Equity Research liking the no-debt position of IEGH, its free cash flow, its business model, and its 80 percent repeat business loan book. It also sees value in the company’s exploration of cryptocurrency loans and the formation of its new 100 percent-owned subsidiary, Investment Evolution Crypto, LLC. IEGH is said to be looking into launching an initial coin offering (ICO), the report said.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.InvestmentEvolution.com

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• New strategic agreements expand gaming opportunities in United Kingdom
• Company leveraging secure payment processing experience, eyeing fintech and data analytics
• Mobile app market forecast to top $110 billion by year-end

Following a year in which mobile gaming recorded remarkable growth, occupying nearly half the total market value of the gaming industry (http://ibn.fm/C6BRZ), some market watchers are predicting that worldwide consumer commitment to mobile app stores will grow about 30 percent year-over-year to exceed $110 billion by the end of 2018 (http://ibn.fm/wrDbN).

Consorteum Holdings, Inc. (OTC: CSRH), a mobile platform company focused on “delivering compliant complex mobile-based transactions,” is placing its markers on partnerships and licensing agreements that allow it to develop its software and mobile publishing resources for a variety of mobile offerings, including the online gaming industry. In January, Consorteum Holdings announced an agreement with XpertX, Inc. to release XpertX’s Wild Spots Bingo® mobile game in new international markets. Later that same month, the company announced that it had extended its strategic agreement with Knockout Gaming, Inc. to integrate Knockout’s operator platform into Consorteum subsidiary 359 Mobile, Inc.’s Universal Mobile Interface™ (“UMI”). The subsidiary will provide gaming delivery to certain regulated markets worldwide, including the United Kingdom.

New developments in augmented reality and eSports are revitalizing mobile gaming apps. Particularly in the field of eSports, millions of people are interacting on a multi-billion-dollar competitive stage. The Clash Royale Championship made news when it became the first tournament to offer prize money at the million dollar mark, and more such mega tournaments are expected. Consorteum Holdings targets end users who will use their smart phones in radical new ways. Its UMI platform has the ability to provide secure transactional processing, which opens a door to the gaming industry’s verticals but also provides a variety of solutions in fintech and data analytics that reach beyond the gaming industry and into the corporate world’s operating standards. Add compliancy lead transaction management suited to geographic regions, and the company’s platform becomes a targeted tool for removing the complexities of delivering a rich mobile experience to the end user and “bridging the mobile divide.”

Consorteum Holdings was incorporated in 2005 in the state of Nevada to process payment transactions and, in 2012, became licensed to market and license the world’s first regulatory-compliant mobile gaming platform. In July 2013, the company launched a new era, building on its business model to become a provider of digital content across mobile devices by engineering its platform using branded partnerships in the mobile sports betting and casino gaming verticals. Following years of continued research and development that provided new levels of experience, the company emerged with its 359 Mobile subsidiary providing end-to-end payment solutions for cloud-based and host-based offerings in the mobile gaming, fintech and data analytics markets.

The UMI platform will see its first application this year in the United Kingdom, and the company will evaluate its options for additional territory deployment. Consorteum Holdings’ securities registration filing with the SEC on January 31 states, “Going forward we expect our revenues to be derived from transactions processed using our UMI software platform technology in various countries outside the US starting with the United Kingdom as we explore other international distribution opportunities. We will also explore any US opportunities that are feasible.”

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Consorteum.com

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• Goldman Small Cap Research forecasts overall CBD market to grow to $1.15 billion within the next three years
• MCOA’s hempSMART product line drives new industrial hemp-based CBD products to consumers
• Industrial hemp offers a non-psychoactive, less controversial alternative to cannabis

Advocates and investors riding the current cannabis policy roller coaster are turning an optimistic eye to the industrial hemp sector, as its cannabis industry sibling battles for respectability and legalization in the United States.

Over the last three years, Marijuana Company of America Inc. (OTC: MCOA) has observed the political changes in the U.S., with regard to hemp and cannabis regulation at the local, state and federal levels. With this knowledge, the company is navigating its way through multiple state regulatory systems, court decisions and public opinion to build a market position to develop and drive innovative product development and distribution.

MCOA delivers turnkey products and services to consumers in U.S. states where the cannabis plant’s derivatives have been legalized. While federal drug policy continues to target state-by-state normalization of cannabis for medicinal and recreational use, MCOA’s hempSMART subsidiary is turning out branded products containing industrial hemp-derived, non-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) formulations for retail distribution via an affiliate marketing model.

Although 2018 began with the advancement of new state laws legalizing cannabis and hemp – most notably in California, the world’s fifth largest economy – Attorney General Jeff Sessions reaffirmed on January 4, 2018, that cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Sessions concurrently rescinded previous Obama-era federal prosecutorial guidance on state-legalized cannabis and hemp that allowed states having strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems the discretion to regulate the production and distribution of cannabis and hemp, as long as the state-enacted rules were consistent with federal priorities. Cue multiple lawsuits around the country and Congressional debate over the propriety of existing cannabis laws. These repeated flare-ups in drug policy have left many cannabis investors nervous (http://ibn.fm/6EPLX), but other industry insiders have seen the cannabis debate as a boon to the less controversial industrial hemp plant, which contains less than 0.3 percent THC.

In 2004, the Hemp Industry Association won a Ninth Circuit Court decision to allow hemp products with less than 0.3 percent THC to be distributed legally, and hemp production was legalized nationwide for university research under the 2014 Farm Bill.

MCOA has now been an active player in the North American cannabis and hemp markets for the past three years (http://ibn.fm/yAU3Y). The company has ensured, via clear and regular communications with the markets, customers, affiliates and media, that the development of hempSMART’s range of non-psychoactive products has been transparent, informed and compliant. hempSMART’s new take on wellness products include formulations for the brain, pain and Full Spectrum Drops. Newly-launched products include pain cream and, for our four-legged friends, Pet Drops.

MCOA also recently partnered with Convenient Hemp Mart, LLC to develop the “BeniHemp” CBD brand. Currently in development, BeniHemp will be targeted for sale in convenience stores, gas stations, smoke shops and similar types of small retail businesses focused on the impulse buyer, with its products located at the cash register. The BeniHemp brand is expected to offer a range of topicals, tinctures and edibles. With its unique national marketing and distribution plans, BeniHemp will work with its partners to create recognition for CBD wellness and personal care products.

On February 15, 2018, Goldman Small Cap Research, a stock market research firm specializing in the small cap and microcap sectors, released a white paper (http://ibn.fm/JEMpt) in which it predicts that the overall CBD market in the U.S. will grow from a base of $262 million in 2016 to something exceeding $1.15 billion by 2020.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MarijuanaCompanyofAmerica.com

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• Canada expects to make recreational marijuana use legal nationwide later this year
• Legalized revenues have forecast potential to reach up to $8.7 billion, with more than $20 billion for ancillary services
• CHOOF invites ‘good people’ to open franchise retail dispensaries

While winter days in frigid northern climates mean snow and cold winds, a company in Canada’s British Columbia is embracing the timeless warmth of Hawaii’s laid-back lifestyle. Choom™ Holdings Inc. (CSE: CHOO) (OTCQB: CHOOF) is building a friendly entry into the country’s growing legalized cannabis industry as it awaits final stage approval of its Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (“ACMPR”) license and application to serve the anticipated recreational marijuana market once full nationwide legalization takes place later this year.

In early February, the company announced it was seeking ‘good people’ interested in opening their own Choom™ store retail dispensary franchises across Canada, wherever marijuana is legalized. “We’re inviting people to open a dispensary with a world class brand built exclusively for the recreational cannabis market. We’re encouraging entrepreneurs to join our family by registering for their own Choom™ store,” President and CEO Chris Bogart stated in a news release about the proposal. “We are telling our Choom™ story with our stores and will elevate the concept of a high-quality product through our new retail environments, and we’re inviting others to join us.”

A Deloitte survey of attitudes in 2016 arrived at the conclusion that revenues for the legalized market may reach anywhere from $4.9 billion to $8.7 billion with ancillary markets that could top $20 billion; these are figures that Choom™ Holdings has taken note of while planning its expansion strategy as the end of cannabis prohibition nears.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to enter a potential Multi-Billion Dollar industry,” the company’s website states. “Marijuana dispensaries in legalized states in the US make more per square foot than Whole Foods, and you can get in on the ground floor in the Canadian Market.”

According to the company’s investor presentation made in November, by 2021, the recreational marijuana industry that Choom™ Holdings exclusively aims to serve is expected to be almost eight times the size of the medical marijuana industry, which is served by Choom’s Medi-Can Health Solutions Ltd. subsidiary, with benefits spilling over into the tourism industry, governmental tax and licensing coffers, and paraphernalia manufacturing market. Its nimble business model aims to be ready from the ground up to adapt to the changing cannabis landscape as recreational use becomes legal. Choom™ has a planned production facility capable of putting out 660 kg of dried cannabis per year and plans a second phase expansion that would take it to 2,400 kg per year at two British Columbia locations. Choom™ obtained C$2.7 million in financing through a non-brokered private placement in February, following on another $1 million raised to advance its efforts in December shortly after the company began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange and shortly before beginning trading on the OTCQB exchange in the United States.

“Our products will be focused on cultivating good times and good friends,” the company’s website states. Choom™ refers to an old Hawaiian term for people who hang out and smoke weed, evocative of that spirit of adventure and fun that the company wants to promote.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Choom.ca

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• Relaxed U.S. restrictions on hemp production increasingly likely
• Hemp extraction legislation expected to occur in Canada in mid-to-late 2018
• Hemp used in dozens of applications across the industrial spectrum
• “Soil-to-Shelf” strategy for development of hemp in Canada and the United States

If you lived in Jamestown in the late eighteenth century, the first permanent English settlement in what became the United States, and you did not grow cannabis, you would most likely earn the contempt of fellow citizens. You could also end up in jail; refusing to grow cannabis sativa, known as Indian hemp, was actually against the law in Virginia. Hemp enjoyed such a favorable status that you could even pay your taxes with it, and, during the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, cultivation of hemp flourished. By 1938, after new methods for stripping fiber from the plant were developed, the widely read Popular Mechanics Magazine was touting hemp as the ‘New Billion-Dollar Crop’.

It was the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1938, which banned cultivation of cannabis, that changed the fortunes of the industry. Hemp production in the U.S. shrank and has remained in that atrophied state since then. However, recent legislative initiatives are a signal that happier days lie ahead for hemp, and Global Hemp Group, Inc. (CSE: GHG) (FRANKFURT: GHG) (OTC: GBHPF) is well positioned to benefit. The company is out to build a comprehensive portfolio of hemp-based companies that can interact to capture synergies. With hemp having so many uses, Global Hemp is betting that America’s ‘New Billion-Dollar Crop’ is set for a renaissance.

Recent legislative action is reshaping the regulatory landscape. Section 7606 of the Agricultural Act 2014, known as the ‘Farm Bill’, authorizes institutions of higher education or state departments of agriculture to grow industrial hemp for “research conducted under an agricultural pilot program or other agricultural or academic research,” so long as state law permits the growth and cultivation of the plant. There are now 34 states that have enacted hemp legislation and will eventually allow cultivation for research and commercial purposes. It has sparked a renewed interest in commercial cultivation. In 2017, there were 25,541 acres of hemp grown in 19 states, up from 9,770 in 2016, with 1,456 state hemp licenses issued. By comparison, in 2017, Canada cultivated more than 120,000 acres across the country.

The catch phrase of ‘New Billion-Dollar Crop’ is more than hyperbole. An analysis of the commercial product potential of industrial hemp in North America reveals an astonishing array of applications. Hemp seeds (achenes) are used in the manufacture of baked goods, salad oil, personal care products, animal food, dietary supplements and specialty industrial oils. Fiber from the plant is used to make plastic-like molded products and biocomposites, specialty papers, construction fiberboard, biodegradable landscape matting, plant cultures, carpet and upholstery textiles, as well as finer textiles. The woody stem core (hurd) is used for building materials, animal bedding and thermal insulation, while the floral bracts give us medicinal cannabinoids and oils for food flavors and perfumes. The whole plant is useful; it can also be employed for fuel and silage (fodder for cattle and other ruminants).

Global Hemp has already begun growing hemp. In January, the company reported on its successful joint venture with Marijuana Company of America, Inc. (OTC: MCOA). The two companies are collaborating on an industrial hemp project in New Brunswick, Canada. Results of the 2017 season were encouraging, and the partners are now planning a minimum of 125 acres of commercial hemp cultivation for 2018 (http://ibn.fm/4fIe6). Over the following three years, acreage is planned to expand to more than 1,000 acres.

Global Hemp plans to apply for a license to extract cannabidiol (CBD) and other cannabinoids from the upcoming industrial hemp crop in New Brunswick. Discussions are also underway with potential processing partners for the extraction of cannabinoids and straw processing for building materials from this harvest in the fall of 2018, with a longer-term plan to establish permanent processing facilities by the end of 2019. Global Hemp also continues to evaluate industrial hemp opportunities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, with the goal of replicating its New Brunswick hemp project in the United States.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.GlobalHempGroup.com

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• Forecasts envision medical cannabis market reaching $55.8 billion by 2025
• PVOTF filing patents for smoked, transdermal and mucosal delivery of therapeutics
• Global partnerships and acquisitions open windows of opportunity for company

With its recently announced plan to acquire Agro-Biotech, a Québec-based ACMPR Canadian licensed cannabis producer (http://ibn.fm/z0Xml), Pivot Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CSE: PVOT) (OTCQB: PVOTF) has raised the bar in the race to capture part of the booming medical cannabis market, which is expected to reach over $55 billion by 2025. Agro-Biotech, which operates a fully-licensed indoor hydroponic cannabis production facility that’s able to turn out 10,000 kilograms per year, gives Pivot Pharmaceuticals a unique vertically-integrated position in the industry. Pivot is already known for its advanced patent-backed CBD therapy delivery options, and delivery technology has become a hot button in the burgeoning marijuana market.

Amid the flurry of activity surrounding the rush to provide medical marijuana therapies in markets where it is newly legalized, one lingering question regulators and industry insiders continue to grapple with is how to best administer cannabis to patients seeking relief from muscle spasms, pain, anxiety and other disorders. Pivot Pharmaceuticals is evaluating and preparing to market a variety of drug delivery technologies that can help the assimilation of cannabinoids for such human and veterinary patients.

Pivot has identified an area of need within the industry as efforts to provide clinical data for cannabis’s purported benefits strive to establish a scientific credence to what has been a largely word-of-mouth substantiation of the drug. Decades of recreational use, mostly in smoking marijuana, as well as historical research into cannabis’s ancient therapeutic uses, have given rise to the newly popular movement to establish clinical uses for the plant as governmental recognition has spread across the United States and Canada, as well as in some other countries across the globe.

As part of that movement, some companies are searching for alternatives to smoking the plant, not only to avoid the image of casual and medically unregulated recreational drug use but also out of concern for patients’ health and the interests of non-patients who may be offended by the smoke. Pivot has filed three provisional patents targeting different cannabinoid delivery methods. One anticipates inhalation for delivery of the therapeutics, another promotes transdermal passage through the skin using patches and creams, and a third prefers topical delivery through mucus in the buccal, nasal, vaginal and anal areas using a gel, mouthwash or suppository (http://ibn.fm/o3TEu).

The British Columbia, Canada-based company’s agreement with Germany’s Solmic Research GmbH has given Pivot worldwide rights to the Solmic Solubilisation technology underpinning a water-soluble oral solution that Pivot has made ready for market. A partnership with Israel’s Solubest Ltd. has resulted in a semi-solid cream that is currently in the stability evaluation phase of development, and Pivot’s anticipated February 28 closing on its option to acquire 100 percent of North Carolina’s Thrudermic, LLC has already led to the commencement of development of a product using Thrudermic’s transdermal nanotechnology for a systemic cannabidiol (CBD) product. Access to Israeli labs licensed to work with CBD and its more intoxicating cannabis sibling tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) gives Pivot an edge in research and development.

Pivot is also scheduled to close on its acquisition of California’s ERS Holdings, LLC on February 28, which has a patented ready-to-infuse cannabis (“RTIC”) oil-to-powder technology that Pivot expects to monetize by entering the cannabis-infused beverage market, particularly in the alcohol beverage industry, where Pivot has already identified potential partners as beverage companies battle the possibility of legal marijuana eating into beer sales (http://ibn.fm/wOIgN). The company also expects to use RTIC technology for wellness products such as over-the-counter sleep aids and cough medications.

As legalization has spread for cannabis’s medical applications, market forecasts have grown, and the therapeutic product derivatives of the plant are expected to fuel a $55.8 billion market by 2025, according to a 2017 report by Grand View Research (http://ibn.fm/rWOr3). Pivot’s first Solmic-enabled oral product, PGS-N001, is designed to provide relief to patients suffering from chemotherapy-induced vomiting, nausea, neutropenia and anemia — major side effects from cancer treatment that often lead to the premature discontinuation of the treatment. Of the 14 million new cancer diagnoses identified by the National Cancer Institute in 2012, about four million of them were expected to lead to chemotherapy treatment, and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (“CINV”) affects an estimated 70 to 80 percent of patients undergoing chemotherapy, according to Transparency Market Research (http://ibn.fm/WOWF3), fueling a cancer supportive care products market that’s expected to reach $29.87 billion by 2021.

Pivot intends to register PGS-N001 as a natural health product for consumers and follow it with other products that will have a shorter development cycle as they follow the natural health product pathway.

“Solmic’s water-soluble technology has already been demonstrated in the nutraceutical and cosmeceutical markets in Europe,” Pivot CEO Patrick Frankham stated in a news release. “The addition of Solmic, our second disruptive drug delivery technology platform for cannabinoids, strengthens our business strategy to be a market leader in the development and commercialization of cannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD), and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-based products.”

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.PivotPharma.com

• Focused on medical market with organic marijuana
• Large scale production to reap benefits from economies of scale
• Partnerships with utilities to lower power costs

As one of just two producers of organic cannabis and with a million square feet of low cost production planned, the Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (“TGOD”) is set to capitalize on Canada’s looming supply shortfall. The company is growing its competitive advantage in a way that appears to run contrary to established dictum by focusing not just on differentiation but also on cost leadership. Typical generic strategies are either one or the other. This unique approach is winning friends and influencing people. TGOD has, to date, closed $112 million in private placements, which includes $55 million from marijuana industry powerhouse Aurora Cannabis Inc. (OTCQX: ACBFF) (TSX: ACB). As Canada draws closer to legalization of the consumer market, TGOD is looking good. The company’s highly anticipated IPO is planned for March 2018.

Writing in the 1980s, renowned Harvard professor Michael Porter excited attention with his theory of how companies should pursue the elusive grail of competitive advantage. A company’s basic strategy should be based, he argued, either on producing at a lower cost than its competitors can or on differentiating itself by offering unique features. A company should also decide on market scope by selling to selected market segments or to the broad market.

As a guide, Porter’s analysis helps to develop strategic focus. However, real world conditions often blur the dichotomy between the cost and differentiation strategies that he detailed. While TGOD can attempt some differentiation by its concentration on organic methods of cultivation, such methods are obviously not unique to the company, which is why a hybrid approach may be the right one. As a result, TGOD is pursuing a low cost strategy in the limited scope market segment of organic cannabis.

The low cost aspect of its mixed strategy has a good chance of succeeding. The company’s production operations in Ontario and Quebec together command 970,000 square feet of ultra-high technology greenhouse facilities. With such a mammoth scale in play, TGOD should benefit from large economies of scale. Moreover, TGOD has an agreement with Eaton Corp., the $36 billion global power management company, under which Eaton, by providing research and optimization, will allow TGOD to have some of the lowest electricity input costs in the business. The collaboration has facilitated the development of a six-megawatt cogeneration natural gas power plant on TGOD’s Ontario property, which is expected to drive kilowatt-hour cost down from its present $0.13 to $0.045.

At that Hamilton, Ontario, facility, TGOD is planning a two-phased approach, under which annual production will be expanded from 1,000 kilograms per year to 14,000 kilograms by the end of 2018. At $8 a gram, this translates to revenues of $112 million. Total build-out capacity to achieve that output will be 150,000 square feet. The operation currently consists of a 1,000 kilogram-per-year indoor production facility, which acts as a beta facility for the larger expansion.

Construction at facilities located on TGOD’s 75-acre property in Quebec has begun. The facility covers an extensive 820,000 square feet capable of producing 102,000 kilograms of organic cannabis. The first phase of this expansion is underway, and construction is expected to be completed by Q2 2019. This first phase will consist of 220,000 square feet capable of producing 22,000 kilograms of cannabis. Second and third phases, which will add 250,000 square feet producing 26,000 kilograms of cannabis and 350,000 square feet producing 54,000 kilograms of cannabis, are expected to follow.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.TGOD.ca

• Petrogress announced further expansion of global footprint in deal with A&E Petroleum
• Positions company as prime player in world’s sixth-largest oil market
• Further worldwide expansion expected

Establishing itself as an integral player in the worldwide distribution of oil products, diversified marine transport and offshore services company Petrogress, Inc. (OTC: PGAS) has just taken another significant step in its aggressive global expansion.

In a press release dated February 13, 2018 (http://ibn.fm/pleey), Petrogress announced the further expansion of its global footprint by striking deals with Nigeria-based A&E Petroleum Co. Limited. The partnership with A&E Petroleum expands the company’s operations into Nigeria, generating enhanced revenue opportunity and strengthening the company’s international reach. The Memorandum of Understanding and Partnership Agreement with A&E Petroleum, which were inked by Petrogress subsidiary Petrogress Int’l, LLC, will jointly form a corporation to be named P&A Nigeria Oil Co. Ltd. (“PANOC”) to engage in various oil and gas business opportunities in Nigeria, including the operation of storage tank facilities and the supply, sea transportation, distribution and sale of gas, oil and other petroleum products, including crude oil originated in Nigeria.

This is significant, since Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of oil and the sixth-largest oil-producing country in the world.

In a news release, Petrogress Chief Executive Officer Christos P. Traios stated, “Our partnership with A&E Petroleum is an excellent opportunity for Petrogress to expand its operations into and serve the Nigerian market. Our companies’ combined facilities, assets and services are not only expected to provide for enhanced revenue streams, but also ensure our future in this important international market.”

Following the company’s global expansion strategy, this news comes on the heels of another partnership announced in December that expands operations in Cyprus. Based in Greece, Petrogress, Inc. owns and operates an expanding fleet of tankers that transport crude oil, distillates and refined products off the coast of Africa, as well as operating service and shipping facilities in Cyprus. The deal with A&E Petroleum in Nigeria dovetails nicely with the company’s current operations and is expected to positively impact both the top and bottom line.

With over 25 years of senior management experience operating and managing shipping operations and an aggressive expansion agenda, Petrogress is fast becoming a force in delivering oil products and may well provide investors a unique global opportunity.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.PetrogressInc.com

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• Only permitted cobalt extraction refinery in North America for producing battery materials
• Electric vehicle market driving demand for cobalt
• Over 10,000 hectares (nearly 25,000 acres) of cobalt-rich properties

Now that the Paris Climate Accord is in effect (since November 4, 2016), its signatories, which now include 195 nations, are ramping up their efforts to slow global warming by reducing carbon emissions. The U.S. has signaled its intention to leave but can only do so on November 4, 2020, or thereafter. One obvious way to cool the planet is by changing gears in the transportation sector, estimated by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to contribute some 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, across the globe, governments are supporting the electric vehicle (EV) industry with incentives and with restrictions on competitive gasoline and diesel vehicles. The blossoming EV industry is driving demand for battery grade lithium and cobalt, placing First Cobalt Corp. (OTCQB: FTSSF) (TSX.V: FCC) in an enviable position. The Canadian company is not just the largest cobalt explorer in the world; it also owns the only permitted cobalt extraction refinery in North America capable of producing battery materials.

Discovered in 1739 by the Swedish chemist Georg Brandt, cobalt gained prominence in 1980 after its employment in ‘the cobalt-oxide cathode, the single most important component of every lithium-ion battery’, according to Quartz (http://ibn.fm/AzVgs). The hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal, extracted as a by-product of nickel and copper mining, is now in demand for Lithium Cobalt Oxide (LiCoO2) batteries, widely used in mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and EVs because of its high energy density.

Satisfying this rising demand has been problematic. ‘About 90 percent of China’s cobalt originates in Congo, where Chinese firms dominate the mining industry’, writes the Washington Post (http://ibn.fm/NgjyC). The largest of these, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, supplies ‘some of the world’s largest battery makers.’ However, for over a decade, reports have been surfacing of widespread human rights abuses in its operations and in cobalt mining generally. Moreover, the U.S. Labor Department has listed Congolese cobalt as a product that it suspects is produced by child labor.

Such issues do not affect First Cobalt. The company’s extensive properties are located in Ontario, Canada. First Cobalt is the largest landowner in the Cobalt Camp in Ontario with control of over 10,000 hectares (nearly 25,000 acres) of prospective land and 50 historic cobalt/silver mines. In addition, its assets include a mill and the only permitted cobalt extraction refinery in North America capable of producing battery grade material. This puts the company in an unrivalled position regarding future production of top grade, ethically sourced cobalt, a position that has been buttressed recently by fortuitous finds on its properties.

The company recently announced positive drill results, which confirm the presence of high-grade cobalt and nickel along the known Bellellen vein system south of the historic mine workings. These happy outcomes coincide with increasing demand for cobalt as EV production accelerates. Bloomberg has estimated that EVs will enjoy a two percent share of the auto market by 2020. This figure is expected to rise to eight percent by 2025, to 20 percent by 2030, and to 35 percent by 2040. Demand is causing a tight global cobalt market, with orders for cobalt expected to surge from 2,000 tonnes in 2017 to over 300,000 tonnes by 2030, a stupendous 14,900 percent increase that will likely see prices reach record levels. The battery industry currently uses 42 percent of global cobalt production. With an integrated approach that encompasses exploration and refining, First Cobalt has become the largest pure play cobalt company in the world.

For more information, visit the company’s website at http://ibn.fm/FTSSF

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