Features

Both sides declare victory in bitter MediPharm board election

Published on June 27, 2025 by Pat Bulmer

Photo: Contributed

Barrie, Ont.-based MediPharm Labs was claiming victory for its slate of candidates after a hotly disputed vote for the company’s board of directors.

Minority shareholder Apollo Capital had also claimed victory before the vote was counted on June 16.

Apollo accused the MediPharm side of “legal failures” in its mailings to shareholders, which nullified all the green proxy votes that indicated support for the MediPharm slate. Gold proxies indicated support for the Apollo slate.

“Given that MediPharm did not restart the election process and re-mail compliant materials to all shareholders at least 21 days in advance of the Annual Meeting, as clearly required under securities law, all proxies submitted on the green proxy card or voting instruction form were illegally solicited and must lawfully be declared invalid and discarded by Meeting Chair Chris Halyk. Apollo Capital’s gold proxies are therefore the only valid proxies on record,” an Apollo press release said.

Wait a minute, said MediPharm in a news release that quickly followed: “MediPharm wishes to assure its shareholders that as the meeting has not yet taken place, the results are not yet available. MediPharm will announce the final results of the meeting in the ordinary course as is required by law and the rules of the Toronto Stock Exchange.”

The next day, MediPharm issued a release claiming its slate had won.

Chris Halyk, Emily Jameson, John Medland, David Pidduck, Shelley Potts, Keith Strachan and Chris Taves all received 143-144 million votes.

Jameson and Medland are new to the board.

The Apollo slate — John Fowler, Alan D. Lewis, David Lontini, Demetrios Mallios, Regan McGee and Scott Walters — all received a little more than 51 million votes and were not elected.

A total of 146 shareholders holding an aggregate of 210,726,733 common shares, voted. They represented 50.76% of MediPharm’s shares.

The companies traded a series of bitter accusations before the vote. In news releases, Apollo said MediPharm is being incompetently managed, its share price is near zero and the company will run out of money by the end of the year.

MediPharm says a turnaround plan has worked wonders, the company is growing, the bottom line is good now and the Apollo slate was led by people who know nothing about the medical cannabis business.

MediPharm’s announcement of the results may not be the end of the story.