Cannabis deals slow to a crawl as stocks slump, quiet financing environment weighs
Deal-making in the cannabis sector is down to a crawl as industry woes propel the dearth of M&A activity. Bloomberg News reports that the number of cannabis M&A deals in the four weeks ended Nov. 22 came to three, sharply down from 36 a year ago. Bloomberg said the slowdown is likely due to a mix of steep share declines and a muted capital financing environment. Investors may be waiting to see signs of a clear bottom for publicly-traded cannabis companies before heading back into the space, according to Arcview Group CEO Troy Dayton, who added regulation may also be significantly impacting the sector.
Aurora gets approval to ship medical cannabis oil to Ireland
Aurora Cannabis announced Monday that its cannabis oil products have been approved for sale in Ireland through the country’s Medical Cannabis Access Programme. Aurora’s is now one of two suppliers of medical cannabis products to the country, which began its access program last June on a five-year pilot basis. Irish doctors can prescribe medical cannabis products to patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, side effects from chemotherapy treatment and severe epilepsy. The company did not disclose when its medical cannabis oil products will begin shipping to the European country.
Aphria announces $80M credit facility for Diamond production
Aphria has secured $80 million in a credit facility with an unnamed major Canadian bank on behalf of its Leamington, Ont.-based Diamond subsidiary, the company announced Monday. The credit facility has a three-year term and is secured by both the Diamond facility’s assets as well as Aphria’s balance sheet, the company said. Aphria’s Diamond facility was recently licensed by Health Canada, and is running at 70 per cent capacity with 350,000 young seedlings planted, Aphria said. It expects its harvest to be sold to Canadian provincial distributors sometime in March 2020. In perhaps a nod to its larger rival Canopy Growth, Aphria interim CEO Irwin Simon said in a statement the cannabis producer “has the largest cash balance in the cannabis industry without the dilution of a strategic partner.”
Aleafia Health supply deal sees 3,000 kg of outdoor cannabis sold for $7.1M
Aleafia Health said it sold nearly 3,000 kilograms of cannabis sourced from its outdoor harvest to an unnamed licensed Canadian producer, netting the company $7.1 million in revenue, the company said Monday. The deal sees Aleafia selling 2,840 kilograms of dried cannabis flower at a price per gram of $2.50 in up to three shipments, which will be completed by the end of this January. Aleafia harvested a total of 10,300 kilograms of dried flower from its outdoor facility in Port Perry, Ont. earlier this year, with the bulk of that product earmarked for extraction purposes.
Michigan begins selling recreational pot with three stores (so far) open for business
Michigan residents lined up for hours outside three of the state’s cannabis dispensaries that as of Sunday are allowed to sell recreational pot, according to several news reports. The three stores, all located in Ann Arbor – about 70 kilometres west of Detroit – were gearing up to begin selling cannabis to recreational users sometime around 10 a.m. local time, when the state flipped the switch so that outlets could begin making sales. The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan has awarded eight licences and pre-qualified another 73 applications for cannabis retail outlets, despite over 1,400 of the state's 1,771 cities and towns opting out of having legal shops in their communities. Consumers can purchase up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis at a time. John Sinclair, who was arrested in 1969 for possessing two joints and spent nearly three years in prison for the crime, was the first person in the state to purchase legal marijuana. He bought 10 joints pre-rolled with a strain of cannabis dubbed “Gorilla Glue No. 4,” according to ABC News.
DAILY BUZZ
17,000
-- The amount in kilograms of total harvested biomass from WeedMD’s initial outdoor grow operation, according to an open letter published by the company’s CEO. Of that amount, only 8,000 kilograms were deemed to be saleable with more than eight per cent of cannabinoid content.
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