John Boehner-Backed Cannabis Startup Acreage Holdings Goes Public In Canada

An American cannabis company has gone public on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol "ARCG.U." 

Acreage Holdings, formerly known as High Street Capital Partners, said it has completed a reverse takeover of Applied Inventions Management Corp. and commenced trading.

What Happened

Acreage Holdings was founded in 2014 and counts former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner among its investors. 

The company raised $314 million in a private placement, which valued it at around $2.8 billion.

Acreage is run by former Wall Street banker Kevin Murphy. Boehner is not the only former politician with a stake in the company; following the takeover of High Street Capital Partners, Acreage appointed former Conservative Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney to a board seat. 

Other board members include former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, former tw telecom CEO Larissa Herda and former IBM CFO Douglas Maine. 

Why It's Important

Acreage Holdings is one of the largest vertically integrated cannabis companies in the U.S, with over 40 dispensaries and cultivation operations in Oregon, California, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. 

What's Next

As cannabis sales in the U.S. continue to grow and more states legalize medical and recreational marijuana, more companies are looking at opportunities to list their stock.

Canada, which legalized adult-use marijuana in October, is the country of choice to go public, since the illegal status of marijuana on a federal level makes it difficult to raise capital in the U.S.

Acreage Holdings joins companies like Medmen Enterprises Inc MMNFF and Green Thumb Industries Inc GTBIF that have listed on Canadian exchanges in 2018.

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Photo by Terra Eclipse/Wikimedia.