Cannabis Industry Chart Of The Week: US Companies Pursue Growth Through M&A While Canada Consolidates

The graph displays total transaction consideration for U.S. and Canadian M&A transactions since 2019. 

• In the first half of 2019 the U.S and Canada were closely matched with approximately $2.1 billion of total consideration.  

• From the 2nd half of 2019 through 2020, Canadian M&A ground to a near standstill while U.S. activity remained robust.

• The U.S. dominance was supported by large transactions like Curaleaf’s $949 million Select deal in Q1:20 and $830 million Grass Roots deal in Q3:20.

• In Q1:21, activity in both countries spiked upward. U.S. activity benefitted from an increase in acquisitions of public companies including Liberty Health, Helix TCS, and Bluma Wellness. Canadian activity included a $353 million Canopy Growth divestiture of its ownership in Canopy Rivers.

• Activity has accelerated in the second quarter with the recently completed $4.5B Tilray/Aphria megamerger in Canada and the $2.1B Trulieve/Harvest deal announced in the U.S.  

• Although consolidation among Canadian LPs in pursuit of positive cash flow is likely to continue, we expect the superior growth potential of the U.S. market to keep U.S. targets at the forefront of M&A activity.

The Viridian Capital Chart of the Week highlights key investment, valuation and M&A trends taken from the Viridian Cannabis Deal Tracker.

The Viridian Cannabis Deal Tracker is a proprietary information service that monitors capital raise and M&A activity in the legal cannabis and hemp industry. Each week the Tracker aggregates and analyzed all closed deals and segments each according to key metrics:

• Industry Sector (one of 12 sectors, from Cultivation to Brands)

• Dollar value of the transaction

• Region in which the deal occurred (country or U.S. state)

• Status of the company announcing the transaction (Public vs. Private)

• Deal structure (equity vs. debt)

• Key deal terms (Pricing and Valuation)

The Viridian Cannabis Deal Tracker provides the market intelligence that cannabis companies, investors, and acquirers utilize to make informed decisions regarding capital allocation and M&A strategy.

 Since its inception in 2015, the Viridian Cannabis Deal Tracker has tracked and analyzed more than 2,500 capital raises and 1,000 M&A transactions totaling over $50 billion in aggregate value.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.

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