Here’s the introduction to their piece.
We really advise you click through and read- this looks like a lot of future work for attorneys if endless offshore vehicles are going to be the top end of town financing for the sector in Canada and we presume many other jurisdictions
As the country’s licensed producers make big moves in the financial sector, a large part of their funding comes from anonymous investors in well-known tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and more.
Canada’s adult-use cannabis market is expected to be fully operational by this summer, and as a result, the year of legal marijuana in Canada has started with a series of mergers and acquisitions unlike anything the industry has seen to date among licensed cannabis producers.
For example, in January, Aurora Cannabis acquired CanniMed for nearly $1 billion, while Aphria acquired Nuuvera for $826 million the following week.
Whether corporate consolidation becomes a trend in Canada or abroad remains to be seen. But as patients and consumers look to a more open market this year, the financial context of these cannabis producers will become more important, such as who is investing in Canada’s cannabis producers and whose money is supporting the rapid expansion.
Cannabis Business Times has found hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into Canadian licensed producers from anonymous sources in well-known offshore tax havens, such as the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Belize and Barbados.
For example, Aurora Cannabis received $212.3 million from anonymous investment accounts in the Cayman Islands between August 2016 and December 2017, according to financial documents. (Below is a full list of offshore investments in Canadian cannabis producers.) Those investments in Aurora Cannabis preceded the January acquisitions of CanniMed.
In the same time frame, Hydropothecary received $18 million from Cayman Islands investments. In December 2017, the Quebec-based company announced plans to build a new $80-million greenhouse. Hydropothecary’s expansion puts the company “very firmly in the top three, possibly the top two,” CEO Sébastien St. Louis told theOttawa Citizen. “It really puts us in the big producer category.”
Licensed producers contacted by Cannabis Business Times have not responded to requests for comment.
