Much has been made of the marijuana M&A spree afoot in Canada. Just this year alone, licensed producer Aurora Cannabis Inc. agreed to acquire CanniMed Therapeutics Inc for $852 million, which would create the largest cannabis company in the world. Bank of Montreal got into the weed game with a $175 million deal with Canopy Growth Corp. Skyrocketing cannabis stocks are leading to comparisons to the dot-com boom, and American marijuana companies are looking North for more capital and a friendly business environment.
Amid the frenzy, Canadian cannabis companies are increasingly setting their sights on South America, where several countries are liberalizing their cannabis laws.
Cannabis Wheaton, a Canadian cannabis streaming company, announced that it had acquired 80% of Uruguay cannabis company Inverell. The Montevideo-based business has a federal license to produce high-CBD, low-THC cannabis strains.
“This transaction helps us secure a significant amount of CBD-rich hemp production that can be exported to other federally legal jurisdictions for further processing into nutritional and pharmaceutical products,” Hugo Alves, president of Wheaton, said in a statement. [Read More @Forbes.com]