Hartford Business Journal

4 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | May 9, 2022 Now Open in Unionville. James Murdick, SVP Chief Loan Officer Trish Tomlinson, VP Senior Commercial Loan Officer Antonella Calabrese, AVP Branch Manager, Farmington & Unionville Sherrie Dubois, Officer Cash Management Specialist Member FDIC | Equal Housing Lender ThomastonSB.com | 855.344.1874 | 2 South Main Street, Unionville Meet the Community Bankers for Your Local Business. Multistate operators keep buying up cannabis businesses nationally, including in CT By Skyler Frazer sfrazer@hartfordbusiness.com M ultistate operators are increasingly buying up cannabis shops and other marijuana-related businesses across the country, including in Connecticut, as more states legalize recreational use of the drug. Since 2016, the number of cannabis dispensaries purchased by multistate operators has increased nationally every year, according to data from Cannabiz Media. Cannabiz Media has been tracking cannabis and hemp licenses since 2015, compiling data on companies and transactions into its own "Cannabiz Intelligence" database. The company recently published an analysis of M&A activity by publicly-traded multistate operators. Of the 8,904 cannabis companies in the U.S., 1,048, or almost 12%, are owned by public companies. Cannabiz Media found that 338 dispensaries changed hands over the past few years with 29 multistate, publicly-traded companies involved in the transactions. The number of stores changing hands has increased every year since 2016, Cannabiz Media data shows. In 2021 there were 185 dispensaries that were sold, up from 53 in the previous year. Already 44 have been acquired through three months in 2022. While Connecticut's recreational market isn't even off the ground yet, companies with a presence in the state's medical marijuana sector have been buying dispensaries both in and out of the state, according to Cannabiz Media's acquisition data. Nine of the state's 18 cannabis dispensaries have been purchased by public multistate operators since the medical program began. Trulieve, which has 171 U.S. dispensaries, purchased 54 of them, including Bristol-based The Healing Corner dispensary in 2019. Chicago-based Verano Holdings Corp. purchased Willow Brook Wellness medical dispensary in Meriden in November and said it intends to also buy Waterbury dispensary Caring Nature. Verano has purchased 22 of its 95 U.S. dispensaries, almost a quarter of its total stores. Massachusetts-based Curaleaf, which operates four medical dispensaries in Connecticut and a medical grow facility in Simsbury, Curaleaf employees monitor a harvest at the multistate company's Simsbury grow facility. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER purchased 15 of its 130 U.S. dispensaries. The company has one of the largest national cannabis footprints along with Trulieve. Acreage Holdings, a New York multistate operator, owns three dispensaries in Connecticut that it plans to rename under its "The Botanist" brand. The company has purchased more than a third of its 31 U.S. cannabis dispensaries. Market concentration Meantime, all four of Connecticut's medical grow facilities are now owned by out-of-state companies. In 2019, Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries announced its acquisition of Advanced Grow Labs, which owned a cultivation and production facility in West Haven. GTI also purchased the BluePoint Wellness dispensary in Branford and later opened another in Westport. The company has 73 such licenses in the country, of which it purchased 26 of them. Theraplant, one of the state's other medical growers with a facility in Watertown, was bought by New York-based Greenrose Holding Co. in March 2021. Verano closed on its acquisition of Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions Inc. (CTPharma) in December. CTPharma has a cultivation and production facility in Rocky Hill. Most states with either medical or recreational cannabis programs, including Connecticut, have limits on the number of licensed stores. Ed Keating, co-founder of Cannabiz Media, said markets with license restrictions are more attractive to multistate operators because they're more predictable and regulated. It also limits potential new competition. Some advocates have concerns about these large companies having an oversized footprint in

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