Acreage Holdings


Acreage Holdings is a public company domiciled in British Columbia, Canada, holding a diverse portfolio of cannabis cultivation, processing and dispensing operations in the United States.

Ownership

Members of Acreage Holdings' Board of Directors include former Republican Congressman and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner, former libertarian Republican Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld, former IBM Chief Financial Officer Douglas Maine, and former Conservative Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney.
Although several of the board members have stated that they joined the board because of the medical uses for cannabis the company is investing in operations serving recreational as well as medical use of cannabis. In late 2018, Acreage Holdings acquired Michigan-based Blue Tire Holdings LLC. A 55,000-square-foot facility in Flint, Michigan will grow high-end cannabis indoors and serve as the company's flagship retail location. Acreage CEO Kevin Murphy expects additional American states to transition from medical use only to medical and recreational use. Murphy stated in a Bloomberg interview that the November, 2018 U.S. mid-term elections were very helpful to the industry, both because of the people who were elected to office and because some opponents of marijuana legalization will no longer be in office.

Holdings

An April 2019 report by Bloomberg stated that
Acreage went public on the Canadian Securities Exchange in November and is now among the largest U.S.-based pot firms. Acreage has cultivation, processing and dispensing licences or agreements with holders in 19 states. It also manages a chain of retail stores called The Botanist.

Acreage holdings entered the Massachusetts market by creating controlled companies to in effect hold and operate more than the 3 licence limit. Then acted to create a regional noncompete monopoly with the companies Seahunter and American
In the same month, Canopy Growth, a firm with headquarters in Smiths Falls, Ontario and the largest cannabis company in the world, concluded an agreement with Acreage to buy 100% of the latter's shares for US$3.4 billion. The sale would be concluded in future, and only if the American federal government legalizes cannabis. In the meantime, Canopy would pay US$300 million to seal the deal. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Vivien Azer, senior research analyst with Cowen, said that Acreage was a suitable acquisition target because it had the greatest market penetration in the U.S. and believed that the deal would "likely prove helpful in pushing for a change in U.S. laws surrounding cannabis".