SPACs As An Exit Strategy For Cannabis Businesses

A developing market for owners of cannabis businesses looking for a potential buyer are SPACs, special purpose acquisition companies. SPACs raise money in public offerings with the purpose of acquiring companies, usually in a specified range of industries or located in a particular geographic area. The SPACs cannot have a particular target in mind at the time of the public offering. Among some of the more recent SPACs with a cannabis industry focus, MTech Acquisition Corp. closed a public offering for $57.5 million in February 2018, and Cannabis Strategies Acquisition Corp. closed a CDN $134.75 million (approximately US $103.78 million) public offering in Canada in December 2017. This post looks at some of the issues involved that are unique to being acquired by a SPAC.