Nearing its one-year anniversary, Curaleaf Holdings' (CURLF 2.02%) arrangement to buy privately held peer GR Companies (doing business as Grassroots) has been modified by the two parties.
Curaleaf announced in a press release on Monday that the cash portion of the deal, which was originally announced in July 2019, will be eliminated. Meanwhile, Curaleaf will transfer more of its shares to Grassroots.
Originally, Curaleaf was to pay 102.8 million of its subordinate voting shares, $40 million worth of that stock according to a 10-day volume-weighted average price, and $75 million in cash. At the time, the deal was worth around $875 million.
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In the modified deal, Curaleaf will pay only in stock. It is to hand over those same 102.8 million subordinate voting shares, while the size of the additional package of shares has been increased to around $90.1 million (again, according to the 10-day volume-weighted average price). At Curaleaf's most recent closing stock price, the deal would be worth a total of roughly $700 million.
The marijuana company wrote in the press release that "Curaleaf and Grassroots mutually aligned on the updated terms in support of the further optimization of cash, providing maximum flexibility to support the future growth of the business following the close of the transaction."
Curaleaf said that it and Grassroots have also agreed that they will sell several of the latter's assets in Maryland, Ohio, and Illinois. This is being done in order to comply with local limits on the ownership of licenses. Curaleaf did not specify which assets are to be divested.
Following this adjustment, the acquisition is expected to close within the next few weeks.
On Monday, Curaleaf's stock rose by almost 0.9%, slightly outpacing the gains of the top equity indexes.
