Deal-happy cannabis multistate operator Vireo Growth spent $21 million to acquire a 415,000-square foot “cannabis cultivation campus” in Florida earlier this month.
According to the Palatka Daily News, a buyer tied to the Minneapolis-headquartered MSO purchased the former Green Dragon Cannabis Cultivation Campus in Putnam County, a rural area south of Jacksonville. Vireo had previously leased the building before the purchase, the newspaper reported.
According to business registration records, the original landlord was Rainbow Realty Group, a New York-based real-estate investment trust.
How big is cannabis MSO Vireo Growth in Florida?
Vireo first signaled its latest Florida move earlier this month when it announced it had secured a $60 million loan, at 8.5% annual interest, to refinance earlier debt and to fund the purchase of both the Green Dragon cultivation site in Florida as well as a second cannabis cultivation and production facility in New York.
That interest rate is “among the most attractive rates in the cannabis sector,” Vireo Chief Financial Officer Tyson Macdonald said in an Oct. 5 statement.
At the time, Vireo said that about $11 million from the new loan deal with an unnamed “U.S. commercial bank and institutional lender” would go towards purchasing the Florida property outright.
Vireo’s bet on Florida runs contrary to signals that operators in Florida, where the state at long last awarded 22 new vertically integrated medical cannabis last month after a lengthy process, are looking to exit the medical-only market.
At roughly $2 billion in annual sales, Florida remains the country’s largest MMJ-only market.
And with 108 dispensaries owned under the Green Dragon, Planet 13 and Fluent brands, Vireo is now the second-largest operator in the market.
Multiple efforts to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state, bankrolled by Tallahassee-based MSO Trulieve Cannabis Corp., have failed amid staunch opposition from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
How many deals has cannabis MSO Vireo Growth done recently?
It’s the latest aggressive move for Vireo, which has been on a lengthy buying spree in multiple states.
Vireo scooped up Green Dragon and its 41 medical cannabis dispensaries earlier this year with its $47 million all-stock acquisition of Eaze, the onetime “Uber of marijuana.”
Vireo similarly purchased the New York cultivation operation from another REIT.
In May, Vireo said it acquired a 390,000-square-foot property in Perth, NY from its landlord, San Diego-based real estate investment trust (REIT) Innovative Industrial Properties.
That deal was financed with a $49 million seller note from IIP at 15% interest and a $41 million loan from Chicago Atlantic Financial Services, the company said at the time.
Other recent major Vireo acquisitions include:
- An all-stock merger with Planet 13 in July
- $20 million in a joint venture deal to acquire a retail license in Pennsylvania in July
- $49 million to acquire MSO PharmaCann’s Colorado assets
- An all-stock deal to acquire Florida-based Fluent in exchange for assuming the company’s debt in April
