Acreage Holdings inks $72 million cannabis real estate deal

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Acreage Holdings, a multistate marijuana operator, signed a sale-leaseback deal valued at more than $72 million for cannabis facilities in several states with GreenAcreage Real Estate, a real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on the MJ space.

New York-based Acreage Holdings said on Friday it already closed deals with GreenAcreage for facilities in Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The three facilities have a total of 182,015 square feet.

Within the next 30 days, Acreage Holdings and the REIT, also based in New York, plan to close deals on facilities in Illinois and Connecticut.

GreenAcreage has committed to funding up to $43.9 million for the properties in Florida and Illinois, which could bring the total cost of the deals to $77.3 million. Of that, $72.3 million would be allocated to Acreage Holdings.

As part of the transaction, GreenAcreage paid $5 million to an unidentified third party as part of the transaction.

Acreage Holdings signed a long-term lease with GreenAcreage for the facilities.

“Acreage Holdings never intended to be a real estate company, and as the cannabis industry is a capital intensive business, tying up capital that can be deployed elsewhere,” Glen Leibowitz, chief financial officer of Acreage Holdings, said in a statement.

“This is yet another example of a nonequity, nondilutive financing, which cannabis companies are increasingly needing to use as both the public and private equity markets are drying up,” said Mike Regan, an equity analyst for Marijuana Business Daily’s Investor Intelligence.

In May, Acreage Holdings announced it had signed a letter of intent to sell its real estate assets and lease them back from the newly formed GreenAcreage.

In August, GreenAcreage raised $141 million.

Acreage Holdings trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange as ACRG.U and on the over-the-counter exchanges as ACRGF.

For more on the most recent deal with Acreage Holdings, click here.