Marijuana firm Clever Leaves inks definitive deal to list on Nasdaq

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Clever Leaves International, a multinational cannabis company with its main operations in Colombia, announced it reached a definitive agreement to combine with a special purpose acquisition company in order to create a new business that is expected to trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The new company, Clever Leaves Holdings, is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CLVR with an initial enterprise value of approximately $255 million, according to a news release.

Clever Leaves said the deal with Schultze Special Purpose Acquisition Corp. was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies.

The merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Schultze Special Purpose Acquisition Corp. – a “blank-check company” formed to enter into mergers or other deals – trades on the Nasdaq as SAMA.

Clever Leaves’ current executive management team will lead the combined company.

The combined business is expected to have a “cash balance of $111 million at closing” – an amount the news release described as “significantly in excess of the company’s capital needs.”

The news release also noted the new company “is expected to achieve positive free cash flow by the fourth quarter of 2021.”

Earlier this month, Clever Leaves announced it became the first Latin American cannabis producer to obtain European Union-Good Manufacturing Practice certification “to produce Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), semi-finished and finished cannabis products for medical purposes” in its Colombian facilities.