High Tide to acquire Meta Growth, creating major Canadian cannabis retailer

Canadian marijuana retailer High Tide is acquiring competitor Meta Growth Corp., creating an entity touted as Canada’s largest cannabis retailer.

The combined companies will operate 63 retail stores across Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan, according to a news release issued Friday morning. There are plans to grow to approximately 115 locations by the end of 2021.

Meta Growth shareholders will receive 0.824 High Tide shares for each Meta share held.

“Both companies have complementary retail footprints and similar proven operational efficiency models,” Meta Growth CEO Mark Goliger said in the release.

“We can immediately leverage synergies, increase margins and have double the scale for the combined company’s owned IP and private label initiatives.”

Those synergies could be between 8 million Canadian dollars ($6.1 million) and CA$9 million on an annual basis, the companies said.

Together, the two companies will have an estimated CA$21 million in cash.

High Tide CEO Raj Grover will lead the combined company.

High Tide, which currently trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange as HITI, plans to relist its shares on the TSX Venture Exchange after the acquisition is complete.

Meta Growth Corp. trades on the TSX Venture Exchange as META.