Moncton, New Brunswick-based Organigram Holdings is growing its share of cannabis for Canada’s legal market, the company said in a corporate update on Monday, while most other large licensed producers are seeing their share decline.
As of September, Organigram controlled about 7.7% of the national share, compared with 3.9% to start the year, the company said, citing data from analytics firm Hifyre.
The growing market share stands out among large competitors who have seen their control over Canada’s market fall.
Over the same period:
- Aurora Cannabis’ share of the market dropped from 8% to less than 4%.
- Tilray’s fell from just under 20% to approximately 14%.
Other standout winners so far this year have been Village Farms International (via its cannabis subsidiary in Canada, Pure Sunfarms), Auxly Cannabis Group and Indiva.
The trend is a continuation from 2020, in which the biggest cultivators generally held a flat or falling share of the market between the first quarters of 2020 and 2021, respectively, as smaller companies gained.
Canopy, Tilray and Aurora have all lost significant ground since the start of 2020, despite spending billions of dollars on mergers and acquisitions.
In a panel at MJBizCon in October, Hexo Corp. Chief Financial Officer Trent MacDonald said the most important thing to consider when doing M&A is maintaining sales.
“You can’t lose those sales,” he said in the online session. “Otherwise, what are you buying? You have to be able to maintain that share post-close, and there’s a lot that goes into that.”
Organigram CEO Beena Goldenberg, also a panelist, said it was difficult to witness Canopy buying Supreme for CA$435 million earlier this year and then experiencing an evaporation in share.
“It’s hard for me to watch when Canopy bought Supreme,” she said, “and watch (as) some of that share went away.
“A lot of hard work to build up Supreme to where it was. Distractions, new people, things get lost along the way. It’s not an easy path.”
Goldenberg was CEO of Supreme at the time the deal was announced.
Organigram’s corporate update also noted that:
- The company resumed exports to Israel via Israeli firm Canndoc.
- Jeyan Heper, a board member nominee from British American Tobacco (BAT), resigned effective Oct. 31, 2021.
- BAT will appoint a replacement nominee, though no timeline was offered.
Organigram shares trade as OGI on the Nasdaq exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.
