The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that licensed producers that had built an international presence have started dialling back, putting projects on hold or unloading foreign operations altogether.
The Post's Vanmala Subramaniam writes that it is a trend that is expected to intensify over the next 12 months. Eight Capital analyst Graeme Kreindler says: "Licensed producers are now in a capital constrained environment and investors want to see profitability. This is forcing management teams to take stock of what they have, divest out of non-core assets and focus on what's in their own backyard." In October, Canopy Growth dumped its 15-per-cent interest in Australian pot firm Auscann Group Holdings citing a need to "sharpen" its focus on "wholly-owned operations in the market." That same month Aphria unloaded a substantial portion of its interest in a different Australian weed company, Althea, without providing a reason at the time.
More recently, Aurora Cannabis announced it would be suspending construction of Aurora Nordic -- a mammoth, high-tech, fully automated facility in Odense, Denmark, which the company had intended as a supply source for cannabis throughout Europe -- to conserve cash.
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