Aphria Inc. tumbled as much as 27 percent after the marijuana company’s defense of its deal-making in Latin America failed to win over investors spooked by a short-seller report that called the company a “black hole.”
Shares were down 21 percent to $4.76 at 12:29 p.m. in New York, bringing Aphria’s two-day decline to 40 percent and cutting its market value to $1.18 billion.
Aphria’s takeover of LATAM Holdings Inc., which closed in September, “was a transaction negotiated at arm’s length between two publicly traded companies, each of which retained professional financial advisers,” the company said in a statement Tuesday in response to the short sellers.
