American cannabis company Columbia Care Inc. made its rather unconventional public market debut on Monday, choosing to list on the little-known Toronto-based Aequitas NEO Exchange via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) created by investment firm Canaccord Genuity Group Inc.
The New York-based multi-state medical marijuana operator opened its first day of trading with a share price of $11.60 and a market capitalization of more than $2 billion, making it the first company worth over $1 billion to list on the NEO Exchange, which handles more than 10 per cent of total Canadian trading volume.
Columbia Care chose an atypical method of going public. Instead of the usual IPO or Reverse Takeover (RTO) transaction that most other cannabis companies have employed, the company merged with Canaccord Genuity Growth Corp., a SPAC created by the investment firm on the NEO Exchange with the purpose of attracting an American cannabis company to go public in Canada.
