6 May 2021 • 2 minute read
DLA Piper Canada advises Ascend Wellness Holdings in its US$92 million initial public offering
DLA Piper Canada represented Ascend Wellness Holdings, Inc. (“AWH”) (CSE: AAWH.U) in its recent cross-border initial public offering of 11,500,000 shares of its Class A common stock at a price per share of US$8.00 for total gross proceeds of US$92,000,000, including the exercise, in full, of the over-allotment option. The shares commenced trading on May 4, 2021 on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol “AAWH.U”.
The offering was conducted through a syndicate of underwriters led by Canaccord Genuity, as sole book-running manager, and including Beacon Securities Limited, Eight Capital, ATB Capital Markets Inc., and Cormark Securities Inc.
AWH is a vertically integrated operator with assets and partners in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and New Jersey. AWH owns and operates state-of-the-art cultivation facilities, growing award winning strains and producing a curated selection of products. AWH produces and distributes Ozone branded products.
The offering was made: (i) by means of a prospectus relating to the offering, which was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and (ii) in all provinces of Canada other than Quebec pursuant to the company’s supplemented PREP prospectus dated April 28, 2021 filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities.
“We were delighted to work with AWH on this important milestone in it’s strategic development,” said Robert Fonn, the DLA Piper Canada partner who led the deal team. “The DLA Piper team has deep experience supporting cannabis industry clients in accessing the capital markets through Canadian stock exchange listings, along with a host of other related matters.”
In addition to Fonn, the DLA Piper Canada team advising AWH included Sydney Kert, Jamie Mandell, Russel Drew and Youssef Aziz (securities & capital markets), and Kevin Fritz (tax).
DLA Piper’s global capital markets team represents issuers and underwriters in registered and unregistered equity, equity-linked and debt capital markets transactions, including initial public offerings, follow-on equity offerings, equity-linked securities offerings, and offerings of investments grade and high-yield debt securities.
DLA Piper’s CBD and International Cannabis practices cover the full range of corporate, intellectual property, technology and R&D, employment, regulatory and litigation matters. We're advising in every segment of the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, wellness and medicinal sectors around the world.