Sander C. Zagzebski, Member, Clark Hill. Courtesy photo Sander C. Zagzebski, Member, Clark Hill. Courtesy photo

It often feels as though years working in the cannabis industry are like "dog years," since so much has happened in such a comparably short period of time. It was barely 2 1/2 years ago, after all, on Aug. 15, 2018, that Constellation Brands, Inc., the Fortune 500 beer, wine and spirits company, announced that it had agreed to invest $5 billion CAD (approximately USD $4 billion) in Canopy Growth Corp. kicking off a euphoric period of cannabis transactions. A few weeks later in October 2018, MedMen Enterprises announced its agreement to purchase PharmaCann at a $682.0 million valuation, by far the largest acquisition to date of a U.S.-based cannabis company. Announcements of other significant transaction agreements quickly followed, including the public listings of several large U.S.-based MSOs (multistate operators) on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) and Altria's USD $1.8 billion investment in Cronos in December 2018. In April 2019, a number of record-breaking M&A deals were announced in rapid succession, including Cresco's USD $823.5 million acquisition of Origin House, Harvest's planned USD $850 million acquisition of Verano, Curaleaf's USD $948.8 million acquisition of Cura Partners, and Acreage's plan of arrangement with Canopy giving Canopy the option (and the requirement upon federal cannabis legalization) to purchase Acreage in a transaction then valued at $3.4 billion.