Couche-Tard invests more in Canada’s expanding retail pot market
EDMONTON — Convenience store operator Alimentation Couche Tard Inc. will make a strategic investment in Fire & Flower Holdings Corp., which will use the funds to expand its network of cannabis retail stores and develop its Hifyre digital retail platform.
Couche-Tard’s initial investment, announced Wednesday but subject to approvals, will give it rights to 9.9 per cent of the Edmonton-based company’s equity and the potential to increase its stake to 50.1 per cent for a total of $380 million.
“Couche-Tard is excited to make this strategic investment in one of the fastest growing cannabis ‘pure-play’ retailers,” the Quebec-based retailer’s president and CEO Brian Hannasch said. This investment in Fire & Flower, with a path to a controlling stake, will enable us to leverage their leadership, network and advanced digital platform to accelerate our journey in this new and flourishing sector.”
This is not Couche-Tard’s first foray into the cannabis sector. In February, the Quebec retail giant and Canopy Growth Corp. of Smiths Falls, Ont., announced they were teaming up to support a privately run cannabis shop in Ontario, under the cannabis company’s Tweed banner. The companies also entered into a multi-year partnership, with the location in London, Ont., serving as its entry into a market that could lead to “future international opportunities.”
Couche-Tard is one of North America’s largest operators of convenience stores and gas bars, primarily under the Circle K brand and under the CoucheTard banner in its home province of Quebec. Fire & Flower operates or licenses 23 cannabis retail stores in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario and a wholesale distribution in Saskatchewan.
“This strategic investment by Couche-Tard, one of the world’s largest retailers, is transformative for Fire & Flower,” CEO Trevor Fencott said.
He added that Couche-Tard’s leadership team and international footprint in major markets such as the U.S., Mexico and Europe “provide us with outstanding opportunities for aggressive growth.”