Nuuvera rebranded as Aphria International after takeover

On Tuesday, four days after finalizing its takeover of Nuuvera Inc., cannabis company Aphria Inc. announced its intention to rebrand the smaller company as Aphria International Inc. and subsume its Canadian operations into the main company.

The newly named subsidiary will focus on overseas markets such as Italy, Australia and Germany, where Nuuvera has been acquiring properties and developing partnerships over the past year. Leamington, Ont.-based Aphria, meanwhile, will take over Nuuvera’s Canadian operations, including supply contracts in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, according to Aphria CEO Vic Neufeld.

“They were ahead of the curve in terms of scoping out strategic countries,” said Neufeld. “What they’ve lined up in terms of nonbinding letters of intent, we are now taking over and trying to move them across the line to make them binding LOIS.”

Prior to the acquisition, Nuuvera had, among other strategic moves, acquired an Italian import licence and a GMP-certified facility in Malta. It’s also one of a handful of companies competing for a German cultivation licence.

“Malta is very key ... It’s only 400,000 people, but it’s part of the EU, and as long as you get your product processed and credentialed through an EU GMP facility, it can cross every country border,” said Neufeld.

He hopes licences in Germany will be awarded in the coming weeks or months, which he says is “probably the most lucrative medical cannabis country in the world, given the socialized medicine coverage for cannabis.”

The move to rebrand Nuuvera ends months of speculation about Aphria’s international plans, which began after the company agreed to pay a striking $825 million (mostly in shares) for Nuuvera, a largely unknown company with little experience in the cannabis industry but a wellconnected management team.

By the time the Nuuvera deal closed last week, a drop in cannabis share prices and a lower cash offer from Aphria — which came, according to Neufeld, after Aphria learned that Nuuvera had 40-per-cent less cash in the bank than previously indicated — the deal came in at a reported $525 million.