U.S.-based private equity, cannabis-focused fund Artemis Growth Partners has agreed to acquire United Kingdom-based horticulture company Bridge Farm Group in an $81 million deal. Bridge Farm is the U.K.’s leading ornamental plant, flower, and herb producer. The deal comes after Bridge Farm split from its former parent company Sundial Growers UK – a subsidiary of global cannabis producer Sundial Growers Inc.
Bridge Farm holds one of just 12 medical cannabis exportation licenses issued by the UK Home Office, the Guardian reports. The company already cultivates and produces CBD oil.
Will Muecke, co-founder of Artemis Growth Partners, told the Telegraph that Bridge Farm has “no equal asset” in the cannabis space.
The new entity will be 100 percent owned by Artemis. The company said in a press release that the merger and acquisition deal was the largest in European cannabis industry history and the highest value of the year for Europe’s farming and horticulture.
David Ball, operating partner and senior advisor at Artemis Growth Partners, said that Bridge Farm boasts “over 2 million square feet of the most technologically advanced, automated glasshouse production in all of Europe.”
“We see Bridge Farm as the cornerstone of a vertically integrated global producer of cannabis and other medicinal botanicals with future offerings ranging from cannabis flower and concentrates, as well as other essential oil and phytomedicinal extracts, into a wide range of plant-based branded and wholesale health and wellness products.” — Ball, in a statement
Muecke added that in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, national budgets are going to have “giant gaps and the economics are overwhelmingly in favor of governments jumping ahead and legalizing cannabis and finding near-term revenue there.”
Medical cannabis is legal in the U.K. but it is not widely available in the country and is mostly limited to pharmaceutical products such as Epidiolex. In February, Food Standards Agency Chief Executive Emily Miles indicated that CBD product sales could be shut down if they do not get regulatory approval as currently none of the products sold have been approved by regulators.
A poll last summer found 77 percent of British adults support broad medical cannabis access. Another 48 percent said they supported adult-use legalization.
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