Another hint at the size of the marijuana marketplace in northern Nevada was delivered last week when a Toronto company said it plans to buy Sierra Well. The parent company of Sierra Well, which operates marijuana dispensary locations in Reno and Carson City along with 20,000 square feet of cultivation and production facilities, will be sold to iAnthus Capital Holdings Inc. for $27.6 million.
The price to be paid includes $5.1 million in cash. The rest of the price will be paid in shares of the publicly traded stock of iAnthus.
Sierra Well has been operating profitably, iAnthus officials said. The company’s sales have been running at a pace of about $16 million a year, they said, with a profit margin of more than 20 percent.
The $27.6 million price tag for Sierra Well, which operates two stores, compares with a $13.5 million price tag paid for Blüm, a retail dispensary at 1085 S. Virginia in Midtown. That sale of that store was announced last month by its owner, Terra Tech of Irvine, Calif. (The sale of Blüm included another $1.5 million or so for the store’s building.)
Hadley Ford, the CEO of iAnthus, said he expects the purchase of Sierra Well’s parent company, WSCC Inc., to be completed in the first half of next year. The deal still needs the approval of state officials.
After the sale is completed, the Sierra Well stores will be renamed “Be,” a brand that iAnthus is rolling out nationwide next month.
WSCC was founded by a group of investors in Reno in 2014, opened its Reno store at Second and Kietzke in 2015 and opened its Carson City location at 2765 Highway 50 in 2015. Steven Nightingale is the chairman of its board of directors.
