Hexo Corp. completes acquisition of Newstrike Brands Ltd. for $263M

On May 24, 2019, HEXO Corp. completed its acquisition of Newstrike Brands for C$263m by way of a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario). Under the terms of the Arrangement, each former Newstrike shareholder is entitled to receive 0.06332 of a common share in the capital of HEXO for each Newstrike Share held immediately prior to the Arrangement. HEXO Corp is a consumer packaged goods cannabis company that creates and distributes products to serve the global cannabis market.

HEXO Corp. was represented in-house by Roch Vaillancourt and Joelle Maurais and supported by Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP with a team led by Amar Ghosh-Leclair and Eric Reither and that included, Peter Wiazowski, Victoria Riley, Sam Zadeh and Jaray Zhao (M&A), Rujuta Patel, Stephen Nattrass (Competition), Barry Segal, Carl Deeprose (Tax), Sara Zborovski (Health, Regulatory), Lisa Cabel, Nicole Buchanan (Employment and Labour), Janet Bobechko, Andre Shymanski (Environmental), Jung-Kay Chiu (Intellectual Property), Michael Lieberman, Samantha Sarkozi (Real Estate), and Alan Merskey and Geoff Mens (Disputes)

DLA Piper (Canada) LLP also provided securities law advice with a team that included Vaughn MacLellan and Sydney Kert.

Stikeman Elliott LLP acted as counsel to Newstrike Brands Ltd. with a team that included D’Arcy Nordick, Steven Bennett, Stewart Sutcliffe, Omar Soliman, and Precia Darshan.

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP vised the special committee for Newstrike with a team comprising Doug Marshall and Kai Sheffield.