Day one as a publicly traded company started off with a bang for Canadian marijuana grower Tilray. And day two continued the momentum.
In less than 48 hours, Tilray earned the designation as the hottest marijuana stock on the market. On Thursday, the company became the first marijuana company to conduct its initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S. stock exchange. Tilray joined Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) on the Nasdaq stock exchange and Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC) on the New York Stock Exchange. However, both Cronos and Canopy first traded publicly in Canada before listing on U.S. stock exchanges.
Most marijuana stocks have fared poorly so far in 2018. Will Tilray’s sizzle soon fizzle? Here’s what you need to know about the company and its prospects…
Introducing Tilray
Although Tilray just went public, the company’s roots go back to 2013 with the founding of Lafitte Ventures, Ltd. The business was later renamed as Tilray Canada, Ltd. Tilray began providing medical cannabis in Canada in 2014 with a 60,000 square foot facility in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Tilray became the first Canadian marijuana grower to export medical cannabis to Europe in June 2016. That was just the beginning of the company’s international expansion. By February 2017, Tilray was exporting medical cannabis to Chile and New Zealand. A few months later, the company began shipping medical cannabis to Australia and Cyprus.
Another big step for Tilray came in September 2017 with the company obtaining approval to grow cannabis in Portugal. This set the stage for Tilray to have a great hub for distributing to the rest of Europe. The company reached yet another milestone the next month with its first shipments of medical cannabis to Germany, the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world.
Tilray’s revenue totaled $20.5 million last year, a 62% jump from 2016. However, the company posted a net loss in 2017 of $7.8 million, roughly the same as it did in the previous year.
Tilray’s opportunities
Canada is scheduled to open up its recreational marijuana market in October 2018. Tilray appears to be in good shape to stake a claim to a nice chunk of this market for a couple of key reasons…
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