Weekly Valuation Tracker
Viridian highlights a specific industry sector and provides a deep dive into valuation metrics and comparable company valuations for public companies operating in that sector. The Weekly Valuation Tracker provides proprietary, actionable valuation data.
Weekly Valuation Report
- The table below shows the valuation metrics for the 12 U.S. Cultivation & Retail companies with market caps over $ 50 M.
- The bottom row labeled “IQR/Median” shows which metric has the tightest grouping around the median, a good indication that this is the metric that most investors use to benchmark company valuations. The two lowest values are the .40x for EV/2026 Revenues and the .43x for EV/2026 EBITDA.
- The quartiles tell us that ¼ (Three) of the companies have EV/2026 EBITDA multiples under 3.26x, three have multiples between 3.26x and 4.17x, three have multiples between 4.17x and 5.04x, and three have multiples over 5.04x.
- Our work using option pricing to estimate companies’ asset values raises an interesting point. The typical calculation of enterprise value – book debt plus market value of equity minus cash- assumes that debt is worth par value.
- That is clearly not the case with some companies, which have high total liabilities to market cap ratios, with a crossover point of about 5x. The assets of a company with a ratio above 5x are imputed by our methodology to be worth less than its liabilities. So, in theory, if the music stopped today, the equity holders of that company would get zero, and the liability holders would have to take a discount.
- But on the other hand, we know that today the equity has a market value of $115M, so how do we reconcile these two views of reality? A reasonable compromise is to value the equity at its current value and mark the debt at a discount, which we can attribute to a higher required yield for riskier debt. On that basis, Ascend’s enterprise value would be slightly lower, at $372M rather than $396M. The difference is much larger as one marches down the credit ladder, offering an adjusted way to value the distress of some lower-ranked credits explicitly.
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Valuation Tracker By Sector
The Viridian Value Tracker is the most comprehensive valuation product in the industry.
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- A broad set of 12 valuation measures assures applicability, regardless of whether the company has analyst coverage or revenues. The typically presented EV/ Projected Revenues and EV/ Projected EBITDA are available for less than 1/3 of the cannabis companies we track.
- Most valuation studies present only the average valuation measures, while the Tracker goes one step further and shows the distribution of values (the quartiles, median, and dispersion) for each measure. This gives users a more complete view of how companies in the cohort group are valued.
Sector Valuation Report – Updated Thoughts on the Curaleaf/Cannabist Transaction
- Recapping: On December 2, 2025, Cannabist Corporation (CBST: Cboe)(CBSTF: OTCQB) announced the sale of its remaining Virginia assets in the Richmond region for gross proceeds of $110M, including $80M of cash at closing, $20M in deferred cash, and a $10M 6% note.
- We talked to a number of credible sources at MjBiz and learned some interesting details:
- Credible sources put the EBITDA of the operations at between $22M and $27M
- They also claimed that the cultivation/production facility may need up to $10M in capex to reach full production standards.
- So if we take the $80M cash, discount the $20 deferred cash for 1 year at 12%, haircut the note by 50% (6% coupon), and then add in the extra $10M, we get a total price of approximately $ 113 M. This implies valuation multiples of 4.2x – 5.1x. That seems in line with the 4.54x multiple of 2025 EBITDA for the 9 MSOs with over $100M market cap. Still, it doesn’t really add much value for the fact that Virginia revenues are likely to accelerate meaningfully if the state actually implements adult rec.
- So does the deal get topped? When the deal was announced, our first impression was NO WAY, but now we think it’s not such a crazy thought.
- But the list of companies with the wherewithal to top Curaleaf’s bid is quite limited. One possibility is Cresco. Remember, Cresco was under contract to buy Columbia Care and likely had the opportunity to conduct detailed due diligence on these assets. Cresco is also underweight in the Mid-Atlantic region, and we believe it has the financial capacity to make the purchase.
- Our second-most-likely candidate would be Vireo. Clearly, acquisitive and backed by Chicago Atlantic, Vireo is capable of pulling off this deal. What doesn’t line up for us is the idea that Vireo would be such a big cash buyer. That doesn’t align with how they have built the company.
- Our third choice is Verano. Verano has already purchased the Eartern VA HSA from Cannabist, and having two HSAs would give them strategic leverage in a future adult rec market. But buying an asset at these multiples, which are significantly higher than where Verano trades, is out of character and seems doubtful. Verano, like Curaleaf, still needs to complete a refinancing of its 2026 maturities, but also has additional availability through its new Needham Bank revolver.
- Of course, GTI has abundant capacity to pull off this deal, but we have not seen them show much interest in entering new states, preferring to build greater depth in their existing markets. Still, the multiples involved here are very reasonable, so that we wouldn’t rule them out entirely.
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Sector Valuation Report – Updated Thoughts on the Curaleaf/Cannabist Transaction
- Recapping: On December 2, 2025, Cannabist Corporation (CBST: Cboe)(CBSTF: OTCQB) announced the sale of its remaining Virginia assets in the Richmond region for gross proceeds of $110M, including $80M of cash at closing, $20M in deferred cash, and a $10M 6% note.
- We talked to a number of credible sources at MjBiz and learned some interesting details:
- Credible sources put the EBITDA of the operations at between $22M and $27M
- They also claimed that the cultivation/production facility may need up to $10M in capex to reach full production standards.
- So if we take the $80M cash, discount the $20 deferred cash for 1 year at 12%, haircut the note by 50% (6% coupon), and then add in the extra $10M, we get a total price of approximately $ 113 M. This implies valuation multiples of 4.2x – 5.1x. That seems in line with the 4.54x multiple of 2025 EBITDA for the 9 MSOs with over $100M market cap. Still, it doesn’t really add much value for the fact that Virginia revenues are likely to accelerate meaningfully if the state actually implements adult rec.
- So does the deal get topped? When the deal was announced, our first impression was NO WAY, but now we think it’s not such a crazy thought.
- But the list of companies with the wherewithal to top Curaleaf’s bid is quite limited. One possibility is Cresco. Remember, Cresco was under contract to buy Columbia Care and likely had the opportunity to conduct detailed due diligence on these assets. Cresco is also underweight in the Mid-Atlantic region, and we believe it has the financial capacity to make the purchase.
- Our second-most-likely candidate would be Vireo. Clearly, acquisitive and backed by Chicago Atlantic, Vireo is capable of pulling off this deal. What doesn’t line up for us is the idea that Vireo would be such a big cash buyer. That doesn’t align with how they have built the company.
- Our third choice is Verano. Verano has already purchased the Eartern VA HSA from Cannabist, and having two HSAs would give them strategic leverage in a future adult rec market. But buying an asset at these multiples, which are significantly higher than where Verano trades, is out of character and seems doubtful. Verano, like Curaleaf, still needs to complete a refinancing of its 2026 maturities, but also has additional availability through its new Needham Bank revolver.
- Of course, GTI has abundant capacity to pull off this deal, but we have not seen them show much interest in entering new states, preferring to build greater depth in their existing markets. Still, the multiples involved here are very reasonable, so that we wouldn’t rule them out entirely.