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The company likewise made it through the first round of a highly competitive tender process for German supply licenses. Buying Nuuvera gets Aphria onto the playing field with competitors like Aurora, Canopy Growth Corp., Cronos Group Inc and MedReleaf Corp., who are all vying for what is expected to be a limited number of German licenses.

“If you look at what Aphria has done so far, they’ve developed a very sizeable domestic production profile, they’ve made a couple of investments in the U.S., but their exposure internationally has been a little bit more limited than other LPs,” said the industry source. “The acquisition of Nuuvera really positions them almost at the top of the pile for global reach right now.”

Ultimately Nuuvera’s value appears to come from its access. The company is led by a team of Bay Street heavy hitters, including board members Ronald Schmeichel, former chairman of Concordia Healthcare Corp; Anthony Lacavera, founder of Wind Mobile; and CEO Lorne Abony, formerly of FUN Technologies and Mood Media. It also has a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, Vivian Bercovici, as its managing director for Europe and Israel.

“The management team … (brought) the right feet on the ground, country by country,” said Neufeld.

There’s also, perhaps, a sense that Aphria is buying back supply which it signed over to Nuuvera in recent months. Back in August, Aphria agreed to supply Nuuvera with 17,000 kilograms a year to fuel Nuuvera’s global ambitions. This month, Aphria upped that promise to 77,000 kilograms a year.

“I know it’s the elephant in the room, but this brings the retail margin that Nuuvera was otherwise going to earn, whether the Canadian recreational footprint or international, and brings it onto the Aphria income statement,” said Neufeld, referencing the supply deals his company only recently cut with Nuuvera.

Monday’s deal comes only two weeks after Aphria announced that it was buying B.C.-based Broken Coast Cannabis Inc. for $230 million.