Everything looked perfect for Aurora Cannabis...
On paper, at least, Aurora Cannabis looks like it has its ducks in a row. No grower has more peak production capacity, with 15 cultivation facilities capable of probably close to 700,000 kilos per year. These large growing campuses are also capable of yielding more per square foot than the industry average, which, when coupled with its size, would be expected to push per-gram production costs well below the industry average.
Aurora also has a clear lead when it comes to international expansion efforts. Including Canada, it has a presence -- be it in cultivation, research, export, or a partnership -- in 25 countries. Only two of its peers are even at or above one dozen countries. The thinking had been that if and when Canadian dried cannabis flower became oversupplied, Aurora would simply lean on these foreign sales channels, where higher-margin medical marijuana is legal, to offload its excess supply.
This is also a company that brought in famed billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz as a strategic adviser in mid-March. It was no secret that Aurora was looking for an equity investment and/or brand-name partnership with a company in the food or beverages industry to help with the forthcoming launch of derivatives (i.e., edibles, infused beverages, vapes, topicals, tinctures, and concentrates). Peltz's background as an activist investor happens to focus on the food and beverage industry, making him the perfect person to bridge an eventual partnership or equity investment.
But estimates and projections don't always lead to concrete results, as we've witnessed with Aurora Cannabis.
A smoldering cannabis bud that's beginning to turn black.
...Then it all fell apart
As you're likely well aware, one of the main issues that's hurt all Canadian growers is the inability to get product in front of consumers. The government agency Health Canada is partly to blame for delaying the rollout of high-margin derivatives by two months, as well as contending with an enormous backlog of licensing applications, thereby leading to long wait times to plant and sell cannabis. But a lot of the finger-pointing is directed at Ontario, which had a meager 24 dispensaries open on the one-year anniversary of the legalization of recreational weed sales. A change in Ontario's dispensary licensing policy should help, but there's no immediate relief for the most-populous province's supply concerns.
The problem is that there are also company-specific issues beyond just getting its products in front of the consumer. For example, Aurora Cannabis' aggressive expansion tactics, which included more than a dozen acquisitions over the course of three years, are hurting shareholders two ways.
First, the company financed practically all of its deals, as well as its ongoing operations, by issuing common stock or, in rarer instances, convertible debentures. By using its stock as capital, Aurora has ballooned its outstanding share count from 16 million to close to 1.1 billion in a little over five years. No matter what sort of assets are added, it's virtually impossible for shareholders to contend with this level of dilution without being hammered.
Second, Aurora's aggressive acquisition strategy looks to have led to a number of gross overpayments for the companies that were purchased. Given the various U.S. deals that have been amended or canceled in recent months, perhaps it's no surprise that Aurora is carrying around $3.17 billion in Canadian dollars ($2.4 billion) in goodwill (i.e., premiums paid above and beyond tangible assets) on its balance sheet. Sure, Aurora may have CA$5.6 billion in total assets, but 57% of this is made up of goodwill, and 69% as a whole from goodwill plus intangible assets. In other words, Aurora's value proposition is built on finger-crossing and hope, which may ultimately not work in investors' favor