Loblaw exits pot sales

Article Excerpt

LOBLAW COMPANIES, $125.91, is a buy. The retailer (Toronto symbol L; Shares o/s: 322.4 million; Market cap: $40.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Divd. yield: 1.3%; www.loblaw.ca), purchased the Shoppers Drug Mart chain in March 2014 for $12.3 billion in cash and shares. Shoppers operates 1,346 drugstores across Canada. In January 2019, Shoppers began selling medical cannabis online to patients in Ontario. The company’s stores do not carry cannabis. Instead, prescription-holding patients who register with Shoppers can purchase cannabis from one of the chain’s licensed producers. They then send the medication to the patient’s home or doctor’s office. Shoppers is now transferring its cannabis distribution business to Avicanna Inc. (Toronto symbol AVCN) and its MyMedi.ca platform. It has not yet said how much it will receive. Dispensing medical cannabis was not as profitable as Shoppers anticipated, particularly as its stores cannot carry these drugs, so this move will cut its costs. Loblaw Cos. is a buy. buy…