Industrial REIT eyeing marijuana as a powerhouse sector

With legalization just beyond the horizon, Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust is looking at adding the medical marijuana industry to its tenant roster

Industrial REIT eyeing marijuana as a powerhouse sector
Amid increased popular and political momentum in favor of cannabis legalization, Canada’s leading multi-tenant industrial REIT is betting on marijuana as the next big winner in its portfolio.
 
Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (PIRET), which holds approximately 21 million square feet of space across over 170 locations nationwide, is looking to add the flourishing medical marijuana industry to its list of tenants, although it has yet to name the companies it is currently forging links with.

“At the beginning, we shied away from it but more and more it’s becoming mainstream,” PIRET CEO Kevan Gorrie said, as quoted by The Globe and Mail.

“We would treat them as any other tenant that would require a lot of due diligence.”

At present, around 130,000 Canadians are prescribed with medical marijuana. And while official statements are still pending, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously pledged to legalize recreational marijuana by next spring at the earliest.
 
A recent CIBC World Markets study noted that the potential $10-billion industry that would spawn from legalization represents a gold mine for the Canadian industrial and commercial real estate sectors.

With a market value of $1.4 billion, PIRET’s stock has grown by 34 per cent over the past 12 months (up to a record level of $5.91). In its Canadian REIT index, Bloomberg cited PIRET’s latest numbers as the best performance in the “net worth $500 million and above” category.

PIRET has also predicted that e-commerce will account for fully 50 per cent of its portfolio in the next few years, up from today’s 30 per cent today.

“We’re focused on growth in e-commerce,” Gorrie stated. “I don’t think enough companies worry about obsolescence. We think about it all the time.”


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