On Thursday markets were higher as fears of a sort of debt-ceiling crisis in the U.S. abated. (There was not a great deal of fear but some…)
The S&P 500 was up 0.8% and Toronto was up 1.1%.
Most stocks were higher. Shopify was notable with a 3.4% gain. Also AutoCanada with a 3.1% gain.
After the close, Alcanna announced it will sell itself to a company called Sundial Growers. this is a sale for sjhares of Sundial and not for cash. Sundial trades on NASDAQ. A the current price of Sundial the transaction is worth $9,12 per Alcanna share. The deal will not close until late December or perhaps later. It is subject to certain regulatory approvals. Alcann a closed today at $8.09 and it seems the reason it rose from $7.00 on September 8th was that word of the transaction had leaked out (which is not impressive as management is supposed to keep such things secret by law). I’m not sure this stock will go up much tomorrow given the uncertainty in the value that will ultimately be received (Sundial shares could decline) and given the wait involved. I know nothing about Sundial and if I still owned this I would likely sell tomorrow.
I had bought shares of Alcanna in September last year and added it to the site at $4.14. I sold in March and rated it (lower) Sell at $7.83.
Some years ago this same company then under the name Liquor Stores N.A. was on our list but fared quite badly under the former at times incompetent management (notably the American CEO Stephen Bebis). The management that took over from Bebis in a hostile take-over of the Board have not ultimately done very well with it either. Liquor retailing is a tough business because they sell a commodity product and so they end up competing by discounting prices. And all competitors buy from the wholesaler at the same price with no volume discounts although the bigger players were better able to stock up when the wholesaler or alcohol producer offered sale prices. Well, it was fun learning about the liquor retail business over the years.
Going back much further in time when it was managed by its Edmonton founders it did very well for a long time.
Meanwhile I did finish my analysis of Enbridge. It will be rated Buy and I will post the report tomorrow.