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Curaleaf Chief Defends $4-a-Share Aurora Bid as Talks Turn Hostile
Curaleaf pitched Aurora with a July 7 letter offering $4.00 per share, a 41% premium to Aurora's July 2 close, and later made the offer public after citing no substantive response within five business days.
Curaleaf CEO and chairman Boris Jordan defended his company’s hostile $4 per share bid for Aurora Cannabis, saying his earlier outreach was intended to be friendly. In an interview, he argued Aurora’s rejection was not based on “legit reasons” and laid out a timeline that Curaleaf says is supported by published documents.
Jordan said he first spoke with Aurora CEO Miguel Martin at the end of June, with Martin indicating he would weigh any potential deal as part of his fiduciary responsibilities. Curaleaf later sent a formal indication of interest on June 23, offering a mutual non-disclosure agreement and 30 days of exclusive reciprocal due diligence, and Jordan said a follow-up call did not progress because it was “not actionable enough” without board involvement.
Curaleaf then moved directly to Aurora’s directors, sending a July 7 letter of intent offering $4.00 per share and requesting a substantive response within five business days. The bid described consideration as Curaleaf equity plus “a portion of cash” without specifying the cash and stock split, and it was framed at the time as a 41% premium to Aurora’s $2.84 close on July 2.
After Jordan said Curaleaf received no substantive response, the company took the offer public, framing it as a 45% premium to Aurora’s 30-day volume-weighted average price, and as 110% excluding cash on Aurora’s balance sheet. Aurora responded that the July 7 letter did not detail the cash-stock mix and said the $5.00 cap appeared only in the later public proposal, according to Yahoo Finance.