Tilray Brands (TLRY) is acquiring eight beer and beverage brands from Anheuser-Busch (BUD), including popular names such as Shock Top and Red Hook. Tilray CEO Irwin Simon joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the deal. Irwin says the brands will help diversify the company's portfolio, adding that he sees "such opportunity within the craft beer business." Simon says Tilray's strategy is "how do we make craft beer cool again?" Irwin says they will try to make "craft beer cool again" by "coming up with unique products, connecting with the consumer, and, with that, we will hopefully get these products growing in the right direction." However, Irwin does say that will it cost the company money to improve packaging and market the brands.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: You're watching Yahoo Finance, I'm Julie Hyman. Well, Anheuser-Busch announcing they're going to sell eight of their beverage labels to Tilray Brands. The portfolio includes popular names like Shock Top and Red Hook. The deal expected to close this year also included current employees, breweries, and brewpubs related to those beverage makers.

And joining me now to talk all about it is Irwin Simon. He is the CEO of Tilray. And you see some of the cans there of those beverages behind him and some of the existing brands as well. Irwin, it's great to see you. This is just the latest deal that you have done. Talk to me about how this one fits into not just the existing portfolio, but the strategy overall of the company.

IRWIN SIMON: So Julie, good afternoon. Great to see you. And here's a lot of our great beer brands and our spirit brands. Listen, I think the exciting thing is, and you've seen what with Hain Celestial, what it was able to do is bring a bunch of brands and diversify the company into multiple categories.

Not dissimilar here. When I got to a free in 2018, we were a $50 million business. We're approaching close to a billion in size. And one of the challenges I ran into was with cannabis, was not knowing what legalization was going to happen.

Legalization happened in Canada. Medical legalization happened in Europe in multiple countries. But everybody was waiting for the US. And with that, it took a lot of predictability away from earnings and revenue-generating. And I think you saw so many cannabis companies where their stocks just got hit hard.

And what I wanted to do was make sure we were not dependent upon legalization. We had a good income stream. We had revenue stream. We had predictability of earnings, and I want to diversify the company. But what was important, that we had adjacencies out there that they could bring it all together.

So today, our cannabis business in Canada-- we have the number one position, with a 13% share, is about 30% of our revenue. Now with our Montauk, our SweetWater, and our eight beers that we're acquiring from ABI, along with our Breckenridge and Manitoba Harvest.

And then our international business, which is about 30% of our business and our Manitoba Harvest, gives us a good diversification, gives us ultimately that we can bring it together upon legalization. And very few companies out there today have what we have in beers, spirits, cannabis, and medical cannabis.

JULIE HYMAN: So Irwin, as one of the analysts on the call pointed out, this portfolio of beer brands that you're buying, or I should say, beer brands and an energy drink brand in highball. This portfolio has been seeing declines in the past several years. How do you plan to turn that around? Does being part of your bigger portfolio help you with that strategically?

IRWIN SIMON: So number one-- listen, we bought SweetWater in November 2020, and it was not really growing. Montauk was growing. When we bought Green Flash, Alpine, and Nelsons, they weren't growing. So we've done a great job in turning around beer businesses that we acquired.

And I come back. The big thing that I'm focused on here, no different than I looked at the natural organic food industry, no different than I looked at cannabis world, is ultimately I think there's such opportunity within the craft beer business. You know, constellation has left the craft beer business. There's a lot of confusion out there with the craft beer business.

And the strategy within Tilray is how do we make craft beer cool again? And with that, a lot of consumers were drinking the vodka seltzers and vodka mixed with sodas and stuff like that. I think taking our current brands and taking what the ABI brands that we are acquiring, we can really bring some good energy and good fun into the craft beer business and make it cool and fun again. And that's what the plan is.

JULIE HYMAN: Irwin, how do you do that? How do you make them cool again?

IRWIN SIMON: So listen, you can't just stack them high and watch them fly. And you got to connect with consumers. You got to connect with the Gen Z. You've got to connect with baby boomers. You've got to let them know what is exciting about beer today.

And listen, we've done that in regards to our 420 with Montauk. We've done that in regards to gummies beers coming out in regards to SweetWater. Some of the other IPAs that we launched with packaging and bottles et cetera. We revolved a lot around concerts and music, et cetera.

So again, it's coming up with unique products, it's connecting to the consumer. And with that, we'll hopefully get these products growing in the right direction and giving them attention. Absolutely, you got to spend money on them. You got to ultimately enhance some of the packaging. And I think there's such big opportunities.

I think the opportunities with ShopTop, I think the opportunities in regards to some of these other ones, Blue Point. You put Blue Point in Montauk together, I think there is such great opportunities and synergies to market them alongside each other here in the New York area.

So you know, what it does for-- what it does for Tilray also, it allows us to put together a National Beer business today and allows us to put together our distributors. It allows us to become more important to distributors, more important to retailers. And ultimately, it's important to let the consumer know how we're all combined and connected.

JULIE HYMAN: And as you mentioned, part of the impetus, the original impetus behind getting into this business was to sort of serve as a bridge, right? To smooth out revenue in what is an unpredictable time. When we would have talked a couple of years ago, it seemed like at that point that federal legalization was closer than it feels like it is right now. What's your current thinking on that?

IRWIN SIMON: And great question. You know, I can't predict what our government is going to do. You know cannabis is legal in about 37 different states out there in regards to medical or recreational. So I can't sit back and sort of wait and say, hey, it's going to be legal next year, next year, next year.

Originally I thought when the Biden administration, it'd be legal today. But that's not the case. So what I need to do for our shareholders is to have predictability on revenues and growth. And ultimately, we're well positioned upon legalization where the adjacencies, and there's no reason you cannot have beer out there without alcohol, of course, that is infused with THC and consumers want that.

There's no reason you can't have spirits out there that are infused with THC. So I think ultimately, we're well positioned. And when legalization happens, not if. When it happens, we're ready for it. We're one of the largest growers in Canada. We have over 5,000,000ft of grow space. We really know how to grow cannabis. We know how to develop products in the cannabis space.

We're going to get better in the beer business in regards to craft beers and some of the uniqueness. We're in the spirits business with our bourbons and vodkas and gin products. So we're in these businesses today. And ultimately, how do we all pull together? And when legalization happens, we're ready to come out there with beers and bourbons and that would be infused with THC.

JULIE HYMAN: And Irwin, finally a quick question on deal process. Because obviously, the other party involved in this deal has gotten a lot of headlines lately in the form of Anheuser-Busch and with Bud Light in particular. Have you had your eye on these brands for a while and sort of maybe some of the challenges at Anheuser-Busch lately opened the door for them to be more willing to sell these brands to you guys?

IRWIN SIMON: Listen, I picked up the phone and called ABI and explained what I was trying to do. And they were great to work with. And I think they saw right reasons why it made sense to divest. And we're taking all their people that come along with this here. We're working with them on a transition.

So you know, I think it's totally separate. And I'm sure that we would have been able to work with ABI if they were not dealing with some of the other stuff they are. But it's again, having the vision for Tilray, and no different than having the vision and buying Montauk or having the vision to buy SweetWater, was ultimately, we needed distribution in the Pacific Northwest.

We needed more manufacturing for Montauk in the Northeast here, and blue point came along with that. The cider business, which is an excellent growing business and pretty exciting with highball. I still think there's big upside on the energy drink business. So it really fit perfect with what we're trying to do. Some of these beers will be sold in Canada. So the opportunity for us is tremendous.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, Irwin, thank you so much for catching up with us today about this. Tilray CEO, Irwin Simon. Tilray, one of the top trending tickers on Yahoo Finance today. Thanks, Irwin.

IRWIN SIMON: Thank you. Nice to see you, Julie.

JULIE HYMAN: Me too.

IRWIN SIMON: Enjoy the rest of your summer.

JULIE HYMAN: Thank you. You too.

IRWIN SIMON: Thank you.

JULIE HYMAN: Take care.