💸 The Tape

Jushi Holdings reported third-quarter results that do something the company hasn’t managed consistently in years: show top-line growth, margin stability and a shrinking loss at the same time. Revenue rose 7% to $70.5 million, adjusted EBITDA ticked up to $13.6 million, and the net loss narrowed to $12.5 million from $23.7 million a year ago. Nine-month revenue is up 7% to $208.2 million. For a company that spent 2024 and 2025 defending its right to exist, this is a quarter that argues it has a business worth financing.

The growth is real and it’s in the right places

The headline number understates what’s working. Wholesale revenue jumped 40% to $9.7 million, a record for the second consecutive quarter, driven by Massachusetts distribution gains, new Ohio production capacity and incremental Pennsylvania and Virginia volume. Jushi has historically been a retail-heavy operator with underutilized cultivation; the wholesale trend suggests that’s finally changing, and wholesale carries better incremental economics than another dispensary.

Retail grew 3.5% to $60.8 million, and the composition is encouraging. Ohio added $3.1 million as the two stores opened last year matured and adult-use continued to ramp. Virginia added $0.9 million on an 11.5% increase in units, with all six Beyond Hello stores growing and the state posting record retail and home-delivery sales. That unit growth in a medical-only market is the most important data point in the release, because it tells you the patient base is expanding ahead of July 1, 2027, when adult-use sales begin.

Gross margin held at 45.9%, down less than a point despite the per-unit pricing pressure every operator is absorbing. Production efficiencies offset most of the promotional drag. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 19.3%, essentially flat year over year, which means the company grew revenue without diluting profitability. Income tax expense fell to $6.8 million from $8.8 million, an early read on what partial 280E relief does for a mixed-use operator.

Jim Cacioppo’s framing is measured: results “reflect continued progress in strengthening our operating performance,” and “Virginia remains our most significant near-term growth opportunity.” Both statements hold up.

The Virginia setup

This is the thesis. Jushi holds one of Virginia’s five vertically integrated pharmaceutical processor licenses, which under the 2026 adult-use law carries the right to convert to recreational sales when the market opens next July. The company’s six-store retail network was built with adult-use in mind, and it’s now advancing cultivation and processing expansion to supply a market that will roughly triple its addressable demand overnight. Virginia’s HSA structure means Jushi faces limited competition inside its region for the first phase of adult-use, a position most MSOs would pay a premium for.

The question is funding. The release says Jushi is “exploring financing alternatives” for the Virginia projects, which is the honest way of saying the capital isn’t in hand yet. Capex in the quarter was just $2.9 million. Scaling cultivation for an adult-use launch nine months out requires a step-change in spending, and the company needs a lender or a partner to underwrite it.

The gaps

Here is where the quarter needs context. Cash ended at $30.9 million against $215.6 million of gross debt subject to scheduled repayment, plus $21.5 million in disputed Sammartino notes the company says it has no obligation to repay. That’s roughly 3.5x leverage on annualized adjusted EBITDA, which is manageable for an operator with growth but leaves little cushion. The forward-looking statements include the standard going-concern language, and $32.4 million of debt is classified as current.

Operating cash flow was $3.5 million in the quarter, down from $6.1 million, which the company attributes to working-capital timing. Nine-month operating cash flow of $12.9 million is up year over year, so the trend is positive, but it’s thin against the capex Virginia will demand. Free cash flow, which the company doesn’t report, works out to roughly breakeven.

The largest overhang is the one nobody can model cleanly. Unrecognized tax benefits rose to $201.4 million from $177.2 million at year-end, with $48.7 million of that in accrued interest and penalties. This is the 280E dispute, the position that Jushi, like several peers, has taken that it isn’t subject to the provision. If the IRS prevails, that liability is real. If full rescheduling to Schedule III lands and the company’s position is vindicated or settled, a nine-figure contingent liability becomes a footnote. The timing of the DEA process, with briefs due November 5 and a recommendation to follow, matters more to Jushi’s balance sheet than to almost any other operator its size.

Store count was essentially flat at 42 across eight states, with Peoria, Illinois removed in January. Management is pursuing “targeted relocations” rather than new openings, which is the right call for a company that needs to concentrate capital in Virginia. No guidance was provided.

The read

Strip out the balance sheet and this is a clean quarter: 7% growth, record wholesale, stable margins, an improving loss and a Virginia network that’s growing double digits in units before the adult-use catalyst even arrives. That operating profile is what makes Jushi financeable, and it’s why the company can credibly talk about funding alternatives rather than survival.

The gaps are a $31 million cash balance against a $216 million debt stack, a tax contingency that now exceeds the company’s entire debt, and a capex program that hasn’t been funded. Those are the same gaps that existed a year ago. The difference is that the operating business is now strong enough to make closing them plausible. Virginia is nine months away. If Jushi lands the financing and the DEA moves, this quarter will look like the inflection. If it doesn’t, the Virginia license is still the most valuable asset in a market where someone else will want to own it.

📈 Dog Walkers

$VRNO ( ▲ 0.2% ) Reports Q3

Verano’s third quarter is the first clean look at how a medical-heavy MSO performs once the tax math changes, and the answer is: dramatically better below the operating line.

Revenue rose 5% to $212.4 million, all of it organic, and gross margin held at 47%. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $50.4 million, down modestly from $53.1 million a year ago as SG&A crept higher. That’s the part of the story that looks like 2025. The rest doesn’t.

Operating cash flow nearly doubled to $49 million, the highest quarterly figure in four years, and sits at $98 million year-to-date versus $39 million last year. The driver is sitting in plain sight: income tax expense fell to $7.3 million from $28.4 million, and year-to-date from $80.9 million to $21.8 million. Verano doesn’t mention 280E in the release, but it doesn’t have to. With 86 of its 163 stores in Florida and a heavy medical footprint in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the April Schedule III order on state-licensed medical cannabis flows straight to the cash line. Net loss narrowed to $4.1 million from $43.8 million.

The company is reinvesting it. 2026 capex guidance was raised to $54 to 60 million, with Virginia adult-use retail flagged as the key catalyst and Zen Leaf Ephrata opening in Pennsylvania this week. Cash climbed to $102.1 million against $390 million of debt, refinanced to 2029 earlier this year, and working capital stands at $301 million.

George Archos called it “another strong quarter” and said Verano aims to “close 2026 on a high note.” The gap is adjusted EBITDA margin, which slipped two points to 24% on pricing pressure and SG&A growth, and the lack of a retail/wholesale split or formal guidance.

But the thesis is now visible in the numbers. Verano built a footprint that is disproportionately medical, and the tax code just rewarded it.

📺 Trade To Black

Can Budget Reconciliation Save Hemp THC Before December 11? | TTB Presented by Flowhub

• Rep. Morgan Griffith floats hemp THC rules in a lame-duck reconciliation bill ahead of the December 11 deadline, pairing his HEMP Act with Rep. Beth Van Duyne’s beverage tax measure to dodge the Senate filibuster. The catch: provisions that don’t directly affect spending or revenue can be stripped under the Byrd rule.

• Hemp farmer Alexander Mootz returns to argue the HEMP Act regulates the conversion pipeline instead of closing the conversion loophole, and once again leaves growers locked out of the downstream market where the margin lives.

• NuggMD Check In poll: consumers trust dispensary staff most (62.6%) for product and dosing info, then friends and family (52.5%) and doctors (45.1%). Google scores 13.5% and AI chatbots just 6.9%, with 62% rating them low trust.

• Dr. Paul Shields on the Vantage Standard breaks down what evidence comes next after the DEA judge refused to reopen the rescheduling hearing, what real-world data is showing, and whether physicians are actually ready for Schedule III.