In the latest Trade To Black podcast, presented by Flowhub, host Shadd Dales wraps up a busy week of cannabis earnings with Cresco Labs (OTCQX: CRLBF) CEO Charlie Bachtell, then breaks down Trulieve and NewLake Capital’s prints with returning guest host Seth Yakatan.
In segment one, Bachtell walked through Cresco’s second-quarter 2026 results — revenue of $173 million, up roughly 15% sequentially, split between $52 million wholesale and $121 million retail — with net income swinging to $16.8 million, driven partly by a $26.7 million tax benefit tied to rescheduling and the related Section 280E changes. Adjusted EBITDA landed at $40 million, up around 20% sequentially, and the company generated positive free cash flow. He credited execution on catalysts developed since late last year, plus retail integration in Pennsylvania and adult-use momentum in Ohio, and described Kentucky as progressing like a healthy new medical program now moving into its revenue phase.
Bachtell characterized Ohio’s maturation from “medical plus” toward a functioning adult-use market as evidence of what sound regulation delivers, and addressed capital allocation, uplisting aspirations, the difficulty of scaling across fragmented state supply chains, and his read on M&A — where he expects deal activity to accelerate once cannabis is fully rescheduled, a timely question given ongoing speculation around Cresco itself as a target. On hemp, he expected a net positive for regulated operators if the loophole closes, but cautioned the impact is hard to handicap.
In segment two, Yakatan brought granular state-level data to complicate the headline prints. On Trulieve (NYSE: TRLV), he argued the company is well-positioned across Georgia, Connecticut, West Virginia, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all with productivity indices above 100 — and flagged Georgia’s unusual pharmacy-direct medical model as a growth story to watch. He also reacted to NewLake Capital’s (OTCQX: NLCP) print — $12.1 million in revenue, AFFO of $0.49 per share, a conservatively leveraged balance sheet and a $0.43 quarterly dividend.
Turning back to Cresco, he cautioned that despite 15% overall sales growth, much came from new doors rather than same-store growth, that Ohio grew at roughly half the market’s rate, and that own-brand penetration inside Cresco’s own stores fell from about 61% to 53%. Yakatan named GTI his winner of the week for executing like a normal company, and he and Dales discussed the Sarbanes-Oxley reality behind uplisting, the M&A skill gap between operators, and whether cash-rich Canadian players like SNDL, Cronos, Organigram or Tilray might move on U.S. assets.
This and more when you tune in.
