Benzinga | Oct 26, 2021 08:08AM EDT

This Cannabis Stock Has Beaten Microsoft, Netflix, Apple And Facebook

Investors who enriched their portfolios with Canadian cannabis company Village Farms International, Inc. (NASDAQ: VFF) some five years ago are now enjoying their bulging wallets.

The vertically integrated greenhouse grower with a 30-year history as a Controlled Environment Agriculture pioneer started off producing and selling fresh produce until it recognized the potential of the booming cannabis market.

Over the last five years, the Vancouver, British Columbia-base Village Farms' stock has outperformed some of the most popular stocks in the world, such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB).

International Expansion, Acquisitions

In Nov. 2020 Village Farms acquired Pure Sunfarms, one of the largest producers and top-selling cannabis brands in Canada, making it its wholly-owned subsidiary. Pure Sunfarms has been EBITDA positive since starting sales in 2018.

This year, in a bid to be in place for the eventual U..S. federal legalization of marijuana, the company made a $75 million acquisition of the Colorado-based CBD-platform Balanced Health Botanicals. In addition to this cannabinoid platform with a top-5 CBD brand, Village Farms is leveraging 5.5 million square feet of high-tech CEA facilities in West Texas and has joint ventures with Village Fields Hemp USA, LLC and Arkansas Valley Green and Gold Hemp LLC.

Village Farms is also targeting international markets. Recently, it acquired an 80% stake in the Netherlands-based Leli Holland B.V., one of the 10 applicants selected by lottery to obtain a license to grow and distribute cannabis to retailers who run the

Dutch "coffee shops," placing the company in a prime position for when the Dutch government implements its Experiment to Investigate Closed Cannabis Supply Chains.

Furthermore, Village Farms recently completed its first medical cannabis shipment to Australia and announced that Pure Sunfarms intends to start shipping cannabis products to Europe in the first quarter of 2022.

Here's how returns break down from October 2016 to the present:

Facebook is up from $131.29 a share to $328.69 for a return of 150.35%;

Microsoft is up from $59.87 a share to $308.13 for a return of 414.67%;

Apple is up from $28.43 a share to $148.64 for a return of 422.83%;

Netflix is up from $126.57 a share to $671.66 for a return of 430.66%;

And finally, Village Farms is up from CA$1.30 per share to CA$9.76 for a return of 650.77%

Photo: Courtesy of 2H Media on Unsplash