Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to buy Chicago-area cannabis operations in deal connected to $2 billion Cresco-Columbia Care merger

Sean “Diddy” Combs has agreed to buy nine cannabis retail stores and three production facilities in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts for $185 million as part of required antitrust divestitures for the pending $2 billion Cresco-Columbia Care megamerger. The deal to sell off a portion of the combined Cresco-Columbia Care portfolio to Combs, announced Friday, includes the Columbia Care dispensaries in Villa Park and Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, which have been rebranded as Cannabist, as well as a Columbia Care production facility in Aurora. If approved by regulators, Combs would for...