Investment – Cannabis Industry

January 28, 2022 by Duane Morris

More Investors Eying Ways to Tap the Higher Returns of Cannabis Real Estate

Duane Morris partner Michael Schwamm was quoted in an article on WealthManagement.com.

The past few years have brought cannabis legalization to multiple states, giving real estate investors a new alternative asset class to put their money into. It looks like this trend is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

As we get further into 2022, all U.S. states without current medical cannabis legalization are now considering legislation or ballot initiatives to legalize it. In addition, some states where medical cannabis is already legal may take the next step this year to allow adult recreational use. […]

Twenty-one additional states may legalize cannabis use in some form this year, according to Michael Schwamm, a partner in the New York office of the law firm Duane Morris. […]

“Real estate investing (along with ancillary services) is often the entry point for many investors,” Schwamm adds. “As the industry continues to gain acceptance, I am seeing more and more traditional real estate investors taking a look at this market as they are able to get higher returns in the cannabis sector vs. other [real estate] markets.”

To read the full text of this article, please visit the WealthManagement.com website.

March 22, 2019 by Brad A. Molotsky

Gotham Green makes $250M investment in Medmen – Brad A. Molotsky, Esquire

Per MJBiz, MedMen, a California-based multistate marijuana operator, will receive an investment of up to $250 million from private equity fund Gotham Green Partners (GGP).

The investment – a convertible credit facility – is believed to be the largest to date by a single investor in a publicly traded cannabis company with U.S. operations.

The money will go toward a number of corporate activities, including potential acquisitions, investment in technology and increased cultivation and production, MedMen said.

“More than having adequate growth capital to fund all of their current operational needs (and eliminating the lingering overhang of future tag on offerings), we believe the GGP investment comes with many lateral strategic benefits, as they are the preeminent investor across the cannabis supply chain,” Paul Penney, managing director at Northland Securities, wrote in an email to Marijuana Business Daily.

After the news, MedMen, which trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange as MMEN, saw its stock rise more than 6% over its price at close the previous day.

-Brad A. Molotsky, Esquire, Duane Morris

February 28, 2018March 1, 2018 by Seth A. Goldberg

Cannabis Trading on Major U.S. Stock Exchange

Another breakthrough for the cannabis space occurred on Tuesday, February 27, 2018, when Toronto-based Cronos Group Inc. began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. (MJN:CN). This marks the first listing of a company focused purely on cannabis on a major U.S. stock exchange. The listing of Cronos comes within two months of the memorandum issued by Attorney General Sessions that rescinded the federal government’s previous guidance regarding enforcement of state-lawful cannabis activities under the Cole Memorandum. That earlier guidance is credited with providing the cannabis space with a window of opportunity for the warp-speed growth the space has seen in recent years. The Sessions memo was intended to slow the growth of the cannabis space, especially with respect to the capital markets. The Nasdaq listing of Cronos suggests that 2018 could be another strong year for cannabis-related investments; 2017 was believed to have resulted in approximately $2 billion in cannabis-related investments in the U.S.