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Client Alerts, News Articles, Blog Posts, & Multimedia
Everything you need to know about BMD and the industry.
Blog Post
Another Big Move Out of the Shadows; First Citizens Bank, the nation’s 19th largest, poised to enter the Cannabis Market
February 20, 2024
A commentary on cannabis and hemp dated January 12, 2024 posted by First Citizens Bank on its website reflects the decision by the Bank to extend its very substantial hemp/CBD platform into the cannabis space.
Posted by
Stephen Lenn
Client Alert
Valley National Bank/Trulieve Loan: A Big Step Out of the Shadows
January 18, 2023
In a late December press release, Trulieve announced that it had secured a $71.5 million commercial bank loan. In addition to the amount of the loan, which may be the largest commercial bank loan to date to a cannabis company, the release prominently identified Valley Bank and featured both a quote from Valley’s Senior Vice President, John Myers, and a description of the Bank’s service platform and commitment to the cannabis industry.
Posted by
Stephen Lenn
Client Alert, Blog Post
Explosive Growth in Pot of Gold Opportunity for Bank (and Other) Cannabis Lenders Driving Erosion of the Barriers
May 13, 2022
Our original article on bank lending to the cannabis industry anticipated that the convergence of interest between banks and the cannabis industry would draw more and larger banks to the industry. Banks were awash in liquidity with limited deployment options, while bankable cannabis businesses had rapidly growing needs for more and lower cost credit. Since then, the pot of gold opportunity for banks to lend into the cannabis industry has grown exponentially due to a combination of market constraints on equity causing a dramatic shift to debt and the ever-increasing capital needs of one of the country’s fastest growing industries. At the same time, hurdles to entry of new banks are being systematically cleared as the yellow brick road to the cannabis industry’s access to the financial markets is being paved, brick by brick, by the progressively increasing number and size of banks that are now entering the market.
Posted by
Stephen Lenn
Blog Post
Out of the Shadows | An Investor Summit Recap
February 9, 2022
After a COVID hiatus of more than 2 years, I rejoined the institutional cannabis investment speaker circuit, offering the closing remarks at the Kahner Global Cannabis Private Investment Summit in Coral Gables, Florida. My remarks addressed how banking developments are increasingly impacting cannabis investment, operating and financial strategies and decisions, for both plant touching and the growing array of ancillary businesses serving the industry.
Posted by
Stephen Lenn with James Young
Client Alert
Banking and Cannabis: Is it Legal
January 4, 2022
Marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug and is illegal under federal law. However, I am not aware of any federal banking law or regulation, or any other federal law or regulation, which explicitly makes it illegal for banks and other financial institutions to provide their traditional services to state legal cannabis businesses.
Posted by
Stephen Lenn and James Young
Client Alert
Banking & Cannabis: The Next Frontier Webinar
September 23, 2021
On Tuesday, September 21st, BMD’s own Banking and Cannabis Partner, Stephen Lenn, hosted a star-studded cast of panelists in a webinar titled Banking & Cannabis: Cannabis Lending, The Next Frontier. The webinar, which had to suspend registrations when hitting a maximum cap of 500, aimed to explore issues related to cannabis and banking, with a particular emphasis on lending. With the sponsorship and support of the Bankers Associations of Arizona, Colorado, Ohio and Utah, Steve was able to recruit an elite group of bankers, bank regulators, cannabis industry players, and cannabis regulators, who took the topic head on. The discussion kicked off with an opening from the keynote speaker, VP of Congressional Affairs for the American Bankers Association, Tanner Daniel.
Posted by
BMD
Client Alert
Banking and Cannabis: Bank Lending, The Next Frontier
May 10, 2021
A fortuitous combination of developments and circumstances present the banking and cannabis industries a large opportunity to enhance each of their respective bottom lines: conventional bank lending, payment processing, treasury management and other services, and bank administered SBA and revenue bond financing to cannabis businesses.
Posted by
Stephen A. Lenn, Russell T. Rendall and James B. Young with Teddy Kirsch of L&S Business Law