Resources

Client Alerts, News Articles, Blog Posts, & Multimedia

Everything you need to know about BMD and the industry.

Blog Post

The Shadows Are on the Run: Global Icon Aon Adds Its Heft and Stature to the Legitimization of the Cannabis Industry

September 20, 2024Aon, a global firm with 50,000 employees across 120 countries, has made a strategic move into the U.S. cannabis industry, joining a growing list of institutional players such as First Citizens Bank. This entry aligns with the efforts of the Institutional Cannabis Lending Community (ICLC), which has been driving deal flow and fostering best practices among financial institutions since its founding less than 18 months ago. Aon will co-host an exclusive event for the ICLC at the Benzinga Capital Conference in Chicago, where it will unveil a custom product suite designed for cannabis businesses and tap into the collective expertise of the ICLC's nearly 30 Participants, which include banks, lenders, and compliance experts.Blog Post

A Closer Look at Cannabis

December 8, 2023At the Nov. 30 Akron Roundtable event "A Closer Look at Cannabis," moderated by Andrew Meyer, deputy editor of news Ideastream Public Media, a varied group of panelists spoke about expected and potential outcomes and efforts of marijuana legalization.Blog Post

Out of the Shadows - Cannabis Going Mainstream

November 21, 2023BMD Phoenix Office Managing Partner, Stephen Lenn, recently discussed today's cannabis industry at an Akron Roundtable as part of their "Bringing it Home" series.Blog Post

Institutional Cannabis Lenders Community is Growing

April 7, 2023BMD Attorney, Stephen Lenn, recently shared an update on the Institutional Cannabis Leaders Community that he is a part of.Client Alert

Valley National Bank/Trulieve Loan: A Big Step Out of the Shadows

January 18, 2023In 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.Blog Post

Invitation to Banks & Family Office/Ultra-high Net Worth Investors Exploring Cannabis Lending to Join Our Informal Institutional Cannabis Lenders Community

December 2, 2022An update on the latest developments in the cannabis banking/lending space by subject matter expert, BMD Scottsdale/Phoenix Office Managing Partner Stephen LennBlog Post, Client Alert

Community Banks: Collaboration, not isolation, is the key to protecting/ enhancing the cannabis business you pioneered

August 26, 2022As we prepare for the plenary session of the informal institutional cannabis lenders community announced in my previous article, I am pleased to advise that participants now include 5 of the best-known dedicated loan funds; a select group of commercial banks ranging in size from single state community banks to mid-size regionals making cannabis loans into the mid-8 figures; and, a syndicator of credit union cannabis loans.Client Alert, Blog Post

Explosive Growth in Pot of Gold Opportunity for Bank (and Other) Cannabis Lenders Driving Erosion of the Barriers

May 13, 2022Our 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.Client Alert

Banking and Cannabis: Is it Legal

January 4, 2022Marijuana 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.