We’ve written regularly about the plight of cannabis businesses not being able to secure traditional lending (and other financial services) from major, federally regulated institutions. In this post, we dive deeper into a promising federally regulated equity offering as an alternative funding means: Rule 504 under Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Regulation D.
Why aren’t banks more involved?
Despite adoption by a growing number of states, marijuana is (still) federally illegal. Federal laws preventing money laundering and other financial crimes create regulatory hurdles so significant for most major banks to service cannabis businesses that it just isn’t worth the compliance burden.
While state-regulated credit unions have stepped up to fill some of the void, institutional lending remains largely unattainable. The remainder of the void is filled by private lenders from the private equity and venture capital crowd and individual investors that require often significant collateral and interest rates that reflect the ongoing marijuana industry risk.
Raising money through private placements
When a cannabis company wants to raise capital through a private placement (sale) of securities, it subjects itself to federal and potentially state securities laws, regardless of whether they are raising through debt, equity, convertible debt, or something more creative
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