State legalization of cannabis has created a robust marijuana and cannabis ancillary industries as well as significant need for growth capital for many new as well as established companies in the industry. Investment opportunities in the industry through public markets are still relatively scarce, and to meet the demand, venture capital firms, family offices and private equity funds have raised and are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the industry. The panel will examine current trends and transactions in Cannabis, as well as growth and valuation trends, due diligence issues and potential risks and reward for private equity investors and companies seeking capital.
2. 1
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3. 2
MODERATOR: Alex Kasdan, Senior Managing Director, DelMorgan &
Co., brings more than twenty-five years of senior-level Wall Street advice to
middle market companies, entrepreneurs and institutional investors. He has
extensive experience in investment banking, corporate law and restructuring at
world’s leading firms, including Credit Suisse First Boston, O’Sullivan Graev &
Karabell LLP (now O'Melveny & Myers LLP), Battle Fowler LLP (now Paul
Hastings LLP) and Schlumberger Ltd., and as a founding partner of
Convergence Capital Partners. Alex has worked on more than 100 domestic and
cross-border transactions in North America, Europe and Africa.
Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governance and Transactions LLC, an advisory firm
established in 2003 by Mr. James L. Gunderson, former Secretary and General
Counsel of Schlumberger Limited, to assist boards, management and owners
with corporate governance, compliance, structuring and strategic transactions.
Alex is a frequent moderator and an interviewer at Expert Webcast roundtable
discussions attracting business leaders and leading professionals from around
the world.
Alex graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College with a B.A. degree
in Economics and Italian and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during his junior
year. In addition, he holds a J.D. degree from Columbia University Law School
and has studied at the University of Florence in Italy.
100 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 750
Santa Monica, CA 90401
+1 310 980 1718 mobile
+1 310 935 3826 office
ak@delmorganco.com
www.delmorganco.com
4. 3
Panelist: Eric P. Berlin is a partner at Dentons US LLP and is one of the
nation’s leading cannabis law authorities, advocating full-time for clients in, or
impacted by, the state-legal cannabis industries and tensions with federal law. With
more than two decades of courtroom and jury trial experience in high-stakes
matters, Eric is ideally suited to counsel companies in this fast-growing industry on
how best to achieve their business objectives while avoiding the legal risks of
operating in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment brimming with tension
between federal and state law.
Current clients include large publicly traded companies selling products or services
into the cannabis industry, companies involved in financing the industry, vaporizer
manufacturers, health care institutions, testing labs, cultivators, processors, and a
company operating dispensaries in several states. Eric is a member of the Health
Care group and works with colleagues in other practices to provide counseling and
compliance advice on numerous other laws applicable to these evolving businesses.
Eric has also provided government advocacy services at the state level. He worked
with members of the Illinois and Ohio legislatures to draft and get passed bills
creating medical marijuana dispensaries. He has represented large, publicly traded
companies that sell products or services to the cannabis industry, companies
involved in financing the industry, vaporizer manufacturers, testing labs, cultivators
and processors, and dispensary operators.
Eric holds a JD, cum laude, Order of the Coif, from University of Wisconsin at
Madison and a BA with high honors from Dartmouth College.
+1 (312) 876-2515
eric.berlin@dentons.com
www.dentons.com
233 South Wacker Drive
Suite 5900
Chicago Illinois 60606-6361
United States
5. 4
Panelist: Elaine Carey is a Managing Director at FTI Consulting and splits her time
between Los Angeles and the Bay area. She has served as an advisor and problem solver to
senior executives of Fortune 100 corporations and law firms for more than 30 years, overseeing
clients’ most complex and sensitive problems around the globe involving integrity, political,
security, operational and reputational risks. Elaine co-leads FTI Consulting’s Cannabis
practice.
Elaine’s expertise includes due diligence, fraud, business intelligence, FCPA, anti-money
laundering compliance and investigations, cannabis compliance, mining, Latin America, asset
tracing, intellectual property theft and supply chain issues. She has helped corporations identify
and work through thorny reputational issues such as environmental, health and safety as well as
labor practice issues including slave labor and trafficking.
Elaine has managed a broad range of complex matters including anti-corruption investigations
in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Elaine led all investigative work in North America
for Control Risks for more than 11 years. Prior to joining Control Risks, Elaine was a Director
with PricewaterhouseCoopers Investigations. Elaine also served as Managing Director for Kroll
Associates in Southern California.
Early in her career, Elaine was an investigative journalist, reporting from more than 30
countries on political, economic, business and social developments. Elaine established an office
in Moscow for Cox Newspapers in 1988 and spent five years chronicling the end of the Soviet
Union under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Prior to that, she lived in Mexico City
covering Latin America and Beirut covering the Middle East.
Elaine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Grinnell College, and was a
mid-career fellow at the Harvard University Russian Research Center. She is a Certified Fraud
Examiner (CFE) and Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS).
350 S. Grand Avenue
Suite 3000
Los Angeles CA 90071
50 California Street
Suite 1900
San Francisco, CA 94111
+1 213 452 6324 T
+1 415 283 4265 T
+1 213 359 5306 M
elaine.carey@fticonsulting.com
www.fticonsulting.com
6. 5
Panelist: Sturges Karban, CEO of ManifestSeven, a fully integrated omnichannel
platform for legal cannabis has more than 18 years of experience across capital markets,
investment banking, asset management, and high-growth operations
.
He joined the Company in 2014 as Chief Investment Officer, and in 2017, was appointed
Chief Executive Officer. In that time, he’s become the public face of ManifestSeven,
having been featured in the Wall St Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, Boston Globe, the Los
Angeles Business Journal and numerous other US and international media outlets.
After graduating from Harvard University in 2000, Mr. Karban began his career in
investment banking at Robertson Stephens and Jefferies & Company.
In 2004, he co-founded KarEd, a residential real estate development company, which
sold its portfolio in 2006, and that same year, Mr. Karban assumed the role of Chief
Operating Officer and Director for Cutting Edge Music Services, a leading provider of
music services and financing solutions to the independent film and television
marketplace. He was also instrumental in structuring a portfolio of businesses that invest
in the music publishing and master recording rights for tracks used in feature films and
television programs. This group of entities presently manages more than US$100 million
in intellectual property assets.
In 2011, Mr. Karban co-founded Meridian Advisors, a boutique consultancy based in Los
Angeles, New York, and London, which advises companies in a variety of industries
across a host of strategic and financial matters. During this time, Mr. Karban also acted
as Executive Vice President of Finance for Caldera Holdings, a holding company formed
to acquire distressed gold mining operations in the U.S.
+1.833.654.2462
skarban@manifest7.com
www.manifest7.com
5800 S Eastern Ave
Suite 300
Commerce, CA 90040
7. 6
Speaker: Vanita K. Spaulding, MBA, CFA, ASA is Cannabis Practice
Leader and Managing Director, Valuation at Singer Lewak LLP,
providing valuation services to local, national and multinational corporations,
private equity firms, attorneys, not-for-profit institutions, fiduciaries and
individuals. Vanita is a is a recognized cannabis industry valuation expert.
She has provided professional business valuation and related financial
advisory services full-time since 1982, has provided and/or managed over
1,500 valuation engagements involving companies ranging in size from small
closely held companies with under $1 million in revenue to multinational,
publicly traded companies with revenues in the tens of billions, in virtually
all major industries. The purposes for such engagements include financial
reporting and compliance, mergers and acquisitions (including fairness and
solvency opinions), corporate restructuring, leveraged buyouts, equity
investments in early stage companies, estate and tax planning, employee
stock ownership plan (ESOP) transactions, and litigation support. She has
provided expert testimony in various courts in California as well as providing
testimony before members of the American Arbitration Association.
Ms. Spaulding holds a Bachelor of Science degree and an M.B.A. with an
emphasis in finance from California State University, Northridge. She is an
Accredited Senior Appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers in
Business Valuation and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
21550 Oxnard St
Suite 1000
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
C: 310.991.0960
O: 818.999.3924
vspaulding@singerlewak.com
8. 7
MAJOR TOPICS
• Cannabis market overview
• Public policy and regulations
• Private equity investment parameters
• Interest by sector
• Valuations
• Investor due diligence
• Funding – equity and debt markets
• Nasdaq listings – Greenlane and MJ Freeway
• Supply logistics and scale
• Banking and cash handling
• Current vape health issues and impact on the industry
• Antitrust issues
• Industry outlook