Pelorus Capital Group launches growth equity strategy

Pelorus Capital Group has launched the Pelorus Growth Fund, a first-of-its-kind equity-focused investment fund structured and designed specifically to invest in and build industry-leading cannabis operating businesses equipped to capitalize on the consolidation wave in the industry.

The Growth Fund, which is an offering up to $1 billion in capital, will build off Pelorus' experience lending to businesses in the cannabis industry and complement the existing Pelorus Fund, a private mortgage real estate investment trust structure offering a range of innovative transactional solutions to address the diverse financing needs of real estate investors and portfolio managers. Pelorus has seeded the Growth Fund with a portfolio of cannabis-use business assets secured through and spun out of current Pelorus real-estate investments. The fund will have a mandate of investing in and building industry leading cannabis operating businesses and developing market-leading platforms capable of capturing the current wave of consolidation in the industry. As part of this, Pelorus will partner with best-in-class management teams to both run and repurpose assets, enabling it to pursue additional value-add and operational turnaround opportunities.

"The launch of the Growth Fund signals the next stage of both our evolution at Pelorus and the evolution of the wider cannabis industry," said Dan Leimel, Chief Executive Officer at Pelorus. "As we have invested in and partnered with businesses in the cannabis sector over the past ten years, we have witnessed firsthand how even the best companies with leading assets and management teams have been severely impacted by broader market compression. Despite these conditions, best-in-class companies in the sector have and will continue to find ways of operating profitably and growing sustainably. Looking ahead, we believe we are entering a generational opportunity in the market's maturation, driven by a number of factors including [the potential / recent Federal rescheduling and] significant debt maturities due in the industry in 2026. Our deep experience as a lender in this space provides us the insights and understanding to capitalize on that opportunity, positioning us to identify the strongest businesses and actively reposition underperforming assets for the benefit of our LPs."