KEY Investment Partners announced they are establishing a new kind of cannabis credit offering. The aim of this new credit offering is to provide growth capital to cannabis businesses from a trusted source with in-depth knowledge of the industry. In addition, KEY announced the closing of a senior credit facility with The Dispensary, an Illinois cannabis operator seeking to grow its retail footprint and expand its craft cultivation capabilities.
About KEY Investment Partners
Founded in 2018, KEY Investment Partners LLC takes a systematic approach to investment analysis and due diligence, with the goal of connecting investors to the most attractive private cannabis opportunities. KEY is a Denver-based asset manager with over $50 million in assets under management (AUM).
Leveraging over 50 years of institutional experience, KEY sources unique opportunities in high-growth, market-leading cannabis companies that are operated by experienced management teams. The firm uses time-tested methods to provide institutional quality investment management and client services to those looking to capitalize on the rapid growth of the U.S. cannabis market. This press release is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States or elsewhere.
About The Dispensary
Co-founded in 2015 by Dan Dolan and his son Kevin, The Dispensary is a medical and adult-use cannabis operator in Illinois. The company currently has one medical/adult-use dispensary located in Fulton and two solely adult-use dispensaries in East Dubuque and Champaign. The Dispensary sells cannabis products over all of the core product categories like flowers, pre-rolls, concentrates, vapes, edibles, topicals, and tinctures.
“The Dolan family has become one of the strongest cannabis operators in the state of Illinois, and KEY could not be more excited to finance its next phase of growth,” said Jordan Youkilis, founding partner at KEY Investment Partners. “Plus, it feels great to launch our new credit offering with such a dedicated and skilled team of operators.”
“This credit facility will support the continued expansion of The Dispensary’s retail footprint, as well as the completion of our craft cultivation,” said Kevin Dolan. “We appreciate the opportunity to work with KEY Investment Partners and to benefit from synergies across their platform of portfolio companies.”
The closing with The Dispensary coincides with the launch of KEY’s cannabis credit platform, expanding their financing offerings to include both private equity and private credit. KEY’s credit strategy will focus on senior secured loans to cash flow-positive cannabis businesses run by top-tier management teams.
Teaming Up
The partnership between KEY and The Dispensary looks to capitalize on the financial boon of the legalization of cannabis in recent years. By turning the sale and consumption of cannabis into a legitimate market even beyond the medical field, extending to sheer recreational use as well, cannabis has become an industry unto itself that has had untold benefits upon the labor and economies of local areas. In this way, KEY’s new credit offering looks to further benefit the economy by helping even more small cannabis-selling stores to get their feet properly beneath them.
“The Dispensary’s management team is an ideal partner for our expansion into the credit markets,” said KEY Founding Partner Pete Karabas. “We believe the cannabis credit markets today are ripe for attractive investment, as capital in the sector remains limited while the expected rescheduling of cannabis dramatically improves the cash flow profile of our target borrowers.”
“As the capital markets have tightened in cannabis over the past several years, we’ve recognized attractive risk-adjusted returns in the credit markets,” said KEY Founding Partner Tiby Erdely. “We are excited to expand our product offering to match lenders and investors with their optimal investment securities across debt and equity.”
