US: MedMen aims to raise $250 million in investment fund

A private equity fund co-chaired by a former BlackRock Inc. executive is planning to raise $250 million to invest in marijuana businesses in places such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and midtown Manhattan.

MedMen Opportunity Fund II, which looks for companies that cultivate, manufacture and sell pot, is setting up operations in the nation’s most popular tourist destinations. The effort is timely because New York recently added chronic pain as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana, California’s recreational market opens in 2018 and Nevada legalized adult weed use in July. Canada plans to legalize the plant nationally by July.

Reaching MedMen’s quarter-billion-dollar goal would mark one of the biggest investments yet in the nascent marijuana sector, which is still shunned by financial institutions skittish about a product that’s illegal under federal law. The industry is barred from most traditional banking services and faces political uncertainty from the Trump administration, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions is an ardent foe of state-sanctioned pot.

Read more at Bloomberg (Jennifer Kaplan)