. Upon the closing of the transaction, Northern Lights and Safe Harbor will be led by Sundie Seefried, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Safe Harbor.
Established in 2015 by PCCU, Safe Harbor was formed to provide an unmet need – compliant access to banking and financial services for the rapidly growing U.S.
Despite this rapid growth, there remains limited access to reliable cannabis financing and banking solutions caused by conflicting state and federal laws, unclear banking guidelines, and a lack of “safe harbor policy” for financial institutions.
Safe Harbor addresses these challenges with its industry-leading financial services and commercial lending platform, providing its clients with increased safety and security through access to normalized banking and cash management.
With its low cost of capital advantage, underpinned by industry-leading compliance and underwriting, Safe Harbor offers competitive rates with flexible structure and collateral packages ushering in a new wave of commercial capital for the cannabis industry.
Safe Harbor is one of the only multi-state financial service organizations to successfully navigate the highly regulated cannabis banking industry, providing services that operators in other industries take for granted,” noted John Darwin and Joshua Mann, Co-CEOs of Northern Lights, both of whom will remain on Northern Lights’ Board of Directors upon completion of the transaction.
The acquisition by Northern Lights will allow Safe Harbor to advance its efforts to remain the premier cannabis financial services provider.
Through the SPAC transaction, we believe Safe Harbor will be well-positioned to expand its suite of financial services for our existing and new clients and continue to support the growth of the cannabis industry at a very high level.
Northern Lights will acquire Safe Harbor, a subsidiary of PCCU for a total of $185 million, of which $70 million will be paid in cash and $115 million in shares of Northern Lights Class A common stock.
The transaction is subject to approval by the stockholders of Northern Lights and other customary closing conditions.
Safe Harbor is one of the first financial services providers to offer reliable access to banking solutions for cannabis, hemp, CBD, and ancillary operators, making communities safer, driving growth in local economies, and fostering long-term partnerships.
and Canadian-based private equity firm with a team of industry experts that have managed operations from concept to public company exit, raised and deployed institutional capital, and held board seats on multiple private and public cannabis companies.
EF Hutton, division of Benchmark Investments, LLC, is serving as placement agent and capital markets adviser.