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Bank of Montreal is open to more deals with cannabis companies, as long as those firms can get past “traps” in the lender’s due-diligence process, Chief Executive Officer Darryl White said.

The Toronto-based lender became the first major Canadian bank to arrange a stock sale for a firm tied to pot this month when its capital-markets unit helped lead a $200.7-million (US$163-million) equity financing for Canopy Growth Corp. White, in his first public comments about the deal, called the marijuana producer “a bona-fide business operating within the boundaries of the law.”

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“This is a transaction for a good client who is focused on medical marijuana in Canada with no nexus to the United States,” White, 46, said Thursday in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We put it through the same due diligence process we would any other underwriting.”