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“One could argue that the licence itself is one of the most valuable assets that one of these companies would have, but those licences are not transferable,” said Rich, who also worked on the Canopy deal. “Then you have the inventory, which most businesses would want to put up as collateral, but banks are not going to have any interest in taking cannabis itself as collateral.”

Likewise, many cannabis companies have considerable real estate assets. But as Sherman puts it:“There are not that many lenders in the space that want to buy a massive greenhouse out in the country that has way more security than anyone would ever need to grow tomatoes.”

“The real trigger here is going to be receivables, and as soon as we start seeing some cash flow and some receivables from the recreational market then I think you’ll start to see some debt deals,” Sherman said.

That means banks could begin to do debt deals with cannabis companies in the first or second quarter after recreational cannabis sales start on Oct.17.

If Canopy’s deal this week is anything to go by, some banks — most likely BMO — may begin dipping their toes into something that looks more like debt before then.