Cambridge, Massachusetts (May 15, 2019): Galen Diligence, the cannabis industry’s leading investigative due diligence consultancy, is pleased to announce the launch of Galen Verify, a research guide that helps users conduct preliminary due diligence on cannabis businesses. The first edition of Galen Verify’s Cannabis License Clearinghouse provides guidance on accessing official information about licenses, ownership, enforcement actions, and applications in 15 U.S. states.
“Galen Verify was born out of our frustration with the difficulty of locating official information from state regulators about licensed cannabis businesses. Every state has a different way of presenting this information – if they make it public at all – and the lack of transparency doesn’t serve investors, businesses, researchers, or communities,” said Tanya Hoke, Managing Director of Galen Diligence.
“Verifying that a company actually controls the license it claims to have is a fundamental step in any kind of due diligence,” Hoke continued. “We’ve been working with investors and operators in the cannabis industry since 2015, and the question of who truly controls a license comes up often. With more cannabis companies operating in multiple states, the work of verifying these licenses keeps getting more complicated and time-consuming. Galen Verify is a short-cut directly to the information you need.”
There has been a wave of major acquisitions announced in the U.S. cannabis industry since late 2018. At the same time, regulators in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have begun taking more active steps to evaluate whether companies are exceeding the permitted number of licenses in their states. “Ownership structures in the cannabis industry were already complicated before this wave of consolidation,” Hoke explained. “Now, investors and regulators alike are trying to catch up with how to evaluate multi-state operators that are operating through dozens of LLCs and management contracts across the country. Galen Verify is a resource for people who want to know what public, official records actually have to say about who owns what in the industry right now.”
The first edition of Galen Verify’s Cannabis License Clearinghouse provides guidance on researching licenses, enforcement actions, and application data in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington. It also introduces Galen Verify's Transparency Ranking, which summarizes the current state of transparency in public records for the cannabis industry.
The Clearinghouse will be updated on a quarterly basis with additional states and the latest guidance on researching licenses in each state covered. It is available as a one-time purchase or as an ongoing subscription. In accordance with Galen Diligence’s commitment to integrity and transparency in the industry, discount subscriptions are available for journalists, non-profits, and certified equity/empowerment/minority-owned businesses.
About Galen Diligence
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Galen Diligence is the cannabis-industry focused practice of Belem Group, LLC, a woman-owned corporate investigations and risk management firm founded in 2013. The firm has been working with clients in the legal cannabis industry across the U.S. and Canada since 2015. For more information, please visit Galen Verify, Galen Diligence, or contact info@galendiligence.com.
