How this experienced Wall Street investor himself became a success story of billions of dollars in cannabis

by druginc

How this veteran Wall Street investor himself became a multi-billion dollar cannabis success story

The CEO Kevin Murphy cashed in big when he agreed to his cannabis company, Acreage Holdings, to sell for billions. But he says that there are still plenty of opportunities and opportunities.

The average cannabis user may not have heard of Kevin Murphy, but they have certainly seen the headlines he made as CEO of Acreage Holdings, America's largest vertically integrated, multi-state cannabis company.

Last year, he had former Speaker and Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner join his board of directors - despite Boehner claiming to be "firmly against the legalization of marijuana."

When the Murphy company produced a Super Bowl advertisement for cannabis, the CBS television network suddenly (to everyone's surprise) rejected their advertisement. Acreage Holdings turned this moment into PR gold. Director Kevin Murphy then made headlines again when he sold Acreage to competitor Canopy Growth

Then Murphy's company produced a Super Bowl ad for cannabis; When CBS rejected it (to everyone's surprise), Acreage turned the moment into PR gold. And in April, Murphy made headlines again when he sold Acreage to Canopy Growth for $ 3,4 billion (over $ 3 billion).

It all went very well as a former investor in Wall Street, who first got involved with cannabis in Maine eight years ago. Acreage Holdings' portfolio includes the cultivation, processing and delivery to pharmacies.

While he is now one of the most important players in the industry, he firmly believes there is still plenty of room for small businesses with big ideas. Some questions answered by Kevin Murphy.

You have earned a lot of money on Wall Street. Why would you join the cannabis industry?

An important investment principle that I learned early on: do what everyone else does and am right. In 2011 not many people were involved with cannabis, and to be honest, I was a little cynical at the start. I felt very comfortable with Chardonnay and Cabernet, but cannabis was not my thing. But I learned two things.

Firstly, the operational leverage in the company was quite interesting and secondly, there was considerable medicinal value in the cannabis plant. I was quite impressed by all the different ailments that cannabis knows how to handle. Being a financer on Wall Street was economically prosperous, but there is no greater joy than being able to help people to help themselves further with cannabis and get rid of all kinds of ailments.

You turned out to be pretty good with cannabis in 2011. Was that a deliberate guess, instinct, or a little of both?

I thought: how many cannabis users in the world want legal, regulated access to space?

Couple that with the first state east of the Mississippi to get involved (Maine), and I thought if this state gets it right, every other state will do its best to get it right too, and that gives me a first-mover advantage.

I saw that as the macro trend - social buy-in for cannabis. Have I ever thought that 95 percent of the country would believe cannabis should be available for medical use and 66 percent believe it should be available for adult recreational use? I never would have thought that.

There is a lot of fear in the cannabis world that the big companies are entering the market and squeezing the little man out. Is that true?

We started as a small company and we are very happy to see that we grow, through timing, a good partnership and loyal employees.

Does this mean that we exclude everyone? No definitely not. We are going to use that bandwidth and that benefit and involve more people. I would say to all those people who want to work in the business: do you feel that you really know how to add something and have a real input? Come see us, because we are all ears. We embrace that mentality and we are always looking for thousands of people like that.

What is the most essential part of running a successful business?

I put our employees first, first. If we can't take care of them, we're in big trouble. Our customers come second. We want to take care of our customers, but if we don't have compassionate employees, we will have a very difficult time reaching point number two. But if we get number one and two right, we will have some very happy shareholders, that's number three.

What principle do you live by as a manager?

"Givers" win and "takers" lose. In fact, if you can do business and commit yourself to giving the best you can give and really have other people's interests in mind, I think it will eventually come back in returns at the end of the day.

Your best advice for cannabis entrepreneurs?

Be an excellent team player, know your place and degree of experience. Don't try to be something that you are not. For example, if you need knee surgery, don't call me. I mean, I'll try, but I'm probably not your best guy, after all, I'm not a doctor.

Know exactly what your skills are and play to it. Can throw a great quarterback and catch a great receiver. If you confuse it, you lose a lot of money.

Read more on Investin Cannabis (EN, source) and GreenEntrepreneur (EN, source)

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