Report
Every quarter, institutions managing over $100 million in qualifying assets must file 13F reports with the SEC, disclosing their positions and what has changed since the previous quarter. These filings are due within 45 days of quarter-end.
This quarter’s filings included some eyebrow-raising entries that might be the first tea leaves suggesting institutional investors are finally dipping their toes into publicly traded cannabis companies.
Cantor Fitzgerald disclosed a nearly $40 million position in Trulieve (NYSE: TRUL). Cantor Fitzgerald’s former CEO, Howard Lutnick, is now the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and his two sons currently run the firm.
Another notable filing came from Wellington, the blue-chip investment firm, which disclosed a new position in Glass House (NYSE: GLAS). Wellington is generally known as a long-term, fundamentals-driven investor.
But the most surprising news by far was that Citadel invested in Village Farms (NASDAQ: VFF). Why was this surprising? In 2024, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin personally donated $15 million to the campaign that fought to defeat Florida’s adult-use cannabis initiative, and he even wrote an op-ed opposing legalization. A direct investment bearing his firm’s name, and by extension his signature, doesn’t happen without his approval, or at least his tacit sign-off.
It’s worth noting that all these positions are tiny in the grand scheme of institutional finance. Still, for the cannabis industry, this is genuinely new territory.
Cannabis has struggled through a brutal four-year bear market, and capital remains scarce. But for the first time, we’re starting to see institutions, blue-chip institutions, no less, begin to invest. This is changing thanks to the first meaningful federal reform the industry has ever seen, and because a few cannabis companies are now trading on U.S. exchanges.
The institutional barbarians may not be banging down the gates just yet, but they clearly appear to be checking things out with starter positions. As the industry awaits full adult-use rescheduling, this initial group of investors could be the start of something much bigger. If Ken Griffin’s Citadel is willing to invest, it may not be long before every institution follows suit.
