Charlatans and Fraudsters

Brendan Kennedy of Privateer Holdings had this to say to The Midas Letter’s James West in an interview a while back:

James West: Okay. What do you think of all these companies that are publicly traded raising money from retail and institutional investors who have yet to gain a license even though they might have an application in…what do you think their chances are of actually getting up and running and making money and getting a license. I mean there’s over 800 license applications in
there now…how many of those do you see actually getting a license in 2014?

Brendan Kennedy: Oh…in 2014…it’s certainly less than 30. All the public companies that I’ve talked to – they have no idea what they’re doing. Most of them are run by charlatans and fraudsters.

James West: Wow. Tell me what you really think….

Brendan Kennedy: Yeah. Well we’ve been looking at this industry for four years. Been to hundreds of dispensaries around the world, I’ve been to 4 or 500 grows around the world. For some penny stock mining company to suddenly decide that they’re going to add cannabis into the description of their company and own this industry is absolutely absurd. This is a complicated industry. It’s more complicated than anyone realizes. It’s complicated from a...you know, we go moral, political, social, regulatory perspective, and you can’t just jump into this industry and start making money from day 1. I don’t understand why any company would want to go public in this industry. It just does not make sense.

Disclosure: I have no economic interest in any firm mentioned in this post.