Marijuana Business Magazine - March 2018

MONEY MATTERS ¬nvesting & Finance ¬nsight A fter earning his law and business degrees from Arizona State University, Al Foreman took a conventional route into the financial world. Foreman first joined Citigroup as a management associate and ultimately co-founded the Professional Sports Group. He then spent time at a financial services software com- pany before joining J.P. Morgan, where he became a senior investment banker. In 2014, Foreman co-founded Tuatara Capital, a cannabis-focused private equity firm where he is responsible for formulating macro-investment strategy and structur- ing the firm’s investment portfolio. New York-based Tuatara closed a $93 million raise in August 2016 – a record in the marijuana industry at the time – and since then has focused on deploying that capital. To date, the firm has raised $108 million. What is the best cannabis investment you’ve made? Given the breadth of potential outcomes for how the cannabis industry could unfold, I think it would be unwise for me to try and single out any one investment as the best. But the common characteristics that Tuatara seeks in our investments – scalable concepts, leading scientific methods, brands with broad consumer appeal and strong management teams – we think are germane to every successful cannabis investment. What is the biggest cannabis investment mistake you’ve made, and how did you correct it? In our early days of the capital planning process with our portfolio companies we underestimated upfront capital requirements. It takes having some experience in the can- nabis industry to really understand the uniqueness of operating in such a complex busi- ness environment where you can’t control exigent factors – state regulatory agencies, Q&A with the co-founder and chief investment officer of Tuatara Capital Al Foreman 12 • Marijuana Business Magazine • March 2018