Blank Rome’s Tenth Annual State of the Cannabis Industry Conference is just around the corner. The 2026 conference will take place on Monday, October 26, 2026, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, with live stream available. For ten years now, the conference has brought together operators, investors, advisors, regulators, and counsel from across the cannabis industry to talk about the issues shaping the market. This year’s program comes at a pivotal time. The industry is dealing with ongoing financial strain, a changing federal regulatory picture, and a new round of consolidation.
About the Panel: Distressed M&A: Consolidation, Restructuring, and Strategic Opportunity
Many cannabis operators are struggling with oversupply-driven price compression, high-rate debt and sale-leaseback structures that are now coming due, and the cash tax drag of Section 280E. As a result, distressed transactions have become a central feature of the market. This panel will look at how buyers, sellers, lenders, advisors, and fiduciaries handle distressed cannabis deals. Topics will include how to separate a fixable business from a broken one, how rescheduling to Schedule III is changing deal math, how receivership compares with Article 9 and UCC sale processes, and what distressed companies can do now to maximize value.
Meet the Panelists
Brian Schinderle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, SSC Advisors. Brian co-founded SSC Advisors in 2020. The firm advises cannabis companies on strategy, M&A, valuation, restructuring, debt placements, and exit strategies, and its clients include Cresco Labs, Curaleaf, and Ascend Wellness. Before SSC, he served as EVP – Finance of Grassroots Cannabis, where he raised more than $200 million in capital. He was also directly involved in Grassroots’ roughly $850 million merger with Curaleaf, which at the time was the largest M&A transaction in the history of U.S. cannabis. Brian spent more than 20 years in investment management, including roughly nine years as a portfolio manager at Balyasny Asset Management and managing distressed investing funds at PPM America.
Tiffany P. Liff, EVP, Corporate Development, Ascend Wellness Holdings. Tiffany is a leveraged finance and M&A executive with more than 20 years of institutional deal-making experience. At Ascend Wellness Holdings, a leading multi-state operator, she leads M&A across the company’s retail and cultivation portfolio. She rose to Managing Director at Wachovia Capital Finance, where she originated and syndicated some of the largest leveraged loans in the distressed debt market. She later founded TPL Analytics and spent five years at the cannabis-focused private equity fund Entourage Effect Capital.
Tyson Macdonald, CFO, Vireo Growth Inc. Tyson is the CFO of Vireo Growth Inc. He previously served as Managing Partner at TrueRise Capital, CEO of Nova Net Lease REIT, CFO of Cloud Cannabis, and EVP of Corporate Development at Acreage Holdings. He brings more than 20 years of strategy and investment experience with both start-ups and mature public companies.
Jacques Santucci, President and Founder, Opus Consulting. Jacques leads a full-service business advisory firm that supports cannabis companies from start-up through turnaround. He has more than 20 years of experience in turnarounds and restructurings. He helped pioneer the cannabis receivership process: he oversaw the first Massachusetts cannabis receivership and has served as receiver for The Source in Nevada, for Glorious Cannabis in Michigan and Massachusetts, and for 4Front Ventures. He and his team have advised more than 100 cannabis ventures.
Thomas Sheffield, EVP & ProEx Leader, HUB East, HUB International. Tom leads a team of financial lines insurance experts. He has developed risk solutions in emerging areas such as cannabis, digital assets, and artificial intelligence. He has more than 25 years of leadership experience in insurance and liability, and he holds a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.
A Sneak Peek at the Panel Discussion
Good companies with bad balance sheets? Not usually. Brian notes that in cannabis “it is almost always the case that we find ‘bad companies with bad balance sheets,'” so the key question is whether the operational problems are solvable and the core assets are solid. Tiffany asks whether there is “a specific, correctable cause” or a business losing money even on a clean, debt-free basis: “The former is a turnaround; the latter is a liquidation.”
Leverage kills. Brian puts it bluntly: “Leverage kills – full stop,” counting high-cost sale-leasebacks and extended payables as key culprits. Tiffany points to high-rate debt from the 2019–2021 capital crunch now maturing into a tighter refinancing environment.
Receivership vs. Article 9: expect a lively debate. Brian favors Article 9 foreclosures and UCC sales over receivership, where “the rules are simpler, cleaner, less costly, and you remain in control.” Tiffany sees receivership as attractive when it lets a buyer “acquire clean of legacy liabilities” and, with Jacques, a court-appointed receiver, also on the panel, attendees should hear several perspectives.
Rescheduling and the road to bankruptcy court. Brian notes that he has already seen “a very meaningful pick-up” in M&A activity ahead of Schedule III and is excited about potential Chapter 11 access, which would open up the “full tool kit.” Tiffany expects federal legalization to change “who’s at the table” as strategic buyers from adjacent industries enter the market and could change the buyers in today’s market to being acquisition targets themselves.
What distressed companies can do now. Brian advises companies to “use the existence of distress as a catalyst” to tighten cost controls and settle with unsecured creditors. Tiffany stresses clean financials and a competitive process because “a buyer’s biggest discount is for diligence risk and surprise, not for the distress itself.”
Join Us
We are excited to host the Tenth Annual State of the Cannabis Industry Conference and to see our cannabis network and community come together again. Please join us for a candid and practical discussions regarding the cannabis industry, as well as networking opportunities with top professionals from across the industry. We look forward to seeing you there.
For more information about the conference, including the full agenda and speaker lineup, visit the event page here. Tickets are available for purchase on Eventbrite here.