Credit union members in Colorado launched a public company 29 months ago to help with financing for cannabis companies.
Safe Harbor Financial’s stock, worth $10.93 a share before its September 2022 launch, was trading Monday at 49 cents as the company announced it would skip two payments it promised those members of Partner Colorado Credit Union of Arvada, Colo. ($623.2 million in assets, 33,318 members).
Safe Harbor told its shareholders Monday that the credit union, which has been its majority shareholder, “has agreed to temporarily pause receipt of principal payments due in February and March 2025, while the parties engage in discussions regarding a potential modification” of its Senior Secured Promissory Note.
That note was the product of a concession by the credit union on March 29, 2023, in which members settled and restructured $56.9 million owed to them in exchange for the current, $14.5 million note, which was to be repaid over five years at 4.25%, or about $268,679 per month.
If the first payment was in April 2023, the company would still owe the credit union about $9.6 million.
“The Company is working towards finalizing a modification within the two-month period, although there is no assurance that an agreement will be reached,” Safe Harbor said.
CU Times is awaiting comment from Partner Colorado Credit Union.
The announcement came five days after Sundie Seefried, the former Partner Colorado Credit Union CEO who left the credit union to lead the new company, announced she will be resigning as CEO in a month.
Safe Harbor Financial said Seefried became co-CEO Jan. 29 beside Terry Mendez, 49, who will be appointed CEO upon Seefried’s retirement. Seefried, whose age was listed at 62 in the company’s April 2024 proxy, will remain on the company’s board.
Seefried, who served as president/CEO of Partner Colorado from 2001 to 2021, formed Safe Harbor Private Banking in 2015 as a compliance-based banking program of the credit union serving the cannabis industry. Two years later, she created a complementary CUSO called Safe Harbor Services, LLC to guide credit unions and banks through the complicated processes of creating and maintaining a cannabis banking service within the bounds of laws and regulations.
She stepped down as the credit union’s CEO in June 2021 to lead the company that preceded Safe Harbor.
Partner Colorado spun off its cannabis CUSO to a public company called Safe Harbor Financial (SHFS) in September 2022, and the credit union recorded a gain of about $50 million on the deal in its fourth quarter and owned just over half its stock.
However, Partner Colorado lost $64 million in 2023, or a -9.63% return on average assets, most of which it attributed to the spinoff.
NCUA reports showed Partner Colorado Credit Union lost $353,050 in 2024's fourth quarter, reducing its income for the full year to $1.64 million, or a 0.64% return on average assets. Its net worth ratio stood at 13.22% as of Dec. 31, up from 12.78% a year earlier.
Safe Harbor lost $35.1 million in 2022 and $17.3 million in 2023. It earned $3.3 million in the first nine months of 2024.
Its stock reached a low of 31 cents in November.
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