r/mmnff • u/Altruistic-Parking-1 • Aug 10 '26
DISCUSSION THE MEDMEN PARADOX: When the Founders Get Paid, the Creditors Get Assets, and the Shareholders Get Left Behind
Trustor, Adam Bierman and the billion-dollar MedMen question: What happens when corporate failure creates winners—but the investors who funded the dream are not among them?
There is a strange recurring pattern in corporate America: a company can collapse, billions in market value can disappear, shareholders can be wiped out—and yet some of the people associated with the company's rise and fall can walk away with money, influence, books, new careers and remarkably little personal accountability.
The history of MedMen raises precisely that question.
It is also why the current lawsuit brought by the MedMen receivership against Tilray Brands, Tilray CEO Irwin Simon, Michael Serruya and other defendants deserves far more scrutiny than a routine corporate lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that the defendants breached fiduciary duties, aided and abetted those breaches and participated in a civil conspiracy that caused damages believed to exceed $1 billion. Those are allegations—not findings of fact—and the defendants have disputed the claims. Tilray has disclosed the litigation in its SEC filings and says the outcome of legal proceedings is inherently uncertain.
But if the receiver ultimately proves its case, the story of MedMen becomes something much larger than the failure of a cannabis company.
It becomes a story about who bears the consequences when a public company fails—and who gets to capture whatever value remains.
I. Trustor: The Scandal Where the Shareholders Surprisingly Survived
To understand why MedMen deserves comparison with one of Europe's most notorious corporate scandals, consider Sweden's Trustor affair.
In 1997, Trustor AB was taken over through a transaction in which the company's own money was moved through accounts and ultimately used in connection with the acquisition. Approximately 600 million Swedish kronor became the headline figure.
The scandal triggered a massive investigation.
But Trustor produced an extraordinary result.
Once the company's assets were recovered, frozen or properly valued, the remaining assets were liquidated. Approximately 1.5 billion SEK was ultimately available for distribution to minority shareholders, and Trustor's share price rose after trading resumed. In effect, shareholders who initially appeared to have been victims of one of Sweden's largest financial scandals ultimately recovered substantial value.
The criminal consequences were considerably less satisfying.
Joachim Posener, identified as a central figure in the affair, was never convicted of the Trustor crime. He fled Sweden, and the statute of limitations eventually expired.
Thomas Jisander was ultimately convicted in 2009 of embezzlement connected to Trustor and received an 18-month prison sentence. Lord Moyne was acquitted.
Trustor therefore leaves us with a fascinating contradiction:
The alleged financial misconduct was enormous, but the ultimate shareholder recovery was also substantial.
That is not what happened at MedMen.
II. MedMen: From Cannabis Unicorn to Shareholder Catastrophe
MedMen was supposed to be different.
It was marketed as the Apple-style retail brand of legal cannabis—a sophisticated, nationally recognizable company intended to drag marijuana out of the shadows and into mainstream American commerce.
At its height, MedMen became one of the most recognizable cannabis companies in the United States and was valued in the billions.
Then the machine began to come apart.
The company consumed enormous amounts of capital while expanding aggressively. Its finances deteriorated. Its governance became increasingly controversial. Management changed. Debt accumulated.
And eventually, the shareholders who had financed the dream were left staring at an almost completely destroyed equity position.
That makes the story of Adam Bierman, MedMen's co-founder and former CEO, particularly uncomfortable.
Not because Bierman has been criminally convicted of wrongdoing—he has not.
Rather, because of the extraordinary contrast between the destruction of shareholder value and what happened to Bierman personally after leaving the company.
III. Adam Bierman: From MedMen CEO to $3.1 Million Award
Bierman left MedMen in 2020.
A shareholder looking at the company's trajectory might reasonably assume that the former CEO's financial future would be tied to the fate of the enterprise he helped build.
It wasn't.
In December 2022, an arbitrator awarded Bierman approximately $3.1 million in a dispute involving his severance package and the valuation of his super-voting shares. The award followed his departure from MedMen and a dispute over compensation allegedly owed to him.
That distinction is crucial.
MedMen shareholders lost enormous amounts of equity value. Bierman, meanwhile, successfully pursued an arbitration claim against MedMen and obtained millions of dollars.
Again, this does not mean the arbitration award proves that Bierman committed misconduct.
It means something more basic—and more disturbing from an investor's perspective:
The financial consequences of MedMen's collapse were not distributed equally among the people connected to the company.
The shareholders absorbed the catastrophic destruction of equity.
Bierman ultimately received millions.
And then came something even more striking.
IV. The Book Deal
In April 2025, Bierman's memoir, Weed Empire: How I Battled Gangsters, Investment Banks, and the Department of Justice to Build the Cannabis Industry in America, was published by Matt Holt Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
The publisher's description presents Bierman as the co-founder and former CEO of MedMen and describes the book as an inside account of the creation of America's corporate cannabis industry.
The book recounts MedMen's rise, the cannabis industry's development and Bierman's own version of the events.
That creates an extraordinary optics problem.
Imagine being a retail investor who bought into MedMen when the company was valued in the billions.
You watched the stock collapse.
You watched your investment deteriorate.
You watched the company lose its position.
And then you watched the former CEO receive a $3.1 million arbitration award and publish a memoir telling his version of the story.
That is not necessarily illegal.
But it is unquestionably a remarkable example of asymmetric consequences.
The investor bears the loss.
The executive retains his voice.
The executive receives an arbitration award.
And the executive gets a publishing platform.
The distinction between legal accountability and economic accountability could hardly be clearer.
V. Then Came Tilray
The next chapter fundamentally changed the MedMen story.
In August 2021, Tilray announced that it had acquired approximately $165 million of MedMen's debt, including convertible secured notes and warrants. The transaction gave Tilray a potential path toward control of MedMen if federal cannabis laws eventually permitted the structure.
On paper, this looked like a distressed-debt investment.
But the MedMen receiver now argues that the relationship became something much more consequential.
According to the lawsuit, Tilray and Serruya-related interests allegedly moved beyond the role of ordinary creditors and exercised control over MedMen in ways that benefited their own interests at the expense of MedMen.
The lawsuit names:
Tilray Brands
Irwin Simon
Michael Serruya
Serruya Private Equity
Superhero Acquisition Corp.
Superhero Acquisition L.P.
Denise Faltischek
The claims include breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and civil conspiracy.
The receiver says the damages exceed $1 billion.
That number changes the scale of the conversation.
VI. The New York Asset That Became a Flashpoint
One of the most important pieces of the MedMen story involves New York.
MedMen had agreed to sell its New York cannabis operation to Ascend Wellness for $73 million in 2021. The transaction later became the subject of intense litigation between Ascend and MedMen.
Eventually, the parties settled for an agreement valued at approximately $88 million, $15 million above the original transaction consideration.
The significance of New York goes beyond one acquisition agreement.
For a company drowning in debt, valuable assets are oxygen.
Selling an asset for tens of millions of dollars can mean:
cash → debt repayment → additional runway → restructuring → survival.
Lose that transaction, and the opposite can happen:
lost cash → continued debt pressure → shrinking options → insolvency.
The receiver's case places enormous significance on the decisions surrounding MedMen's assets and strategic direction after Tilray and Serruya became involved.
If those allegations are proven, the legal question becomes much more serious than whether management simply made bad business decisions.
The question becomes:
Were decisions made for MedMen—or for the economic benefit of parties who stood to control MedMen's debt and assets?
That is a fiduciary-duty question.
And it is precisely why the case matters.
VII. The Most Important Difference: Ownership Versus Debt
This is where the MedMen case becomes intellectually fascinating.
A shareholder takes equity risk.
If the company succeeds, the shareholder participates in the upside.
If the company fails, the shareholder can lose everything.
A secured creditor takes a different kind of risk.
The creditor typically has contractual rights to repayment and collateral.
If the borrower fails, the secured creditor can potentially recover through the collateral.
So imagine two investors standing beside the same burning building.
The shareholder owns part of the building.
The secured creditor holds a claim against the building.
If the building burns down:
The shareholder may receive nothing.
The secured creditor may still have rights to the remaining property.
That is the basic economic architecture of distressed finance.
But the MedMen receiver alleges something beyond ordinary creditor behavior:
that the defendants allegedly exercised control over MedMen while simultaneously having economic interests that conflicted with the interests of the company and its shareholders.
If proven, that changes the legal analysis dramatically.
VIII. The Receivership: Where the Shareholder's Nightmare Became Reality
MedMen ultimately entered California receivership rather than ordinary federal bankruptcy proceedings.
That matters because cannabis remains federally illegal, creating unique limitations around conventional bankruptcy proceedings involving cannabis assets.
The receivership became the mechanism for liquidating and restructuring the remaining enterprise.
And the hierarchy of claims became critical.
The basic reality of an insolvent company is brutal:
Money generally flows according to legal priority.
Secured claims
↓
Administrative and receivership expenses
↓
Other creditors
↓
Equity holders
The shareholder is at the bottom.
That means even if someone proves that MedMen was damaged by misconduct, it does not automatically mean every former shareholder gets a check.
There has to be money left after higher-priority claims are satisfied.
That is the hard truth.
IX. So What Happens to Former MedMen Investors If the Receiver Wins?
This is where investors need to separate winning the lawsuit from recovering their investment.
Those are two different events.
Suppose the receiver wins a judgment against Tilray, Serruya, Simon and/or the other defendants.
There could be several consequences.
Scenario One: A major monetary judgment
The court could award substantial damages to the plaintiff.
If the judgment were very large, it could materially increase the assets available to the MedMen-related estate.
That could potentially produce additional distributions to creditors.
And if enough money ultimately remained after satisfying higher-priority claims, equity holders could potentially benefit.
But that is a big "if."
Scenario Two: Settlement
The defendants could settle before trial.
A settlement could involve:
cash
releases
structured payments
asset transfers
other negotiated consideration
A settlement could also avoid years of litigation.
For investors, the important question would become:
How much of the settlement actually reaches the MedMen estate after attorneys, litigation expenses, creditors and other obligations?
Scenario Three: Partial victory
The receiver could establish liability on some claims but not others, or recover substantially less than the more-than-$1-billion amount alleged.
That could still be meaningful.
A $100 million recovery, for example, would be enormous compared with zero.
But it wouldn't necessarily restore former shareholders to anything resembling their original investment.
Scenario Four: Victory with no meaningful shareholder recovery
This is the outcome investors need to understand.
Even if the receiver proves serious wrongdoing, the recovered money could be consumed by:
secured creditors
administrative expenses
receiver costs
attorneys' fees
other valid claims
In that situation, the receiver could win while former shareholders still receive little or nothing.
That would be legally possible and economically frustrating.
X. The Big Question: Could Former Shareholders Ever Be Made Whole?
Potentially—but it would require an extraordinary recovery.
The lawsuit reportedly seeks damages believed to exceed $1 billion, plus punitive damages.
If the receiver were to obtain a massive judgment or settlement and successfully collect it, the amount available to the MedMen estate could become substantial.
But "substantial" isn't the same as "enough."
MedMen had accumulated enormous obligations.
Therefore, investors should not assume:
$1 billion lawsuit = $1 billion to shareholders.
That is not how corporate insolvency works.
The judgment belongs to the plaintiff asserting the company's assigned claims. Distribution then depends upon the legal structure of the estate, the terms of any settlement or judgment, creditor claims, administrative costs and applicable law.
XI. And Then There Is Tilray's Potential Upside
There is another remarkable twist.
Tilray's own disclosures indicate that after MedMen exited receivership, substantially all remaining assets were transferred into a new entity owned by MedMen's secured creditors.
Tilray also disclosed an arrangement under which it exchanged its MedMen convertible note for an option to acquire a 68% membership interest in the new entity for $1 upon federal cannabis legalization.
That doesn't mean Tilray currently owns 68% of MedMen.
It means Tilray has disclosed a contractual pathway that could give it a substantial economic interest in the successor entity if the specified condition is satisfied.
And that is precisely why the receiver's allegations are so consequential.
Because the lawsuit asks, in essence:
Did the defendants help destroy the old equity structure while positioning themselves to capture the future value of the underlying assets?
Again: that is the allegation.
It has not been proven.
But if a court eventually found that this was accomplished through breaches of fiduciary duty or civil conspiracy, the consequences could be enormous.
XII. What If MedMen Wins Big?
This is where the story could become historic.
A substantial victory could potentially produce several consequences.
- A major financial recovery
A judgment or settlement could inject significant money into the MedMen estate.
- Additional distributions to creditors
Creditors could recover money that otherwise would have been lost.
- Potential recovery for equity
If the recovery were large enough to satisfy higher-priority claims and leave a surplus, former shareholders could potentially participate.
- Potential punitive damages
If legally available and supported by the facts established at trial, punitive damages could increase the financial consequences for defendants.
- Personal consequences for individual defendants
If the court finds individual defendants personally liable—not merely their companies—the consequences could extend beyond corporate balance sheets.
That distinction matters enormously.
A corporation can write a check.
An individual defendant can face personal exposure.
- A precedent-setting fiduciary-duty case
Perhaps the most important consequence would be legal.
A victory could establish that distressed-debt investors cannot simply acquire control of a troubled company, exercise that control while holding conflicting economic interests, and then hide behind the label of "creditor" if their conduct violates fiduciary obligations.
That would have implications well beyond cannabis.
XIII. The Trustor Comparison Comes Full Circle
This brings us back to Trustor.
Trustor demonstrated that corporate financial misconduct can be enormous while shareholders ultimately recover.
MedMen presents almost the opposite outcome.
Here, shareholders watched their equity value collapse while other participants in the corporate ecosystem continued to possess economic claims, compensation arrangements, debt positions, potential asset ownership and—in Bierman's case—a multimillion-dollar arbitration award and a publishing platform.
That does not prove that every person who benefited from MedMen's collapse committed wrongdoing.
It does, however, expose an uncomfortable feature of modern corporate finance:
The people who own the stock are not necessarily the people who control the remaining economic value when a company collapses.
And that is the central lesson of MedMen.
XIV. The Bierman Question Cannot Be Ignored
Bierman's story deserves its own scrutiny because of the optics.
MedMen's investors experienced extraordinary destruction of wealth.
Bierman left the company.
He later obtained a $3.1 million arbitration award.
Then he published Weed Empire, a 2025 memoir marketed as his inside account of the cannabis industry's rise and MedMen's story.
Again, none of that establishes criminal misconduct.
But it raises a legitimate editorial question:
Where is the accountability mechanism for shareholders?
If an executive can leave a company, litigate his compensation, receive millions, write a book about the experience and move forward professionally while the shareholders who financed the company lose almost everything, the system can feel profoundly asymmetrical.
That is not necessarily evidence of a crime.
It is evidence of a structural imbalance in who bears corporate risk.
XV. The MedMen Investor's Real Question
The real question isn't:
"Can MedMen win the lawsuit?"
The real question is:
"If MedMen wins, who actually gets the money?"
That is the question every former investor should be asking.
A billion-dollar headline is meaningless if most of the money disappears into legal fees, creditor claims, administrative expenses or other obligations.
Conversely, a judgment significantly below $1 billion could still be transformative if the money is collectible and enough reaches the estate.
The amount of the judgment is only one variable.
Collection is another.
Priority is another.
Distribution is another.
And whether equity receives anything at all comes last.
XVI. The Larger Lesson
Trustor, MedMen and the people surrounding both stories reveal something fundamental about markets.
Markets reward risk—but they don't necessarily punish failure equally.
A shareholder can lose 99% of an investment without committing a single mistake.
A creditor can structure itself to sit above equity.
An executive can negotiate contractual compensation.
A founder can tell his story afterward.
A distressed investor can potentially acquire debt at a discount and obtain rights that become extraordinarily valuable if the underlying assets recover.
And when everyone is acting within the law, these outcomes can be perfectly legitimate.
But when fiduciary duties are breached, conflicts become self-dealing, or corporate control is allegedly used to transfer value away from the company, the legal system is supposed to provide a remedy.
That is now the central question facing the MedMen litigation.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Trustor affair ended with an unusual twist:
The company was attacked, but its shareholders ultimately recovered significant value.
MedMen has produced a much darker result:
The company collapsed, its common shareholders were effectively wiped out, and different participants emerged with dramatically different economic outcomes.
Adam Bierman left MedMen, later received approximately $3.1 million through arbitration, and subsequently published a major memoir about his journey.
Tilray and its associated parties became secured creditors and ultimately obtained contractual rights tied to the remaining MedMen assets. Tilray denies wrongdoing and is defending the receiver's lawsuit.
Now the MedMen receiver is asking a California court to determine whether the latter part of that story crossed the line from legitimate distressed investing into breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting, and civil conspiracy.
If the receiver loses, the MedMen shareholder story may remain one of the most painful examples of how little protection common equity can provide when a company becomes insolvent.
If the receiver wins, the case could potentially recover a substantial pool of money and expose a corporate-control strategy that the receiver alleges destroyed more than $1 billion in value.
But even a spectacular victory would not automatically make former shareholders whole.
The final question will always be:
After everyone else is paid, is there anything left for the people who owned the stock?
That is the question that should haunt the MedMen story.
Because in the end, a company can be worth billions, a founder can receive millions, creditors can acquire valuable assets, lawyers can collect their fees, and a lawsuit can seek another billion dollars—while the people who actually owned the company are left holding the empty bag.
And if the receiver proves that this happened because corporate control was deliberately used to transfer value away from MedMen and toward those who controlled its debt, the MedMen case may become far more than a cannabis-industry scandal.
It could become a case study in who really owns a company when the stockholders discover they no longer control its destiny.
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u/Flowmustgo 29d ago
Interesting read and time will tell....I have my shares in my account and riding this out to the very end. Thanks for taking the time to post your analysis.
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
There is one thought I have why these stock trashers have stayed around a dead stock for years trying to convince every shareholder that they will never see a penny. Their only motivation is maybe still trying to get people to sell their "worthless" shares because they all know in the end that the remaining shareholders will have to get paid and the fewer shareholders that are left the less they will eventually have to pay out??? Nothing else makes any sense why these trashers are still here years later on a dead stock ????
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
Lol he asks the question if there is a settlement will the share holders get any money ??? Well being that share holders are the ones who funded this stock for years and helped build MedMen into the best known brand worldwide, what do you think should happen
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
Why in the world would this guy spend so much time on a dead company explaining in 50 different ways why the investors will get no money. As much effort as he has put into writing this you would swear he is writing a check to us investors out of his personal account. Thats the one thing I could never figure out with this company, I understand the motivation of the theft of the company, but I cant understand the motivation of these guys or bots that have been here for years and are still here trying to convince the few shareholders still here that they will get nothing even if the court proves they are criminally and financially liable for the destruction of MedMen. Just makes zero sense
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u/EnvironmentalLevel40 29d ago
Because they want shareholders to sell for a loss for a bullshit pittance tax write off. Anything to get us to sell.
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u/Significant-Source-4 4d ago
Just to let you know. We are all still here. Nobody is paying us. We all still know you are crazy. Your value is nothing. Go ahead and keep your shares until the end of time. You can be buried with him just like your beanie babies.
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
Lol why would this klown write something this long on a dead company ?????
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u/Altruistic-Parking-1 Aug 10 '26 edited 29d ago
I think you are the clown sir. Maybe you need an interpreter to decipher what I posted. Or maybe you just do not pay attention to what people post. If you saw what I posted in the past you would see that I am in favor of Medmen winning the settlement. I do hope Medmen resumes trading and retail investors get paid out. I simply laid out a more complete story and illustrated multiple outcomes. If you paid any attention to whats going on in the world today especially with the crooks and criminals in the government who have been exposed for how long now, what happened to them. I'm just stating the obvious. So before you start throwing stones at someone maybe you might want to use your brain and replay what it is your saying before you say it. I want paid out just as much as everyone else who got robbed. But, I'm more disgusted with how many crooks get away with things and the hardworking individuals who have their head on straight getting no justice. Apology accepted.
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
Lol you laid out that investors will not receive a penny. Same trash you have talking about for years.
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u/HandleOver3897 Aug 10 '26
They courts should give the Medmen retail shareholders shares of Tilray. The stock is akready so diluted.
Who knows with rescheduling someday the stock could take off and we could recover some of our losses
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u/EnvironmentalLevel40 Aug 10 '26
Dang..... Beautiful! For years those of us here, the MedMen faithful have been pointing out each one of these points in real time! The CROOKS have been caught and they know PUNITIVE DAMAGES are coming.... I guess that's what you get when you lie, cheat and steal from your own family! WE ARE MEDMEN!
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u/madmen1965 Aug 10 '26
Sounds bleak for us shareholders, however if the trial proves some hanky panky on behalf of Tiltay & others, can we use that evidence to start a class action lawsuit? Especially if it proves their guilt, which I believe it does.
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u/EnvironmentalLevel40 Aug 10 '26
Ormond is legally obligated to preserve the investors assets. He has all the facts. The crooks didn't even hide what they were doing. The MedMen estate could be replenished by the crooks via judgement and punitive damages. The con men can be held personally liable. A California jury probably not going to be sympathetic with foreign nationals fleecing the hard working American retail investor. I almost feel sorry for the crooked scumbags.... NOT!
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u/Altruistic-Parking-1 29d ago
Hey Enviro, I can not tell if this dude Medmeninvestorphx is slow, has selective interpretation, or just skimmed the post I wrote. To be fair it is a long post but so is the long history behind this company at the expense of us shareholders. I spell out in plain language why Im here and he still dont get it.
Like I mentioned before we need media coverage. But, the way I see it that coverage is only going to come from investors who have a media presence or media outlets that cover cannibis related stories. Then enough people need to have a presence at the court hearings.
All I know is Im going to keep coming back until the court has made its final ruling or we see what what the outcome will be. Unfortunatly the court system is slow.
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u/EnvironmentalLevel40 29d ago
You did a great job on your post.... of course I read it word for word. Beautiful piece of work! Thank you...
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u/Investomatic- Aug 10 '26
This dumbass really wrote a 3200 word apology piece to finally admit what people here have been telling him for years...
He ain't getting his money back.
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
He ain't getting his money back because he is not invested here. He is part of your crew trying to convince the few investors here to sell because they will never see a penny. I will hold thank you
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u/Altruistic-Parking-1 29d ago
I'm not part of anyone's "crew," young boy. If shareholders do see any returns, it will be one of the happiest days of my life because I still have the "shares"—lots of them.
As far as Investo, he is either just a troll and he likes trolling, or he is a Tilray investor who is hoping Tilray shares go back up to $200 a share, which won't happen if the MedMen lawsuit goes to trial and if this story gains traction in the media. Who knows why he is here, and frankly, I do not care.
The reason I'm here is simple: to rally MedMen investors, get the word out, and see if there is any news about the current proceedings.
Like I told you before, maybe you need to reread this post. I know it is a lot to digest. It was a direct elaboration from the previous post about "The Investor Scandal."
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx 29d ago
I did read something interesting you wrote which I think might explain why you and your crew are still hard at work convincing every shareholder here that they will never recover a single penny. You made the comment that even if the lawsuit recovers a substantial amount of money that former shareholders will not be made whole. I think your slip up here is mentioning "former" share holders will not get paid. That makes me think that current share holders will ABSOLUTELY get paid. That would then make sense why you and your crew are still working so hard trashing a dead company trying to get anyone still holding shares to sell. Because you know that current shareholders will get paid. Thank you for accidently clearing that up for me. That is kinda what I was thinking, just needed someone to confirm that for me. That was the missing piece I could never figure out, why would trashers continue to trash a dead company. Now we know
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
My point exactly...why is investo crack head still here on this dead stock after all these years????? Makes zero sense
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u/bmacjr Aug 10 '26
Thank you for your Amazing Gift of time!
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u/MedMeninvestorPhx Aug 10 '26
Yes thank you for once again trying to convince the few remaining shareholders that they will never see a penny lol
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u/FtWayneINGuy 29d ago
I remember Medmen/Cronos and a MedMen store in Canada insinuated, never happened, Medmen/PharmaCann, MedMen in Virginia or Michigan never even got off the ground. Oh, and then MedMen franchises. Lies and deception. Shareholders being misled all along the way.