Exclusive talk with financial services firm Safe Harbor – TipRanks Financial Blog

In this edition of “Rising High,” The Fly conducted an exclusive interview with Sundie Seefried, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Safe Harbor Financial (SHFS), a financial services provider to the regulated cannabis industry. Here are some highlights:

CANNABIS LENDING: SHF Holdings, Inc., doing business as Safe Harbor, is a Colorado-based financial services provider offering compliance, monitoring and validation services to financial institutions while providing traditional banking services to cannabis, hemp, CBD and ancillary operators. In September, the company completed a business combination with Northern Lights Acquisition, in which Northern Lights acquired Safe Harbor from a subsidiary of Partner Colorado Credit Union.

“The biggest factor that gives us a competitive advantage is that we work on both sides of the balance sheet,” Seefried said. “We do depository services and we do lending. Because we lend off our deposits at banks and credit unions, we can offer a lower cost of funds. We do not have to go to the capital markets to raise money because we have those deposits as a base within our partner financial institutions.”

FIRST QUARTER EARNINGS: In May, Safe Harbor reported first quarter loss per share of 6c on revenue of $4.18M, compared to 0c per share on revenue of $1.67M for the same period last year. The company also reported that processed deposits increased 33% to $1.1B in Q1 and monthly average number of accounts held with financial institution clients increased 68% to 993. Safe Harbor also guided 2023 revenue up by at least 50%, compared to the $9.4M in revenue reported for 2022.

“The results signify that we do have a strong business underlying the fact that we are a public company and we can generate cash to pay for operations,” the CEO said. “We continue to increase that revenue and that really should give our investors a vote of confidence in terms of our business model.” She added she was pleased with the financial results, which put Safe Harbor in an even better position as it continues to build the company’s lending portfolio. “Obviously top-line revenue is important, but we know that net income and adjusted EBITDA are also important on the bottom-line,” Seefried said.  “Having the banker background, I’m certainly focused on net income as we move forward.”

She noted Q1 financials included certain expenses attributed to 2022, such as employee bonuses that weren’t properly accrued for that…