Pelorus Capital Group
Pelorus Capital Group
Is this your business?
2010
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Newport Beach, CA
All US States
District Of Columbia
Puerto Rico
Private Credit
Accredited
Pelorus Capital Group Reviews
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Investor Testimonial
Personal Pelorus Investor Testimonial I’ve been investing with Pelorus since June 2020, and over the years I’ve invested approximately $1 million with them. As a retired finance professional, I was looking for an opportunity to invest in the cannabis industry. I believed it was an underserved market where good companies had diFiculty getting access to capital. Pelorus stood out to me because they understood the industry, had real experience in the space, and took a disciplined approach to lending. What’s probably most important to me, though, is the relationship I’ve developed with the people at Pelorus. I’ve always felt that they’ve been honest and transparent with me, and that they genuinely care about their investors. That kind of trust is important to me, particularly when you’re investing a significant amount of money. In the early years, my investments with Pelorus produced returns in the low teens, which was considerably better than many of the alternatives available in the market. Then the cannabis industry went through some very diFicult and unexpected times. Like everyone else in the industry, Pelorus had to adjust. Their priority shifted from pursuing new opportunities to protecting the capital of their existing investors. That period reinforced my confidence in Pelorus. I’ve always believed that you learn the most about a sponsor when things don’t go according to plan. Rather than simply selling assets at distressed prices, Pelorus stayed focused on working through the problems and finding the best long-term solutions for the portfolio. I respected that approach. The cannabis industry today is very diFerent from what it was when I first invested in 2020. It has matured, and I believe that maturity will create some attractive opportunities. There are companies with established businesses and track records that need capital, and I think the fundamentals of good lending remain the same: Capacity, Capital, Collateral, and Credit. Having watched Pelorus navigate both the good times and the diFicult ones, I believe their experience gives them an important advantage. They have developed a deep understanding of the industry, along with proprietary knowledge and data-driven metrics that can help them identify and evaluate opportunities. I continue to be invested with Pelorus, and I’m comfortable with that decision. I’ve been through the ups and downs with them, and I’m looking forward to what comes next. I believe the best opportunities may still be ahead. Sue Sparks
Positive Review
I've been an investor with Pelorus since June 2020. Total invested capital of $445,000, roughly $217,000 in distributions received to date, for approximately a 48% return on capital so far — and I'm still in the fund. That number alone doesn't tell the real story, though. The cannabis sector went through real stress over the past several years — regulatory whiplash, capital markets drying up, operators failing. A lot of sponsors in this space took on too much leverage or kept distributing capital they didn't actually have. Pelorus didn't. They never came back to investors with a capital call, and they protected principal even when it meant making an unpopular decision: suspending redemptions and distributions for a period. I won't pretend that was fun to sit through, and I understand why it looked bad from the outside. But it was the right call. A manager who prioritizes protecting the fund's capital base over short-term optics is a manager who's thinking about my money the right way. What impressed me even more is what came out of that period. Through cross-collateral positions, Pelorus ended up acquiring several operating businesses out of distressed situations. Rather than fire-sale those assets, they spun them into a separate equity vehicle that today sits net positive on unrealized gains. One of those positions — a formerly publicly traded, vertically integrated California operator — has been turned around into a business generating over $100 million in top-line revenue and running EBITDA positive. That's not a small feat in this sector, and it's the kind of workout that most sponsors don't have the operating expertise or discipline to pull off. Here's my honest takeaway after six years: every manager looks good when markets cooperate. You find out who you're actually invested with when things get hard. Pelorus got tested by a brutal cycle in a uniquely difficult sector, and instead of protecting themselves, they protected their investors' principal, communicated honestly along the way, and turned a distressed situation into real recovered value. That's exactly what I want from a manager, and it's why I'm still invested. — Doug Wilson
15% Haircut, 18 Months Gated — But I Learned
This is the deal that fundamentally changed how I evaluate private credit. I invested in the Pelorus Cannabis Fund in September 2023 — a private credit vehicle originating loans to cannabis operators with heavy construction lending exposure. Within five months, my annualized yield dropped from 10.92% to 4.55%. Shortly after, roughly 10 additional loans went delinquent. A targeted 12% return became roughly 2%, and my capital has been gated for over 18 months with no line of sight to redemption. On the sponsor: Pelorus has been professional and willing to engage. They get on the phone, they explain what's happening, they haven't gone dark. But here's what sticks with me — I had dinner with the team shortly before investing and spent real time building a relationship. Meanwhile, their portfolio was already showing stress I wasn't made aware of. I get it — they're raising capital and that's part of the business. But there's a difference between a sponsor who communicates well and a sponsor who is fully transparent, and that distinction matters. It doesn't make them bad people. It does make me evaluate sponsor transparency very differently now. The core issue was portfolio composition. Construction loans in cannabis are a different animal — federally illegal borrowers with limited banking access, collateral with minimal alternative-use value, and binary outcomes on mid-build projects. When borrowers stalled, delinquencies cascaded. Before this deal, I wasn't pulling loan tapes. I wasn't stress-testing delinquency scenarios. I didn't understand the structural difference between a bridge loan on a cash-flowing property and a construction loan on a project that could stall at 60% completion. Now I do. Every private credit fund I evaluate today gets scrutinized at the loan-level because of what I learned here. Lesson for other LPs: Pull the loan tape. Understand the delinquency rates. Ask what percentage of the book is in construction, what the average LTV looks like on those loans, and what happens to collateral value if a project stops mid-build. Lesson I had to learn the hard way but I became a significantly better investor because of it.