On April 26, multi-state cannabis operator MedMen announced that it has filed for bankruptcy with the Canadian Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, as of April 24. Recorded liabilities include approximately $561 million CAD, or $411 million USD.

MedMen’s bankruptcy trustee B. Riley Farber Inc. was appointed to represent the company and manage outstanding business obligations (debt, assets, etc.). Its California-based subsidiary, MM CAN USA, Inc., entered receivership by the Los Angeles Superior Court on April 23, and an appointed receiver through “Santa Monica Division” to “to effectuate an orderly dissolution and liquidation of its California based assets.”

Amit Pandey, MedMen Chief Financial Officer, resigned on February 13, but all other MedMen directors resigned prior to the announcement of bankruptcy proceedings.

In a press release, MedMen wrote that receivership proceedings will also be held in other states where MedMen operated. “It is contemplated that ancillary receivership proceedings will be sought in those U.S. states where MM CAN USA, Inc. controls or owns assets,” MedMen stated. “As a result of such receivership proceedings, the operations and assets of MedMen’s subsidiaries will be dissolved or liquidated pursuant to applicable laws in the United States.” Prior to bankruptcy MedMen had operations in California, Illinois, New York, Nevada, and Massachusetts.

A statement prepared for the press release also briefly speaks about why bankruptcy was pursued. “The difficult decision to shut down operations and commence the Bankruptcy Proceedings and Receivership Proceedings was made after careful consideration of the current financial condition of the Company and its subsidiaries, their inability to pay their liabilities as they become due and the anticipated enforcement actions of secured creditors,” MedMen wrote. “After careful consideration of these factors and in the absence of other available alternatives, the board of directors of the Company determined that it was in the best interests of the Company to proceed with the commencement of the Bankruptcy Proceedings and Receivership Proceedings.”

Fortune spoke with industry analyst Alan Brochstein about the collapse of this once massive and successful company. “MedMen has been ‘DeadMen’ to most investors for a long time,” Brochstein said to Fortune. “The world should have seen this coming, but not everybody did.” Brochstein shared that by the time that 2020 rolled around, MedMen was already deep in debt.

MedMen was founded in 2010 by Andrew Modlin and Adam Bierman. The brand later went public in 2018 for $3 a share. At its height MedMen was valued at $3 billion, and was often compared to an Apple store because of its clean and crisp design aesthetic in dispensaries.

In March 2018, MedMen partnered with Cronos Group (a Canadian-based cultivator) to begin selling MedMen products in Canada. “We want to change the perception of cannabis worldwide, and bring it to the mainstream,” said Mike Gorenstein, Cronos Group CEO. “It was really clear MedMen offered, by far, the best retail experience. We wanted to make sure we could bring that to Canada.”

Daniel Yi, MedMen’s spokesperson, spoke about the historic move at the time. “I think this is a milestone for the industry,” Yi said. “You have an American and Canadian company with track records and resources to execute this venture—a meeting of giants. This speaks to the larger movement in mainstreaming marijuana and it shows that it is a global movement.”

Going public launched the brand into numerous deals and partnerships to continue growth.

In March 2018, MedMen opened its dispensary in New York. In June, it was among the first dispensaries to open in California after adult-use licenses were approved.

In August 2018, it obtained an exclusive licensing agreement with the Woodstock Cannabis Company. In that same month, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined the MedMen Board to provide expertise as a former politician. In November 2018, MedMen attempted to file a trademark application for the word “cannabis” (the trademark application was abandoned in August 2019).

MedMen was involved in a class action lawsuit in late 2018 and was accused of committing multiple labor violations, which was just the first of various lawsuits involving the company. Another lawsuit in 2019 targeted MedMen for a wrongful termination. In 2022, additional litigation accused MedMen of owing $950,960.02 in unpaid rent in New York.

MedMen’s stock also dropped for most of 2019, as it paid high taxes as a legal cannabis business but had trouble competing with illegal sales. The company initiated the purchase of PharmaCann, but announced that it would be backing out in fall 2019. “The underperformance has made it increasingly more critical to allocate capital efficiently, given the current industry headwinds,” MedMen wrote in a press release.

However, the 2020 pandemic led to a major increase in sales as countless people lost their jobs, which helped MedMen and other cannabis business owners survive through the year.

The start of January 2024 signaled trouble for MedMen when its stock price hit zero on the Canadian Stock Exchange. By March, all MedMen stores closed except one location in San Diego and another near Los Angeles International Airport.

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According to multiple reports late last week, MedMen has shuttered all but two of its stores in California.

“Only MedMen stores in San Diego and near Los Angeles International Airport remain open,” MJBizDaily reported on Friday. 

Green Market Report, citing a former staffer at the company, reported that “[although] no one connected with MedMen’s corporate headquarters could be reached for comment, the chain had a small fire sale to unload product this past week prior to closing down.”

The outlet has more on MedMen’s precipitous decline:

“The report of more closures follows a series of troubling developments for the company, including a string of earlier dispensaries closing down – including MedMen’s flagship store in West Hollywood in February, then its shops in San Jose and Emeryville the same month, and just this week, the company closed its San Francisco location. The news also follows a string of C-suite departures, with ex-CEO Ellen Deutsch Harrison resigning in January after less than seven months on the job.”

MJBizDaily, meanwhile, has specific figures on the number of jobs lost:

“The cash-strapped company operated more than a dozen stores in the state before the latest round of closures. The Los Angeles-based MSO on Thursday closed its San Francisco store in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, Medmen’s last remaining outlet in the Bay Area, according to SFist. The store opened only two years ago, the news outlet reported. MedMen, which has closed several other stores and laid off dozens of workers in California, Illinois and Nevada in the past month, shuttered its Long Beach location last week, MJBizDaily confirmed Friday. The Long Beach location had about 10 employees, according to a former staffer. The company has laid off more than 100 employees since Jan. 26, according to MJBizDaily reporting, including a round of corporate layoffs in MedMen’s accounting and marketing departments.”

Both outlets noted that MedMen’s official website has been down since last week. On Monday morning, visitors to the site were met with an image of a man lounging on his back poolside, with the message: “We’ll Be Back Soon Sorry, we’re down for scheduled maintenence. In the meantime, connect with us on social.”

The company has not posted on its Instagram account since January. Its last post on Facebook was in 2022.

In 2019, MedMen scrapped plans for a major acquisition. Alarmed by plunging cannabis stocks, the company “backed out of a blockbuster deal to buy PharmaCann, a Chicago-based marijuana company with operations in eight states,” the Associated Press reported at the time.

A year earlier, MedMen announced its plans to acquire PharmaCann for $682 million in an all-stock transaction. In a press release at the time, MedMen said that the resulting “pro-forma company (including pending acquisitions by MedMen) will have a portfolio of cannabis licenses in 12 states that will permit the combined company to operate 79 cannabis facilities.” 

“The combined company will operate in 12 states, which comprise a total estimated addressable market, as of 2030, of approximately $40 billion according to Cowen Group. Through the transaction, MedMen will add licenses in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan,” the press release said.

The deal was supposed to be a watershed moment for the cannabis industry, with the AP noting that it “was seen as a forerunner of a wave of marijuana industry mergers and acquisitions promising big returns for investors.”

Adam Bierman, MedMen’s CEO at the time, called it “a transformative acquisition that will create the largest U.S. cannabis company in the world’s largest cannabis market.” 

“The transaction adds tremendous scale to our vertically integrated business model by expanding our U.S. retail footprint across important growth markets while strengthening our cultivation and production capabilities. With the revenue synergies that the deal is expected to produce, MedMen is well positioned to continue executing on our growth strategy,” said Bierman, who stepped down in his role as chief executive in early 2020.

“This would not have been possible even two years ago and is a testament to how far both the industry and these two companies have evolved. PharmaCann’s leadership has built a world-class organization, and we are excited about the value this transaction is creating for shareholders.”

But by the fall of 2019, MedMen was singing a very different tune. According to the Associated Press, the company “cited the steep pullback in U.S. and Canadian cannabis stocks this year,” and “noted the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index, a Canadian exchange-traded fund that tracks cannabis stocks, is down 47% since March.”

“The underperformance has made it increasingly more critical to allocate capital efficiently, given the current industry headwinds,” MedMen said in a news release, as quoted by the Associated Press.

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Shop MedMen in New York for the best deals on products for the 420 season. Medmen is 30% off storewide all April long.

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Green Wednesday through Black Friday weekend (11/23-11/26), MedMen is offering 30% everything sitewide at their Oak Park location.

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MedMen Fenway is coming soon to Boston. Check back here for updates on the exciting, new location arriving for shoppers this winter.

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Cannabis dispensaries were targeted in the weekend’s looting because they carry cash and an easily sellable product. Professional burglars also exploited slow police response times.

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