Advanced Flower Capital Inc., the West Palm Beach, Florida based lender to cannabis operators, reported a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 8.04x in its Full Year 2025 earnings release, a figure that stands out as the highest leverage level among cannabis-lending real estate investment trusts, a divergence that first stood out in data tracked on REIT Research, a Madison Labs research site. The company, formerly known as AFC Gamma before its October 2024 rebrand, filed the figures in an 8-K dated March 4, 2026, alongside a 10-K business description covering its core activity of originating senior secured loans backed by real estate, equipment, cash flows and licenses held by cannabis companies.
The leverage number sits against a balance sheet showing $97.32 million in total debt, $275.59 million in total assets and $175.57 million in total equity, putting debt to book capital at 52.45%. Enterprise value is listed at $179.21 million versus a market capitalization of $78.67 million, a gap that reflects the debt load embedded in the company's capital structure. Distributable earnings came in at $0.39 per share for the full year, and operating cash flow payout stood at 39.67%, a level that, taken on its own, suggests the dividend commitment consumes less than half of operating cash flow even as balance sheet leverage runs high.
For income focused investors, the combination is one that market participants may read differently depending on which metric they weight more heavily. A leverage ratio above 8x is elevated by the standards of most equity or hybrid REITs, and cannabis lenders in particular operate in a niche where federal illegality restricts access to traditional bank credit, pushing borrowers toward specialty lenders like Advanced Flower Capital and, in turn, shaping how those lenders themselves finance their loan books. At the same time, a payout ratio under 40% of operating cash flow is comparatively conservative, and the 5.76% dividend yield, paid quarterly, is calculated using the latest declared payout annualized rather than any forward estimate. Advanced Flower Capital also carries no free consensus NAV estimate and no free credit ratings feed according to the available data, which limits how readily the leverage figure can be benchmarked against a market-assigned valuation of the loan portfolio itself.
Background on the company shows a short operating history since its 2020 incorporation, with revenue, net income and EBITDA swinging across recent fiscal years, including a period of negative EBITDA before returning to positive territory. The most recent full year figures show revenue of $16.43 million, net income of $38.59 million and EBITDA of $9.54 million, alongside operating cash flow of $11.48 million, a trajectory that underscores how sensitive a small specialty lender's earnings can be to loan performance and portfolio composition in a narrow industry niche.
Recent corporate activity has included insider purchases. Securities filings compiled by Defense World show director Leonard Tannenbaum acquiring tens of thousands of shares in a series of transactions through September and into October 2026, including purchases of 10,000, 25,000, 44,643 and 40,081 shares, while the company separately declared its third quarter 2026 dividend in a September 15 announcement distributed via GlobeNewswire. Those transactions are disclosed facts from public filings and newswire reports rather than an endorsement of the stock's prospects.
The leverage and payout figures surface at a moment when broader markets are mixed. Bitcoin traded near $82,120 and major technology and enterprise software names including Intuit, ServiceNow and Salesforce posted gains of 4 to 6% in recent sessions, a backdrop unrelated to cannabis lending but indicative of risk appetite elsewhere in markets that investors in smaller specialty REITs may also be weighing when allocating capital.
Going forward, investors tracking Advanced Flower Capital are likely to watch whether the 8.04x leverage ratio moves as the loan portfolio is refinanced or as new originations are added, and whether the payout ratio holds near its current level if operating cash flow fluctuates with the cannabis lending cycle. The company's debt maturity ladder, fixed and floating rate split, and coverage ratios from its supplemental filings were not yet available in the dataset reviewed, details that would give a fuller picture of refinancing risk tied to the elevated leverage figure. Any change in the credit environment facing cannabis operators, who remain constrained by federal restrictions on banking access, would also bear directly on how Advanced Flower Capital's loan book performs and, by extension, on the debt metrics now drawing attention.