WJTV covered the Twin Creeks failure and problems at Silicor in this story last night:
Meanwhile, the Associated Press interviewed former Governor Haley Barbour and reported:
"Barbour said he's confident that the company will repay any money that Mississippi officials can't get back from the building and equipment that were funded with state loans to the city of Senatobia.
"The state will recover all of its incentives given to Twin Creeks," Barbour told AP Friday. "I am not worried at all. I think that the risk to the taxpayer is next to nothing."
Barbour referred to Twin Creeks' offer to give the state an estimated $1.25 million in cash, plus the rights to up to $8 million in royalties from patents that were sold to GT Advanced Technologies of Nashua, N.H. for $10 million.
He predicted that Senatobia would lease the building for enough money to cover its loan payments to the state. MDA has waived the first payment of $1.2 million. Senatobia was supposed to collect that amount by Dec. 31 and pass it on to the state by Jan. 5. The state loaned Senatobia $18 million to prepare the site and build the building. It gave another $1 million in grants for site work.
Barbour also said the state's investments in Twin Creeks and a number of other alternative energy firms under his administration were not overly risky. Besides that company, Mississippi also signed agreements with alternative energy companies including solar panel maker Stion; smart window maker View, formerly Soladigm; solar silicon maker Silicor Materials, formerly Calisolar; biofuels maker KiOR; and biofuels maker Virdia, formerly HCL Cleantech.
Barbour says the state was careful to choose companies that were successful in raising money from private sources.
"You can look at all sorts of companies that are in the growing stage and some of them never make it," Barbour said. "We've been very serious in making sure that the resources put in by the private sector were such that there was a good chance the business would succeed. This is the only company of this type that hasn't made it.".. Article
4 comments:
Maybe we could get somebody to open up a beef killin plant in Sentobia.
Haley is the definition of the NEW IDIOT
Awfully quick comdemnation, both earlier posters! Differences between beef plant an Twin Creek. At least in TC, there is security and provisions to get the money back. And - in TC, the state/city owns the facility.
Let's see what the final result is in TC before comparing it to beef plant. We know there that the original $20 million cost the state $55 million because reasonable loan processes weren't incorporated into the agreements.
I'm not a fan of the state being in the venture capital business - don't care if it was Haley or Ronnie. Or Phil, for that matter. (You know, Phil that was all for these deals when they were being done and he rode on all of Haley's successes, but since being elected runs from anything controversial.)
Doesn't matter - state shouldn't be in the venture business. But so far, we haven't lost money on TC, or any of the others for that matter.
Our biggest boondoggle are the eight public 'universities' in a poor state that can only afford a couple. The Jackson-based IHL administration, expensive athletic programs, college patronage, and racial focus of the HBCs sends the state backward not forward. Our tribal and clannish culture is the principal economic and educational problem here.
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