For a profit, of course....
"Turning federal tax credits into rural jobs; A Maine financial company has achieved mastery of a federal program to create jobs in communities that need them the most" by Colin Nickerson | Globe Correspondent, May 26, 2013
BERLIN, N.H. — Rising from the heart of this old paper-making town, a biomass-fueled power plant is reclaiming the shambles of the shuttered pulp mill, creating hundreds of construction jobs, saving hundreds more forestry jobs, and providing a reliable, low-emissions source of electricity for northland utilities.
Related: Boston Globe Says Bye-Bye to Biomass
Because like environmentally-friendly ethanol, it costs more in greenhouse gases than it prevents global warming.
Some 75 miles to the southeast, a new factory in Brunswick, Maine, will soon begin production of high-tech surgical dressings. The Swedish firm that owns the factory recently held its first job fair, seeking 50 maintenance technicians, production workers, and engineers for the gleaming 79,000-square-foot facility.
In Vermont, meanwhile, a state-of-the-art dairy plant near Brattleboro is churning out freshly fermented Greek yogurt at a rate of 202 6-ounce cups per minute, tripling production since 2011 and more than doubling its expected employment.
Connecting these incongruent enterprises is a low-profile financial firm in Portland, Maine, that has achieved almost Zen-like mastery over the art of using an obscure federal tax credit program to spur private investment in economically distressed communities. CEI Capital Management LLC is today the nation’s largest seller of so-called New Market Tax Credits, using them to finance 76 projects across the country and create nearly 12,000 jobs in places that desperately need them.
Founded a decade ago, the profit-making company combines social and environmental responsibility with hard-nosed financial analysis and a strategy that focuses on markets with few competitors. To date, CEI Capital has allocated more than $850 million in new market tax credits to ventures ranging from a eucalyptus plantation in Hawaii to a green hotel in Maine’s remote potato country.
“The project has to make money and create jobs,” said chief executive Charles J. Spies III, explaining CEI’s philosophy. “It must benefit the community overall. And it must be environmentally sustainable.’’
CEI Capital was spun off by one of Maine’s best known nonprofit community development groups, Coastal Enterprises, to take advantage of new market tax credits, an economic development initiative launched by the US Treasury Department in 2000.
Related:
"nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence"
That's why my monied mouthpiece loves nonprofits.
The profits earned by CEI Capital through fees and commissions are channeled back to Coastal Enterprises to support its programs, such as loan funds for small businesses.
The Treasury authorizes CEI Capital and roughly 300 similar entities to sell the tax credits to banks and other private investors, providing incentives to finance businesses and projects in communities where capital — and jobs — are scare. The credits reduce risk by giving investors a tax write-off.
Treasury has awarded $36.5 billion of new market tax credits over the past 13 years, most recently distributing $3.5 billion in credits to 85 organizations last month. CEI Capital once again emerged with the largest single allocation, $80 million.
One reason: While other outfits jostle over similar turf in blighted city neighborhoods, CEI Capital focuses on rural areas, where poverty is just as pernicious, but typically less visible.
One example is Vermont’s fast-growing Commonwealth Dairy, a maker of specialty yogurts, and the inspiration of two young entrepreneurs, Thomas Moffitt and Ben Johnson....
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I know it all looks and sounds good; however, I no longer trust an agenda-pu$hing paper and always wonder who benefits?
Related:
Solar Stimuloot Went to Goldman Sachs
Massachusetts Lets Hollywood Roll Credits
You begin to see why I'm antitax, no?
