A hallmark of angel investors is aggressive risk-taking in the hopes that when a company's ready to go on the market, they'll see big returns
If you’ve watched “Shark Tank” on ABC (or its British forbear “Dragon’s Den” on BBC in America), you’ve seen, to some extent, angel investors in action. Underneath the high-gloss of ratings-driven reality TV, you can catch a glimpse of this opaque, mysterious investment market. As Colleen Debaise of the Wall Street Journal explains, angel investments can act as bridges “between that money you’ve gotten from friends and family and the venture capital that you hope to secure down the road.” Of course, there’s a price to pay: Continue Reading →
One of the signatures of New Hampshire’s Liquor Commission is its determination to compete with other states by offering low-price and sales-tax-free booze in convenient border locations. And revenue reports bear out this approach. Most often, we hear about heavy cross-border traffic from Massachusetts–after all, there’s a good reason why so many of the top-selling state liquor stores are easy commutes from the Bay State (complete with their own exits off the interstate).
“Maine bar owners and others who buy large volumes of liquor in New Hampshire and resell it in Maine are costing the state $4 million to $11 million a year, the head of the state’s liquor bureau said Monday…
Gerry Reid, director of the Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations, said Maine loses an estimated 206,000 to 584,000 cases of liquor sales each year to New Hampshire, which sells liquor at lower prices and without sales taxes.” Continue Reading →
Hydro-Quebec says public opposition in New Hampshire has not effectively ended the push for Northern Pass
Looking at day-to-day coverage of Northern Pass, it tends to (unsurprisingly) focus on the New Hampshire perspective. Will the project provide a much-needed boost to the North Country economy, or just create a spot of temp work? What will the project do to land values? Who’s selling their land, who’s holding fast, and why? What are the chances the project could invoke eminent domain?
We also hear a fair bit about PSNH’s ties to the project, which makes sense, as it’s a major Granite State utility.
But what about partner utility Hydro-Quebec? After all, if Northern Pass goes through, it’s Canadian power that will be coursing into the New England grid. It just so happens that the topic came up as Lynn Moore of the Montreal Gazette reported on Hydro-Quebec’s 2011 profits. After noting the utility “saw a $96-million increase in profits in 2011 despite a $114-million drop in gross revenue from energy exports,” Moore writes: Continue Reading →
As in our previous posts, we're continuing with a light bit of boxing imagery for entertainment purposes
One of our most popular sets of posts has been an occasional series with a different take on migration into–and out of–New Hampshire. Using IRS data, Jon Bruner of Forbes traced where people in every county in the country were moving to–and from–between 2005 and 2009. Then, he generated a really cool map that allows you to click on counties and see how far-flung their competitors for residents actually are.
The question of migration is important for a number of reasons. The most obvious one, of course, is tax base. No government wants to lose revenue to somewhere else.
All things considered, New Hampshire’s economy is doing reasonably well now. But looking decades into the future, a larger-than-normal question mark looms. New England as a whole is facing a shortage of young people. And those young people aren’t having a lot of kids. While Bruner’s map doesn’t list migration by age, we can draw some reasonably solid conclusions thanks to other demographic info to fill in some blanks.
In our final post on this theme, we take a look Merrimack Valley migration. Continue Reading →
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