“Solar energy equipment manufacturer GT Solar International Inc. today said that it has received a $55 million order from a new customer in Asia for its polysilicon production equipment.”
“Beijing announced it was guaranteeing solar developers certain payments for every kilowatt-hour of clean energy they feed into the nation’s grid…
…A feed-in tariff guaranteeing about 15 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour of electricity could put the country in a leadership position, the Financial Times reports…
…Beijing’s European rivals have started cutting back on solar power subsidies, meaning China is set to become a world leader in solar panel purchases.”
To avert an investor takeover, Talbot's is prepping a poison pill.
A Massachusetts-based retailer with outposts in New Hampshire is trying to stave off an investor takeover. An AP piece published by The Boston Globelays out Talbot’s strategy to maintain status quo and hold off Sycamore Partners, LP (and by extension, investor Stefan Kaluzny). The name of the play has a desperately grotesque ring: poison pill.
“A poison pill, or a shareholder rights plan, is a strategic move by the target of a takeover to make its stock less attractive to the potential buyer. The Talbots plan calls for one common stock purchase right to be distributed as a dividend on each outstanding share of the company’s common stock.
The rights become exercisable if any person or group acquires 10 percent or more of Talbots common stock, or if holders that currently own 10 percent or more buy a specified number of additional shares. The rights will expire on Aug. 1, 2021.”
According to the corporate website, Talbot’s maintains four regular retail stores and one outlet in New Hampshire.
“The undergraduates were spared in the package worked out by the White House and Congressional leaders. But graduate students would no longer have access to the subsidy. See the last couple of pages of the debt ceiling agreement for the official language.”
In other words, if nothing changes, graduate students won’t be able to put off paying interest on their student loans while they’re still in school. Lieber reports the policy’s set to go into effect on July 1st, 2012. Continue Reading →
New research from the UNH paints a complex picture of women venture capitalists.
In other words, women are more likely to live up to the stereotype of the cautious female investor when they’re not well-represented in the angel group. And in turn, the whole group tends to be more cautious. But when you add more women to the group, the female investors are willing to take more risks, and there’s suddenly more capital in play.
The UNH press release explains it this way:
“The reason for this behavior appears to be based on ‘stereotype threat.’ According to this psychological theory, when a stereotype exists about a person, that person will behave in a manner consistent with that stereotype when they are in a situation that highlights, or accentuates, this aspect of their status, whether that is gender, race or ethnicity.
‘In the context of this research, this means that when there are few women in an angel group, the stereotype of cautious investing is accentuated. As the number of women increases, there is less of a stereotype -– there are more women so they are more recognized for their ability as investors and less because of their gender,’ [UNH Center for Venture Research Director Jeffrey] Sohl said.”
The conclusion Sohl and other researchers drew from the research is that with their increased willingness to take risks, everyone’s better off with more groups of women angel investors in the market pumping capital into startup ventures.
Many universities in this country, both public and private, are in a pickle. Public schools are losing large chunks of state funding, while private colleges are raising tuition to make up for rising costs, and sometimes declining attendance. In New Hampshire, the legislature slashed its contribution by about 48 percent. Meanwhile, the private Franklin Pierce University is laying off staff in an effort to keep its head above the choppy fiscal waters.
The wake of the FRM Ponzi scheme collapse has created some complex and life-changing legal issues.
Bob Sanders of the New Hampshire Business Review has written a startling piece about the continuing–and unexpected–fallout from the Financial Resources Mortgage ponzi scheme.
“The bankrupt estate of Financial Resources Mortgage Inc. – the Meredith company behind a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme – has been suing hundreds of the people who were victimized by the swindle for whatever FRM-related assets they may still have. In many cases, the victims are settling, forking over thousands more dollars in order to get on with their lives.
Jim Donchess, an attorney and law partner of trustee Steven Notinger, said the trustee is trying to fairly distribute the estate equally.
‘The simplest, cheapest and fairest thing is to bring all of the assets into the estate and liquidate it on a prorated basis,’ said Donchess. ‘Everyone should be treated the same.'”
Throughout the story, Sanders weaves in tales of the trustee crashing a victim’s bankruptcy proceeding, FRM foreclosing on properties even as the scheme faced imminent collapse, and seemingly smart investments gone sour in the aftermath. And as the piece reveals, a complicated case just got much more so.
“New Hampshire pays Michael Bergeron to be a full-time thief, sending him across the border in an unmarked black sedan to poach Massachusetts companies.
To help keep his missions undercover, the business recruiter even scraped the New Hampshire state seal off his Ford Fusion.”
It’s the cloak and dagger behind “the New Hampshire Advantage.” Continue Reading →
Installing solar panels on a roof in New Hampshire.
As the economy continues to limp along toward recovery, “green jobs” has become a buzz phrase, often tossed out as a panacea for our economic ails. But compared to the rest of the nation, New Hamphire’s share of this sector doesn’t exactly stand out.
In a study released earlier this month, researchers found that from 2003 to 2010, New Hampshire’s green jobs industry grew at an average of 3.5 percent a year, outpacing the rest of New England. But the result of that growth was lackluster. Only two percent of the state’s workforce holds down a green job, which places New Hampshire square in the middle of the national average.
Put another way: New Hampshire is less of a green economy leader than other states, and more like a student who just manages to raise their “D” grade to a “C” in the last weeks of the semester.
There’s a new trend among the water-conscious. At least, that’s what the people at Maine-based startup Blue Reserve believe. Avery Yale Kamila of The Portland Press Herald reports the company is offering a customers a bottle-free, super-filtered fresh water system. The idea of going bottleless is to cut-out bisphenol-A, or BPA, a chemical found in a lot of hard plastics, and which some states and countries have
Earl-What I Saw / Flickr
Blue Reserve promises to cut water bottle waste, BPA, chlorine, and fluoride.
banned due to estrogen-mimicking and carcinogenic qualities.
One of the places Blue Reserve is looking to expand is New Hampshire. Continue Reading →
In an earlier version of this post, our photo caption described Portland, Maine as Bull Moose’s “original stomping grounds.” The company actually opened its first store in Brunswick, Maine. We regret the error.
The fate of prime strip mall real estate in New England might not be sealed just yet. The hallowed halls of Borders Books stores aren’t even, well…hollow, and another bookseller is looking at swooping in. Instead of a national chain like Books-A-Million, the prospective buyer is Portland-based (and Rooseveltian-named) Bull Moose, according to the Bangor Daily News. Reporter Matt Wickenheiser quotes Bull Moose founder Brett Wickard as saying the chain’s, “bidding on a handful of leases, all in New England.” Continue Reading →
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