1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 1680)

New Social Investing Option: In Equal Exchange

Fair trade and beverage pioneer, Equal Exchange, has teamed up with socially progressive bank, Wainwright Bank, to raise capital, protect its independence, and create a new financial product for investors. What a great idea! Small and large investors alike can now buy a Certificate of Deposit (CD) at Wainwright Bank (Nasdaq: WAIN), the proceeds of which will go to Equal Exchange, one of the top socially responsible businesses on the planet.While other small, growing natural product brands continue to get bought up by large corporations, Equal Exchange – the Fair Trade coffee pioneers – and Wainwright Bank have created a unique, company specific CD to raise affordable capital for Equal Exchange while protecting its unorthodox structure of employee ownership. Unlike funds raised by other CDs which go into a general account at the issuing bank, and might help finance a subdivision in Miami or a hotel in Las Vegas, purchasers of the Equal Exchange Certificate of Deposit will know their investment goes to creating a line of credit dedicated to Equal Exchange’s use. To their knowledge this is the first company-specific CD to be issued in the United States. Thanks to Equal Exchange’s strong growth – it has grown 100% […]

Read More

Investments in Cleantech Companies Hits High

Cleantech investing in North America continues to gain momentum in 2006, attracting a new high of $513 million in venture capital during the first quarter of 2006. That’s an increase of 52.9% from the first quarter 2005!67 companies received funding during the quarter, up from 49 in Q1 2005. More significantly, the average deal size rose to $8.28 million, up 16.7% from Q1 2005. The cleantech equity investment category in North American venture capital remains in fifth place, ahead of semiconductors and behind only biotechnology, software, medical and telecommunications. “The data trends reflect the impact of existing global political, economic, technological and social market drivers and the increased confidence investors have in the cleantech category,” said Nicholas Parker, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Cleantech Venture Network, which released the information in The Cleantech Venture Monitor. Keith Raab, CEO and Co-Founder of the Cleantech Venture Network, pointed out that energy-related deals dominated cleantech investments for the quarter. “The $357 million invested in energy accounted for nearly 70% of all cleantech Q1 investments and 48% of the total energy investment made in 2005,” he said. “Energy generation led the other three energy areas with $154 million invested.” Cleantech investment now accounts for […]

Read More

Going Crazy for Ethanol

By Steven Pearlstein You got to hand it to Elmer. When it comes to getting the government to subsidize the same activity not just once, but several times over, nobody can touch the American farm lobby — not even the Alaskans. Let’s consider the case of ethanol, which thanks to numerous government policies has now overtaken Manhattan real estate, derivatives trading and high-tech start-ups as the investment opportunity du jour for the smart-money set. For starters, there’s the 51-cent rebate on the federal fuel tax for every gallon of ethanol added by refiners to their gasoline products. Or, if they prefer, refiners instead can take a 54-cent credit off their federal income taxes. And then there is the federal mandate, written into last year’s energy bill, that will require refiners to buy a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by the year 2012, nearly double the current production. To encourage investment in plants to turn corn, sugar or agricultural wastes into ethanol, there’s a 10-cent-a-gallon tax credit for “small” producers, which is now defined as anyone producing up to 60 million gallons. At the current market price of $2.90 a gallon, that would be a $175 million-a-year business. And […]

Read More

White House Forms Group to Support Nuclear Power

The White House has created an internal working group of selected federal agency officials to accelerate an expansion of nuclear power in the country. The panel, which includes officials from a half-dozen cabinet-level agencies, is expected to serve in part as a “sounding board” for nuclear industry officials who have expressed frustration over the slow pace of government licensing approvals for upgrading and expanding the nation’s aging nuclear power plants. A revival of the U.S. nuclear industry is a priority for the Bush administration, which argues that nuclear offers a reliable no-emissions source of power for meeting the nation’s growing energy needs. The nuclear power industry has mounted an aggressive campaign to generate public and political support for the construction of a new fleet of nuclear plants, the first that would be built in the United States in decades. The new White House group, which held its first meeting earlier this month, will be headed by the National Economic Council and include officials with DOE, Office of Management & Budget, Council of Economic Advisors, Council for Environmental Quality, Office of Science & Technology, Office of the Vice President, and possibly the Environmental Protection Agency, according to Lisa Epifani, special assistant […]

Read More