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News Golden opportunity (May 21, 2004) - Young companies with the potential to be tomorrow's major employers have long starved for startup capital in North Carolina. A welcome change could be coming with the arrival of a deep-pocketed Swiss company. Luring HBM Partners of Zurich was the work of the Golden LEAF Foundation, created to ease the state's economic transition from tobacco. For that purpose, the foundation is due $2.3 billion from the state's share of the 1999 legal settlement with tobacco manufacturers. Some $30 million was committed to a Rocky Mount-based firm called BioVista to invest in young biotechnology companies if it could raise another $60 million from private sources. Unfortunately, it couldn't. But the opportunity did attract the attention of HBM Partners, which already has invested in several Triangle biotech companies. The foundation is allowing its $30 million to go with BioVista's successor company and join forces with HBM to form a $95 million pool to jump-start new life-sciences businesses. By definition, the new HBM BioCapital fund will make risky investments. But nurturing local businesses is no more risky as a job-creation strategy than is wooing out-of-state entrepreneurs to locate here. Scrupulous accounting and responsible oversight by the foundation of course are mandatory. The public also has a right to a commitment that the fund's partners will focus on investments creating jobs for North Carolinians. That evidently is HBM's purpose in having a presence in Durham, but Golden LEAF would represent the public well by having the company's word on that. Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina. # # # For additional information, please contact Email: info@goldenleaf.org
Golden LEAF Foundation |