Peer Reviewers, Loan Terms, More Competitors
The SEIC Board met last Wednesday and recommended the National Center for Manufaturing Sciences (NCMS) be the organization to conduct the peer review process for this round of the 21st Century Jobs Fund competition.
The MEDC http://www.themedc.org/21cbizplan/ also talked about the loan to be used for the awarding of the money to recommended companies. Rather than two loans they are zeroing in on one. It would be subordinate, have an interest rate based on prime at the time, and it would include a warrant for 3% of common. We assume the interest and warrant coverage is negotiable. There was no mention of collatoral although it is safe to assume they will stick with the original answer in the FAQ http://ref.themedc.org/cm/attach/18efd0c7-95d3-4a2f-89e4-cae672d8ecd2/FAQs_24_June_2008.pdf which says whatever is acquired with this loan will be the collatoral if applicable.
Nearly 100 companies have registered so far. You must register to get access to the application. Allow 2 days for a turnaround. If you haven’t registered yet it’s almost too late. As of last week about 60 companies started filling out their application. That’s not much competition for the $30 million available. We know of several companies asking for a lot less than $1 million.
Our friend David Haviland was at the meeting of the SEIC Board http://www.themedc.org/Boards-Committees/SEIC-Board/Default.aspx and has posted his report at http://mi21cjf.proboards100.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=306news&thread=47.
Deadline for applications is Monday at 5:00 pm. Don’t procrastinate. Good luck.
David Haviland blog on SEIC Meeting
Report on 6/18 SEIC Board meeting