The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development is actively communicating with EB-5 stakeholders to address concerns raised with the new procedures for designating “Targeted Employment Areas.” We met with Brook Taylor and Mather Kearney of the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (known as “GoBiz”) on May…
This article was first published by Hotel Business on May 21, 2012 Four years after the collapse of the traditional financing markets for new hotel developments, most hotel developers are still struggling to find the necessary financing to fill the capital stack required to build new hotels. Even for developers…
California has adopted new policies that will deny EB-5 financing too many projects. On April 30, 2012, the California Department of Business, Transportation and Housing Agency released a bombshell that will have substantial negative effects on California businesses seeking to raise financing through the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. In…
Since the release of its “Tenant Occupancy” Notice on February 17, 2012, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has begun issuing Requests for Evidence on pending regional center applications and exemplar I-526 petitions that involve “tenant occupancy models”. These Requests for Evidence articulate a new USCIS policy to reject…
Why EB-5 financing is important to hotel developers now: Financing for new hotel development is still in short supply, even for experienced hotel developers. As a result, many hotel developers are exploring the EB-5 financing program as an alternative to traditional financing sources. The EB-5 investor visa program offers non-U.S.…
An immigrant investor has two primary objectives when shopping for an EB-5 project — to minimize the immigration risk and to minimize the investment risk. No immigrant wants to move to the U.S. under a conditional green card (that requires them to generate jobs in the U.S.), buy a house,…
EB-5 is an immigrant investor visa category created in 1990 for foreign nationals who invest in a new commercial enterprise that will benefit the U.S. economy and create at least 10 full-time jobs. The name comes from the fact that this visa is the 5th category of employment based (EB)…
This article appeared in the September 19, 2011 issue of Hotel Business and is reprinted with permission. With hotel development financing still in short supply, the EB-5 investor visa program is an alternative financing source worth exploring . The EB-5 program allows foreign investors to obtain a U.S. visa for…
Business owners throughout the United States are still finding it difficult to finance development and expansion of their business, almost three years after the start of the Great Recession in September 2008, and weak job creation continues to be a major factor holding back the economic recovery. U.S. business owners…
In a previous posting, we described how the EB-5 investment program can be used by hotel owners and developers to provide an additional source of financing for hotel development, expansion and acquisitions. Although EB-5 financing is not new, the number of potential investors seeking EB-5 visas from mainland China has…