Over on the home page, I have an article about Jeb Bush’s time on the company board of the now-bankrupt fiber-panel manufacturer.
Among other problems, InnoVida received a loan from the U.S. government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation to build and operate a panel-manufacturing facility in Haiti after the terrible earthquake in that country. The plan was to build shelters quickly and create jobs for Haitians in the process.
Unfortunately, despite a cheery video put out by the company, none of the money was used for that. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida issued a joint statement saying that “[CEO Claudio] Osorio used the OPIC loan proceeds to repay investors and for his and his co-conspirators’ personal benefit and to further the fraud scheme.” The good news for former governor Jeb Bush is that there’s no proof he knew what the company was really doing. The bad news for Bush is that he had no idea what the company was really doing.
Charles Stadtlander of OPIC tells me that the $3.3 million that the company owes OPIC is in bankruptcy proceedings, so the organization is still attempting to recover it. He also noted, “OPIC returns money to the U.S. taxpayer every year ($358 million in 2014, $426 million in 2013) and operates with a less than one percent default rate on our lending portfolio — performance any commercial lender would be thrilled to achieve.”