Bluestem has to hand it to Scott Honour for chutzpah.
After telling public school children in Glencoe that “Our state discourages (businesses),” he visited MiroMatrix, a bio-technology firm in Glencoe’s industrial park, a local newspaper reports.
The firm has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state loans, as well as having $423,400.00 in tax credits issued in 2012 to qualified investors or qualified fund’s investors under DEED’s Angel Tax Credit Program.
Honour is part-owner of the firm, according to the McLeod County Chronicle, so he must feel pretty discouraged. Editor Rich Glennie reports:
“I’m not running for a career here,” Honour said last week during a visit to the high school and Tom Schoper’s political science class, a tour of Seneca Foods and a stop at The Chronicle office. He also happens to be a part owner in MiroMatrix, a bio-technology firm in Glencoe’s industrial park. . . .
As a businessman, Honour said he always looks for the root cause of problems first as well as what is working well.
As to jobs and the business climate in Minnesota, he said what is now being done is failing to grow either jobs or business.
He called Minnesota the worst regulatory and tax environment in the country. “Our state discourages (businesses),” Honour said.
Heavens know how Honour responded to the news that Forbes magazine painted a rosier picture for Minnesota, which jumped 12 spots to No. 8 in its annual Best States For Business list.
More on MiroMatrix
Med City News reported on May 4, 2011 in Miromatrix identifies first product, seeks $5M in new funding round:
Miromatrix has already raised $1.4 million in a seed round that included two $250,000 loans from the state of Minnesota. Impressed by Taylor’s success and attracted by the hope that Miromatrix might one day spawn a regenerative medicine industry in Minnesota, state officials provided those loans in 2010. However, the loans don’t place any limits on where the company needs to be based, Cohen said. The company needs to begin repaying those loans in 2015.
That $923,400 in loans and tax credits should send discouraged management racing for the office Zoloft stash before curling into a fetal position and rolling all the way to Bismarck, North Dakota.
The Strib has more about the firm--which was spun off from the University of Minnesota (another state institution)--in The Star Tribune reported in an April 11, 2011 article, Lavish praise, then a quick ouster for star U scientist.
But if Honour finds the fostering of a business based on state university research, the DEED loans and the 2012 Angel Tax Credits too discouraging, at least he'll have good Republican company in his depression as Miromatrix advances.
As Bluestem posted in October 2011's Srsly chimerical: Tim Pawlenty joins board of porcine-human organ research company, Pawlenty joined Miromatrix's board two years ago. Minneapolis and St. Paul has more in Pawlenty takes another board job — this one with Miromatrix.
Another Republican putting in a cameo appearance with Pawlenty and Honour on Miromatrix's crony capitalist level? Miromatrix board of directors member Ron Eibensteiner, President of Wyncrest Capital, Inc., who served as state chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota from 1999 to 2005.
Photo: Minnesota just discourages business, crony capitalist Scott Honour (pictured above) says. He's part owner of biotech startup Miromatrix, which received the benefit of close to $1 million in state loans and Angel Investor tax credits. Former Governor Tim Pawlenty and state MNGOP chair Ron Eibensteiner are on the company's board of directors.
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