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On two separate occasions, a sales rep from GE Capital along with some of the company’s experts on public financing and project financing met with Integrity Automotive CEO Randall Waldman and others to talk about a proposed ZAP manufacturing plant in Kentucky.
But, GE officials say they never came close to financing the project.
“We met with them to talk more about what we do and don’t do, and hear a little bit about their company and about their plans,” GE Capital spokesperson Stephen White told Manufacturing & Technology eJournal. “Each meeting lasted about an hour and it never went beyond that.”
That account counters Waldman’s version of events that GE was supposed to buy bonds that would have provided a majority of the financing for the plant. Waldman claims GE informed him in October that the finance company pulled the plug on all their U.S. projects, including the ZAP plant, when the economy hit the skids. As a result, Waldman said he was looking at alternatives to fund the plant including a federal grant/loan program for alternative energy vehicles and several other finance companies.
GE’s White said sales reps do not make $125 million commitments, verbal or otherwise.
“We do big deals all the time,” White said. “But we never even put a proposal in front of them (for the ZAP plant) so to even say that we were in talks with them, in negotiations with them, would be an overstatement.”
Waldman declined to comment for this article, instead referring us to his CFO.
In an e-mail request for comments over the weekend, Jill Midkiff, deputy communications director for the governor, replied that incentives offered by the state in this case - as in all economic packages - were performance based. So they hinged solely on the creation of jobs.
“We are also willing to continue talking with ZAP and Integrity about the prospects for expansion,” Midkiff wrote. “However, we won't do anything that places taxpayer interests at risk.”
And, she said state officials continue to believe there will be a market for electric cars, both in Kentucky and nationally, which is why they moved on regulations making it possible for those vehicles to operate on some roads.
In a follow up e-mail, Midkiff was asked if the governor’s office had failed to verify that financing for the project was in place before making the big announcement.
"We were told that financing was in place," she said.
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