Peoria Illinoisan

Curious about a short post by Merle Widmer regarding a local business heading to bankruptcy and which he states “some government bodies may be stuck again with some unpaid bills of 6 figure size” got me wondering as to who this business could be.

On March 21, 2009, the Journal Star printed a list of businesses that currently have Small Business Loans through both the city and county of Peoria. Of those listed only four companies have a combined outstanding balance of over $100,000: Sloan Biotech, Tim’s Ace Hardware, Lagron Miller and Globe Energy.

Globe Energy.

Remember them? They burst on the scene in 2007 with the promise of 600 jobs only to hire 38 at their height according to what I could find.

Remember the company president David Jones who ruffled some feathers when responding about complaining workers with the quote “I have a Ferrari and a $3 million house in the U.K. I don’t need this abuse” and later threatened to sue Billy Dennis over a post that I wrote?

I had noticed over the summer that no more than three or four cars were in the parking lot at any one time, and not long ago the security guard at the entrance to the parking lot (yes, they really had a security guard) had gone missing. Common sense tells me that in a world wide recession most Fortune 500 companies do not want to spend a boatload of cash to upgrade their facilities using Globe Energy’s products, so it should come as no big surprise that they’ve been struggling.

Also on March 21, the Journal Star printed an article written by reporter John Sharp, reprinted in brief here:

Globe Energy LLC is several months behind in repaying taxpayer-backed loans it received from the city and county in 2007 to open and operate a Peoria manufacturing plant for energy-efficient heating equipment.

The company, whose British founder and president has called Illinoisans’ work ethic “awful,” owes a combined $251,598 in principal and interest payments on two loans it received in 2007 totaling $300,000. The loans are for $150,000 each and are to be repaid in five years.

[...]

Neither the city nor the county has a defined deadline in which small-business loans need to be repaid before each entity seeks legal action.

Peoria City Finance Director James Scroggins said typically whenever a business is late by two months or more in payments of sales or hotel, restaurant and amusement (HRA) taxes, the legal department is notified.

But with small-business development loans, such as the one Globe Energy has, it’s up to the Economic Development Department to work with the company to make sure the debt is repaid. The Finance Department does send a monthly bill to the company informing it about the late payments that are due.

In Peoria County, Brunner said it’s up to EDC to monitor the small-business loans. While the county doesn’t send out a monthly bill, the EDC does assess fines on late payments.

EDC’s Chief Operating Officer Vickie Clark said it’s the county’s “ultimate decision” whether legal action should be pursued to recoup a loan.

I don’t fault the city and county’s Economic Development departments, although I do think they may want to look at how better they can enforce and collect on defaulting payments. I had high hopes for Globe Energy and its future here in Peoria, as many did, and of course I hate to hear of any local business going under. Although this is mere speculation, if Globe Energy is truly on the brink of bankruptcy, Mr. Jones has burned too many bridges for me to feel much sympathy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.