Mark Sumner wrote a great story focusing on the way workers were treated at Appharvest, a major financial scam/disaster that JD Vance was deeply involved in. Mark’s article mentions that Vance was an “early investor”, but it is clear that Vance’s involvement went very deep.
One critical document that provides details about the people involved is this SEC filing:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1807707/000110465921010348/tm214570d1_ex10-5.htm
ARTICLE I
GOVERNANCE AND VOTING MATTERS
Section 1.1 Board and Committees.
(a) Subject to the approval of the Novus Proposals and the consummation of the Merger, the Company will take all necessary action (to the extent permitted by applicable law and to the extent such action is consistent with the fiduciary duties of the Board under Delaware law) to cause the following to occur immediately after the effective time of the Merger:
(i) The Board to consist of ten directors (each, a “Director”), including Jonathan Webb, Kiran Bhatraju, Martha Stewart, Anna Mason, J.D. Vance, Jeffrey Ubben, David Lee, David Chen, Greg Couch, and Robert Laikin;
(ii) The audit committee of the Board to consist of three directors, including David Lee, as chair, Greg Couch, and J.D. Vance;
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(iii) The compensation committee of the Board to consist of three directors, including Kiran Bhatraju, as chair, Martha Stewart, and Anna Mason; and
(iv) The nominating and governance committee of the Board to consist of three directors, including Jeffrey Ubben, as chair, David Chen, and Robert Laikin.
JD Vance was assigned to the board’s audit committee (along with someone named Couch… tee hee).
Reading the write-up at this link is important to understand what happened
www.middletech.com/…
It is clear that Bance and his Silicon Valley VC patrons used Appharvest as a way to collect government and private $$ using a facade of community development and environmentally conscious investment. AppHarvest raised public money and then was launched on the stock market via a SPAC. Driven by mutual funds that channeled investors $$ to entities that checked “environmental and ethical” boxes (but with wholly deficient diligence on company fundamentals), Appharvest’s valuation grew to over $3.5 billion!
Meanwhile, company revenue never exceeded $50 million and its debts were enormous.
when the company declared bankruptcy it claimed to have $650 million in assets (suspiciously close to the cash it started with).
it appears that a small amount of the public money raised was invested in greenhouses or agricultural tech/expertise. Virtually none of the money raised (on paper) from taking the company public was invested in the company.
i have not been able to track down where all the money went, but various web pages mention that VC vulture Jeff Ubben got out with a nice return. It is likely that Vance did similarly well. It is clear that the VC dominated board on Appharvest did not meet their fiduciary obligations to investors. Mutual fund managers also failed their in their duty to perform due diligence before throwing their investor’s cash into this scam. It is interesting to note that Ubben ran a mutual fund at fidelity and that he has been openly playing around with ways to extract $$$ from schemes marketed as ethical and environmentally conscious investments. This is a useful warning to those of us who would like to keep our retirement savings in investments that promote sustainability and fair labor practices. A good “ethics” story should not keep us from investigating a company’s fundamental numbers.
Mark Sumner’s article is here:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/8/13/2262847/-Vance-s-failed-agricultural-startup-broke-big-promises-to-Appalachia
i’m afraid it’s moving down in today’s list, but it is an important read to understand the harm that Vance’s money grab has done to workers.
I believe that this story is more important than anything that might come out from the alleged hacking of Trump’s JD Vance vetting file.
