Editorial: Setting the record straight

Talk about it

“This company has no intention of filing for bankruptcy,” Heron Lake BioEnergy General Manager and board president Bob Ferguson told the Daily Globe on Tuesday.

“Bankruptcy? I don’t know where they’d come up with that?” added Luke Schneider, HLBE’s chief financial officer.

“They” is Minnesota Public Radio, which recently reported that HLBE was in “financial trouble” and had a “dismal future”— and in turn likely led to “misunderstandings and misinformation,” as Schneider put it. Ferguson, who said he wasn’t reached by MPR for its story, said he was grateful for the opportunity to comment on HLBE’s health.

The concern over HLBE’s financial strength stems from a portion of a report required annually by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. Form 10K, as its known, provides a thorough summary of a public company’s performance.

Ferguson explained for a Wednesday Daily Globe article that the segment of the 10K “is the verbiage that equates to the hypothethic — worst-case scenarios, All the bad things, the worst things that could exist.”

Specifically, MPR reported that AgStar Financial Services could accelerate HLBE’s indebtedness and seize assets, forcing the selling of the company’s assets or foreclosure — language Ferguson said comes from the “worst-case scenario” portion of the 10K report.

HLBE recently extended an agreement with its lender to extend the maturity date on a revolving line of credit to May 1 — its second such extension. Given this fact, it’s safe to say that HLBE, like so many enterprises in the region, is experiencing some hard times. But, to paraphrase Twain, rumors of the plant’s imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Tags: heron lake, opinion, editorials, energy