NCIF Partners with CEI to Benefit Rural Communities through $125 Million NMTC Program

This fall, the U.S. Treasury allocated $125 million to Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI) as part of the federal New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) Program. Through its subsidiary, CEI Capital Management LLC (CCML), CEI will use the allocation to attract private capital investments for rural economic development projects throughout the country.

NCIF has partnered with CEI to deploy NMTCs in the Southeast, targeting projects with significant economic, social and environmental benefits.

“As a working partner of CEI’s NMTC program, NCIF is in a position to give distressed communities access to significant investment capital. We look forward to helping to accelerate the development and implementation of new businesses that both conserve natural resources and enhance the economic capacity of their communities.” said NCIF President Marten Jenkins.

NCIF and CEI recently used NMTC financing to preserve 131,000 acres of working forestland in central West Virginia. This investment impacts 13 different sawmills with 925 direct jobs and another 840 jobs in the forest products industry.

“Our New Markets subsidiary CCML is being recognized for its impact on jobs and the environment in our most rural regions,” said Ron Phillips, president of CEI and one of the original architects of the NMTC program. “Many of the real estate and business projects that benefit from NMTC financing create and sustain jobs, reduce energy costs and/or rely on renewable sources of energy, representing the triple bottom line of economic impact, social gains in meaningful jobs, and care for the environment.”

Charlie Spies, CCML Managing Director said, “The announcement validates CEI’s focus and the need for increased investment in the hardest hit low income areas of rural America. The people of West Virginia have not been forgotten, nor has the innovation and entrepreneurship of its business and environmental leaders.”

The NMTC program, established by Congress in December 2000, permits individual and corporate taxpayers to receive a credit against federal income taxes for making equity investments in investment vehicles known as Community Development Entities (CDEs). CDEs must apply to the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which administers the NMTC program, to compete for this allocation authority. The organizations receiving awards have identified principal service areas that will cover nearly every state in the country, and plan to invest in renewable energy projects, charter schools, health care facilities, manufacturing companies, and retail centers. In the U.S. to date, over $14 billion of private-sector capital has been invested through the NMTC Program into urban and rural communities throughout the country.

CEI Capital Management, LLC (CCML) is a for-profit subsidiary of Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) that furthers CEI's mission by working to help attract capital to low-income areas using the federal New Markets Tax Credit program. CEI and CCML take a triple bottom-line approach as an NMTC program sponsor when underwriting prospective transactions, looking for strongly positive economic and community development impacts, social equity, and environmental protection. www.ceimaine.org