If the EB-5 Developer Can't Count the Zeroes, Look for Another Broker

If the EB-5 Developer Can't Count the Zeroes, Look for Another Broker

2016/03/15 11:55am

An as example of how slipshod some EB-5 offers can be, here's a developer who has run an uncorrected proposal on the Internet for weeks that manages to confuse $1.575 billion with $157.5 million. The EB-5 program offers a family-sized set of green cards to aliens ponying up $500,000 investments.

The proposal sounds, at first, to be interesting:

It's the biggest, fastest public Wi-Fi project on Earth: Starting today, New York is unveiling street-side internet hotspots that will blanket America's biggest city and provide unprecedented wifi access to over 8 million people.

The proposal is to replace 7,500 (remaining) pay phones "with new structures called Links." Just how this will generate profits is not stated, but presumably the developers have some notions about this.

Then we get to the financial details, and we see this:

While there are no dollar signs in front of "1.575 billion" we know that 315 investors, each putting up $500,000, will raise $157.5 million. We also know that 315 investments are supposed to produce 10 jobs each, which jibes with "Job: 3150."

My hand calculator indicates that, rounded, 1,575 is 38 percent of 4,160, so in addition to a missing $1,417,500,000 — that's $1.4 billion — we also have a rounding error.