The articles in the recent series by Whit Richardson, “Payday at the mill” (April 19 and 26), are excellent pieces of investigative journalism.

As president and CEO of Putney, Inc., I would like to comment on the April 26 article mentioning us in connection with Advantage Capital.

Mr. Richardson states that “Advantage Capital threatened to pull its more than $30 million investment from Maine, which included $7 million to Putney Inc., a Portland-based pet pharmaceutical company,” to force the Finance Authority of Maine board to approve a financing deal for JSI Store Fixtures in Milo that included a one-day loan of $15.8 million.

It is interesting to read that we were used as leverage, which I was completely unaware of.

I’d like to point out that the financing Putney received from Advantage Capital did not include the type of one-day loan described in the article. Putney simply procured debt financing through Advantage Capital at a lower cost than was available through other sources.

I also applaud Mr. Richardson for identifying the error in the New Markets Capital Investment economic impact report that attributes all of Putney’s job creation to the quoted $7 million received through Advantage Capital (in fact, the initial loan was for $8 million).

Since I launched the company in 2006, we’ve hired over 60 team members. That growth has been achieved with the well-known elements of entrepreneurial success: the right strategy, the right team and access to capital.

In Putney’s case, we’ve raised over $50 million in equity from investors as well as plowing all of our proceeds from over $30 million in revenues last year back into the business.

Jean Hoffman

president and CEO, Putney, Inc.

Portland

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