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46:57·3 SPEAKERS·3782 WORDS
AThe fund or the mezzanine loan matures in October of 2027. So we would want to make sure, ideally that your funds are invested into the project more than two years before October of 2027 would be October of 2025. So let's say by September and we're in June. So really the, the longest we'd probably want to wait for all your funds would be somewhere in August. Right. Ideally to make sure that there's enough time for your funds to go into the project, etc, and for you to meet your ideal, your, your sustainment period. So there. Because we're just closer in time, we, we tend to not have as much flexibility on timing. Okay, but I'll give you another example. We have a new project coming up. We just have a new project that's in Los Angeles there. It's also a senior loan. Well, it's a loan. It's a senior loan and we're, it's a four year loan. So it'll mature in June of 2029. So but there we're just starting off right. June of 2020 is four years from now.
BRight.
ASo there we have way more flexibility on timing. If you told me, you know what, Luis? I, I like to move forward, But I need seven months to give you those funds, the full 800,000. Can I do that? Yes. The answer for, for the one in Los Angeles would be yes, because. Because we have the time here in the one in Dallas. Just because we're short on time, we wouldn't be able to do that.
BUnderstood. And that, that, I mean, obviously means that the i526e is only filed after you've received all of the 800k. It cannot be initiated like halfway through.
ARight? Good question. So the i526E from our side, for example, we are usually can. Can countersign an investor's documents for them to file their iPhone to succeed with half of the investment amount. Generally speaking, again, it depends a little bit on timing. But for example, if you just, just as an example, you said, you know what, Luis? Yes. We want to move forward with that. This project, the Bishop Arts Project in, in Dallas.
BRight.
AWe have, let's say, $400,000 that we can wire right now. Can we file our IFAP 260 tomorrow, for example, and while we give you the other 400,000 by, let's say by August. Yes, we can probably do that. We can countersign your documents. You can get your application, your petition filed while you're wiring the remaining 400,000 to us. Yes. And the reason why we tend to do that is because we recognize that there are investors of ours that sometimes have shorter time frames or there's a reason why they want to file as soon as possible. And so we, with half of the investment amount, we tend to counter sign investors documents while they're wiring the remaining amount.
BOkay, sounds good, that's very helpful. And what about the fee itself? Like that, Is that also upfront initially or is that paid later? When does that take place for the.
ARC itself, the administrative fee? Yes, that is to be upfront.
BOkay.
AAs well, since of course we want to make sure that, you know, we're covered for the whole time that you're investing with us. So. Yes, that also tends to be up front.
BOkay. And, and one last question about payments. Like what? Like what? What do these payments actually look like? Are they bank transfers, like the actual 800k itself? Like are these bank transfers into a specific account? What kind of ownership does that of the. Who owns that account? Stuff like that?
AYes. So that's exactly what they look like. They are wires from your, your account here in the US or, or an account outside of the US There is no difference.
BFor us.
AThe only difference there might be what your attorney recommends.
BOkay.
ABased on your source of funds. But for us, it can be wired from a US bank or from a foreign bank and then it goes into the, the account. We work with this bank called Texas Capital bank, which is where all of our accounts are held. And there's a specific account for that specific fund. And that's very, very important because obviously we, we have many funds and we don't mix and match money because that's illegal. We, we can't do that. You would become a limited partner, an LP or limited partner of the fund. So to give you the example here, let me see if it's. Yeah. So here you would be a limited partner in the Civitas Bishop Arts Me Fund. That's the name, the legal name of the fund. And you'd be an investor in that fund. And so you would be a limited partner there. You would wire your $800,000 to an account at Texas Capital bank for Civitas Bishop Arts ME Fund ltd. And then from there it goes into the project. And then once it's paid back, it's the same way the loan is repaid, the messenger loan is repaid and those funds go back to you. So yes, separate account. We. All of our accounts are a Texas Capital bank and they're a specific account for the specific fund yeah.
BOkay, sounds good. Yeah, that was all my questions on like payment related things. I also wanted to know like, you spoke about law firms. I just wanted to know like, does Civitas itself recommend specific law attorneys for this? For the. For the process? Yeah.
AHappy to put you in touch with an attorney if you don't have one yet. I know you're both in New York, so I'll probably put you in touch with Neural Patel. He's a very good immigration attorney. He's in New York. He is. Since you. You mentioned you're both Indian. He is the head of the Middle Eastern and Indian practice at KLDP.
BOkay.
AThey're. They've done a lot of EB5, as you can see here. He has a lot of EB5 experience. So he. He's very, very good. And he's located in. In New York City. His office is in. It's right in Midtown. I can't remember. I don't know if it's around here. But anyway, he's. He's in Midtown, not too far from Grand Central.
BSo.
AGreat attorney.
BThat's nice. Any. Anyone else? Or like just. Just so that you have a couple of options or you can like send them to us offline, like later as well.
CYeah, maybe you could like a couple of recommendations. If you have any, you can email them to us.
AAbsolutely. Yes. Yes, I can definitely send you a couple recommendations. I'll send you Neural's information and then I'll send you someone else that also has a lot of experience, you know, ideally with Indian investors. Because especially if you're going to have financial documents that might not be from the US Might be from India. Yeah, I think it's good. Somebody that has looked at those documents and understands the banking system there as well. And then secondly, always someone that has done many, many EB5. So just rest assured that whomever I send over, we know has done many EB Fives because there's obviously intricacies that they have to know. And so we want to make sure that whomever you're talking to has a lot of experience.
CThank you so much for that.
BI just want to be cognizant of your time. I think it's already been 30 minutes, so do you have more time? Because I have a few more questions.
ASure, yeah. I have a few more minutes. Of course.
BGo ahead. Okay, perfect. So you. Do you know what the approval rate for the i526E specifically looks like for your firm? And like, if. If there have been a few denials, why have the you they usually been denied.
AYeah, yeah. Happy to share that information. So we've never had a denial to our projects because as I mentioned, we have a 100 approval rate. So never been due to us, never been due to anything that we provided or projects themselves. The only time that it's been, I don't know, out of the 1500, very, very small amount, I don't have the exact number in front of me. But the only people that we know of that have been there, gotten their effort to succeed denied, have been for somebody did not go to their interview. They don't show up to their interview. The USCIS and them repeated notices to attend to their consular interview and they just stopped responding to USCIS, did not go through the interview. So their iPhone260 was denied.
BI see.
AThen there was someone else that I know of that well, I think somebody provided, I don't know that it was false on purpose, but information that was contrary to the information that USCIS had about them. And so therefore their i560 was denied again, not because of our project, but because the information they provided was inconsistent with the information that USCIS had.
BI see.
AAnd I think that's it. Those are the only kind of cases where we've known of anything of that sort. But no, never due to anything with their projects again because they've all been approved. So if, if our project's approved and the only reason why somebody can be denied is if they don't provide a correct source of funds, which I don't think anybody has had, because they will work with the lawyer, very reputable attorneys, and then not showing up to the interview or providing false information or contrary information to what the US Government has. Makes sense, but it's a very small number. I, I, it's very small number. Yeah, I can't think of the exact number right now, but very small.
BGot it. And I also saw on your website on one of the projects, I think it was the Hawaii one, I'm not sure, but it mentioned like you guarantee that in the very rare case of an i526 denial, you would refund the capital. Does that work for all your projects?
AYeah, that's absolutely correct, sir. Well, that, that's right. So we have what you will see, and you'll see this in our documents too. And I'm happy to also provide you with a questionnaire so that you can have access to our documents too. But generally how it works is we have an IFF260 guarantee and denial guarantee. And what it means is if due to our project, again, has never happened to us in 15 years, but if somebody were to get their petition denied because of us, we return the money to them, no questions asked.
BRight.
ABecause obviously it was our fault that they got denied. If somebody denied for another reason, our project's approved. And let's say they don't, they file their petition correctly, they did everything fine, but they did not, they, they don't know why they were denied.
BRight.
AThey worked with a good attorney, good source of funds, everything. They put in a good petition and it was somehow denied. Then what we ask of investors is that they go and they go through the, the appeal process of appealing that decision with uscis. And the reason why, before we give them their funds back, you know, and the reason why we ask that is because we don't want our investors to, to not put in like, like the cases that I have to describe to you. Right. We don't want to have investors that are not filing a petition in good faith. Right. Or, or, or not with the intention of actually moving forward with the process. So that's why we ask people, before we give them their funds just to show the documentation that they file this in good faith and that they filed the appeal and for some reason is still denied, then yes, we would, we would give them their funds back. But we do ask of that first. If it's not related to our project, if it's related to a project. No. No questions asked.
BI see. And does that also include like the fees or would that not be returned?
AThe fees? It's, I think it's part of it. I think what you see in our documents and it just, it's part, part of our ppm. So I'll share that with you. To give you the exact language, I don't have it in front of me.
BPerfect.
ABut I think what it'll say is the administrative fee minus a five thousand dollar processing fee that we, that we keep. But I think for the most part, yes, the admin fee does go back, I think, minus $5,000 if I'm not mistaken.
BOkay, that sounds good. Yeah, I think that answers most of my questions related to the RC itself. Do you have any other questions?
CYeah, I guess one more thing was that you've mentioned that you've been working for 15 years and you've worked on many projects. Can you give us a, some kind of statistic on how many of those you were actually able to return the invested amount to the investors?
AYeah, yeah, absolutely. So from those funds and I Can share our, our. I'll just need an NDA from you. Sorry, but, but I can share the actual track record, like the actual document that has fund by fund, how many of them returned and which of them returned their capital and everything. But that I can remember. I think it's been three or four. I, I can share the actual documents. So you both see it, but it's been around three or four that have not returned the full capital to investors. And I'm happy to share those reasons. So one of them. And again, all of those have created the jobs and all of those have been built. So we've never had a situation where we just left the project halfway through and the people didn't get their green cards. In all of these cases, people got their green cards. Now what happened is the return was not as expected. And an example of that would be during COVID or right before COVID we were building a hotel in an area of the US that was going to have large oil or oil and gas development. And so the hotel was built. The, the, I think hotels, there were two or three hotels that were built. All the jobs were created. People got their green cards. But then the oil company that was going to be setting put there did not actually open their office or did not go through with their investment into that smaller town where the hotel was being held. And so the hotel was built, but it wasn't worth what it was, what it should have been worth because nobody really. The demand for that hotel was very, very much lower than expected. And I think there were other issues. I think there. But for the most part that was the issue. So people got their green cards, jobs were created, but then the return was not as expected. Not all the capital was returned. Then other ones where that's been the case, they're, they're similar in nature to that one. But I'm, I'm more than happy to share the, the actual track record for you both to, to take a look. But yes, it's been the, you know, a very small subset of our projects. I think that somewhere around 96% of, of everything has gone well or return. But again, when you're in business for 15 years, I would be wary of some, somebody that says that there have been any issues along the way, of course, and here it's been, yeah, the minority of them. But yes, happy to share the actual track record with both of you also. I can send in an NDA and then once you share that, we can send it to you. But yeah, it's that way you can have transparency of seeing what we've done and which projects haven't return the full capital.
BYeah, sounds good. Yeah, we'll definitely be interested in like looking at. At that and happy to sign the MD as well.
APerfect. Perfect. Yep. Then I can definitely send that over. And I can send those over.
BThe.
AThe questionnaire, which again includes just. It's four questions, is basically just making sure that you're accredited just so we can share all our information with you. But once you do that, I can give you access to our portal and there you can see more details about our projects. I can. Again, I'm not sure what your timeline is. It would be great to kind of hear a little bit about that, but also to see if you have more, you know, you would want to review the documents for either a project in Dallas or a project in Los Angeles.
BYeah, sure. We can definitely have a look. Our timeline's like, not very certain right now. I really doubt that we can make the Dallas one, which you said you need the funds by August. I think that would be around the time we could probably like, get all of our funds in place. But yeah, if we decide to move on getting the EV5, we want to do it within the next two to three months.
AOkay, great, Great. What I can do for now, I can share the portal access to both documents to both projects, the one in Los Angeles and the one in Dallas so that you can take a look and see which one seems to align better with your team timeline. That way, you know, we, we can keep both options open for now. But yes, I'll. I'll send you a questionnaire right after a call. I'll ask one of my. Well, actually, I'll send you the, the, the NDA through DocuSign.
BThank you.
AAs well. And then we can go with creating a portal for you so you can access all the documents and then also giving you access to the box folder where our tracker record is as well.
BPerfect. Perfect. Yeah, that sounds good. One last thing before we end is your. Your website currently also mentions projects in Hawaii and San Diego. Are those like, full now or no longer, like, taking on investors?
AYes, that's. That's right. So the one in, in Hawaii is fully subscribed. Yes, that one we closed already. The one in San Diego I think might have one or two spots. So that one, you know, from a timing perspective, might be a little trickier too. It's also equity as opposed to debt. So I'm happy to talk a little bit more in depth about it, but that One has higher expected returns, but also it's an equity position. So as opposed to the ones in Dallas and Los Angeles that are more, that are debt position, so lower risk in the one in San Diego, we're the equity where we own the project, so potential greater return, but also the, you know, being in an equity position, which is a little bit riskier.
BI see. I mean, if it is, if it is still on the table, it'd be nice if we could like have a look at that project as well. If you, if you don't mind sending the documents for that as well.
AAbsolutely. No, I don't mind at all. Yeah, I'm happy to share that. The one in San Diego as well. I'll send all three to you again. Once, once you complete the questionnaire, I'll give you access to all three and then that way you can compare them and then obviously ask me any questions. Usually I, I tell our prospective investors that I, I assume many questions come up as you're reviewing them, so don't hesitate to reach out to me at all. I can give both of you, let me put that right here, my WhatsApp as well, in case you have any. Obviously if you have my email, but also give you my WhatsApp in case you have any questions that you'd like to communicate that way through. That's my advance so that you both have it. So any questions that you, you have, feel free to create a group or why don't you reach out to me and we can, I can answer your questions that way as well.
BPerfect. Thank you. Thank you so much, Louis. And like, if you do like, like pursue this, we would very much like to like, meet you also because you're in New York. But yeah, thanks for taking the time today to speak to us and look like hopefully we reach back to you soon.
AAbsolutely. Sergeant. Yeah, it's my pleasure. We. Happy to meet in New York again. I can probably invite our head of even five as well, who's. I'm in Manhattan and so is he. So we can always schedule some time to meet with the both of us so that you can see, you know directly who you would be working with as well. I think that's a great idea.
BNice. Thank you so much.
AAbsolutely. It's my pleasure. And I'll be sending you an email with that questionnaire and the docusign with the MDA shortly.
BPerfect. Thank you. Thank you again.
CThank you for your time today.
AL. Absolutely.
BThank you both.
AHave a great rest of your day.
CYou too. Thank you.
BBye.
AThanks and bye bye. It.
CI'm here for my daily nibble. Never, never fix your hand. Never. No, never. Exchange.
BThe project looks huge and not very likely. I mean because of the size and like because of the sponsor equity. It looks big and.
CMezzanine loan versus equity fund.
BWhat does that mean?
COne he said you would we own the project. So there's a higher chance of. There's a chance of higher return with the equity position.
BYeah, but what does it mean?
CI don't know, but that is what he said. Chair. How is that possible? Chair is still cold. Cold means there is still damp. It means you are horny.
BYou are horny.
AYou are horny.
CMay 12 to one meeting. Oh, Leanna Kuch Kuch Veggy option. Bye.
BTo Toby.
CToby part for you meeting.
AThat. It? It's.
EB-5 Investment Risks ⚠️openwebui
the eb-5 loan is being used like a temporary construction loan to get the project built. once the building is finished and operating (like a hotel with guests or an apartment building with tenants), the developer's plan is to go to a regular bank and get a new, long-term "permanent" loan. the money from this new loan is used to pay off and "take out" the original eb-5 investors. this whole process is a refinance, or "refi." the key point here is that a refi can happen much faster than selling the entire property, meaning you could get your capital back sooner.
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