#bedminster township

[molybdic]

late hydrangea

[porcelainapparition]

Bedminster Township, New Jersey

built in 1790

[buckscountyfence]

About Bucks County Fence

Fence Installation in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Time for new fencing? Get a free estimate for fence installation in Bucks County. Check out all of the available fencing services below. Our local fence contractors in Bucks County PA serve all of Bucks County.

Wood Fence

Choose a beautiful and long-lasting wood fence by using only the high quality wood products. A variety of styles, heights, and options are available, from solid privacy fences to picket fences. Enhance your wood fence with accents such as cap and trim, post caps, or lattice fence with cap and trim.

Split Rail Fence

Split rail fence offers rustic charm and is a great fencing choice for a suburban or rural property. Often customers add wire mesh to contain pets or animals. Split rail fence offers a cost effective way to install an attractive fence. Request an estimate to find out more about your options for split rail fencing.

Vinyl Fencing

Vinyl fencing offers fantastic durability with little or no maintenance. You can now get vinyl fence in a wide range of colors, textures and designs. Vinyl can be used for picket fences, semi-private designs such as a shadowbox fences, or full privacy fences. The initial investment in a vinyl fence pays off in the long run.

Chain Link Fence

Chain link fence continues to be one of the most common and economical forms of fencing and is ideal for residential and commercial applications. Chain link fencing offers two main types: galvanized chain link or vinyl-coated chain link in multiple colors.

Aluminum Fence

Aluminum fences add the elegance and protection of wrought iron fences with less maintenance. These fences come in a variety of colors, styles, and heights to increase the value and aesthetic appeal of any property. A quality aluminum fence enhances the beauty of your home, pool, or yard.

If you have questions about your options in fencing materials please let us know.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a permit to build a fence in Bucks County?

Yes, you will probably need a permit to build your fence in Bucks County. However, your fence permit will not be issued by Bucks County, but will be issued by your local borough or township. In limited circumstances you may be able to repair or replace a portion of your fence without a permit.

How tall can a fence be in Bucks County?

In general, in most townships and boroughs fences of six feet in height are allowed in rear yards. Fences of four feet in height are allowed in front yards. The height of any proposed fence will be governed by the zoning rules of your local borough or township.

Should I repair or replace my fence?

You should replace your fence when 20% or more of your fence needs repair. This rule of thumb exists because you do not want to invest more in a fence near the end of its lifespan. The exceptions to consider will be when the fence is new and just part of it is damaged. Also keep in mind that a fence permit may be required depending on the size of the repair.

Service Area in Bucks County

Boroughs

Bristol

Chalfont

Doylestown

Dublin

Hulmeville

Ivyland

Langhorne

Langhorne Manor

Morrisville

New Britain

New Hope

Newtown

Penndel

Perkasie

Quakertown

Richlandtown

Riegelsville

Sellersville

Silverdale

Telford

Trumbauersville

Tullytown

Yardley

Townships

Bedminster

Bensalem

Bridgeton

Bristol

Buckingham

Doylestown

Durham

East Rockhill

Falls

Haycock

Hilltown

Lower Makefield

Lower Southampton

Middletown

Milford

New Britain

Newtown

Nockamixon

Northampton

Plumstead

Richland

Solebury

Springfield

Tinicum

Upper Makefield

Upper Southampton

Warminster

Warrington

Warwick

West Rockhill

Wrightstown

[frenchwillaume]

Local Courier and Taxi Service in New Jersey

Taxi and Courier Service.  Woodbury Heights, Bayonne, Harrison, Hoboken, Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen, Secaucus, Union City, Weehawken, West New York, Annandale, Asbury, Baptistown, Bloomsbury, Califon, Clinton, Flemington, Frenchtown, Glen Gardner, Hampton, High Bridge, Lambertville, Lebanon, Little York, Milford, Oldwick, Pittstown, Pottersville, Quakertown, Readington, Ringoes, Rosemont, Sergeantsville, Stanton, Stockton, Three Bridges, Whitehouse, Whitehouse Station, Hightstown, Hopewell, Lawrence Township, Pennington, Princeton, Princeton Junction, Titusville, Trenton, West Windsor, Windsor, Avenel, Carteret, Colonia, Cranbury, Dayton, Dunellen, East Brunswick, Edison, Fords, Helmetta, Highland Park, Iselin, Keasbey, Kendall Park, Metuchen, Middlesex, Milltown, Monmouth Junction, Monroe Township, New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Old Bridge, Parlin, Perth Amboy, Piscataway, Plainsboro, Port Reading, Sayreville, Sewaren, South Amboy, South Plainfield, South River, Spotswood, Woodbridge, Adelphia, Allenhurst, Allentown, Allenwood, Asbury Park, Atlantic Highlands, Avon By The Sea, Belford, Belmar, Bradley Beach, Brielle, Cliffwood, Colts Neck, Cream Ridge, Deal, Eatontown, Englishtown, Fair Haven, Farmingdale, Fort Monmouth, Freehold, Hazlet, Highlands, Holmdel, Howell, Imlaystown, Keansburg, Keyport, Leonardo, Lincroft, Little Silver, Long Branch, Manasquan, Marlboro, Matawan, Middletown, Millstone Township, Monmouth Beach, Morganville, Navesink, Neptune, Oakhurst, Ocean Grove, Oceanport, Port Monmouth, Red Bank, Roosevelt, Rumson, Sea Girt, Shrewsbury, Spring Lake, Tennent, West Long Branch, Wickatunk, Boonton, Brookside, Budd Lake, Butler, Cedar Knolls, Chatham, Chester, Convent Station, Denville, Dover, East Hanover, Flanders, Florham Park, Gillette, Green Village, Hibernia, Ironia, Kenvil, Lake Hiawatha, Lake Hopatcong, Landing, Ledgewood, Lincoln Park, Long Valley, Madison, Mendham, Millington, Mine Hill, Montville, Morris Plains, Morristown, Mount Arlington, Mount Freedom, Mount Tabor, Mountain Lakes, Netcong, New Vernon, Parsippany, Pequannock, Picatinny Arsenal, Pine Brook, Pompton Plains, Randolph, Riverdale, Rockaway, Schooleys Mountain, Stirling, Succasunna, Towaco, Wharton, Whippany, Barnegat, Barnegat Light, Bayville, Beach Haven, Beachwood, Brick, Forked River, Island Heights, Jackson, Lakehurst, Lakewood, Lanoka Harbor, Lavallette, Little Egg Harbor Twp, Manahawkin, Manchester Township, Mantoloking, New Egypt, Normandy Beach, Ocean Gate, Pine Beach, Point Pleasant Beach, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Toms River, Tuckerton, Waretown, West Creek, Bloomingdale, Clifton, Haledon, Haskell, Hawthorne, Hewitt, Little Falls, Newfoundland, Oak Ridge, Passaic, Paterson, Pompton Lakes, Ringwood, Totowa, Wanaque, Wayne, West Milford, Alloway, Deepwater, Elmer, Hancocks Bridge, Monroeville, Norma, Pedricktown, Penns Grove, Pennsville, Quinton, Salem, Woodstown, Basking Ridge, Bedminster, Belle Mead, Bernardsville, Blawenburg, Bound Brook, Bridgewater, Far Hills, Flagtown, Franklin Park, Gladstone, Hillsborough, Kingston, Liberty Corner, Lyons, Manville, Martinsville, Neshanic Station, Peapack, Pluckemin, Raritan, Rocky Hill, Skillman, Somerset, Somerville, South Bound Brook, Warren, Watchung, Zarephath, Andover, Augusta, Branchville, Franklin, Glasser, Glenwood, Greendell, Hamburg, Highland Lakes, Hopatcong, Lafayette, Layton, Mc Afee, Middleville, Montague, Newton, Ogdensburg, Sparta, Stanhope, Stillwater, Stockholm, Sussex, Swartswood, Tranquility, Vernon, Wallpack Center, Berkeley Heights, Clark, Cranford, Elizabeth, Elizabethport, Fanwood, Garwood, Hillside, Kenilworth, Linden, Mountainside, New Providence, Plainfield, Rahway, Roselle, Roselle Park, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Summit, Union, Vauxhall, Westfield, Allamuchy, Belvidere, Blairstown, Broadway, Buttzville, Changewater, Columbia, Delaware, Great Meadows, Hackettstown, Hope, Johnsonburg, Oxford, Phillipsburg, Port Murray, Stewartsville, Vienna, Washington.

[thehistorygirlnj]

The Lamington Black Cemetery in the Lamington section of Bedminster Township, #NewJersey. There are 97 buried in this cemetery; 36 with names and 61 unknown. including free blacks who were members of the Lamington Presbyterian Church and at least five former slaves. There are a number of plain fieldstone markers with no inscriptions marking graves and rows of sunken unmarked graves. The cemetery was cleaned and preserved by a group of concerned citizens and re-dedicated on October 7, 2001. #nj #njhistory #SpreadTheHistory #historygirl #travelblog #travelblogger #blogger #blog #history #ushistory #history #americanhistory #explorenj #njspots #jerseycollective #journeythroughjersey #bedminster #bedminsternj #lamington #somersetcountynj #graveaffair #memorial #mementomori #cemetery #cemetery_shots #taphophile #taphophiles_only #tombstone #grave (at Lamington, New Jersey) https://www.instagram.com/p/CH4EIXtjTRz/?igshid=135jtdpddypdv

[cassh24sg]

Zero-Interest Loans from County Still Available to Small Businesses Impacted by COVID

Tap another city’s news:

Barnegat / Waretown – 08005 Barnegat – 08005 Waretown – 08758 Basking Ridge – 07920 Liberty Corner – 07938 West Millington – 07946 Bayonne – 07002 Belmar / Lake Como – 07719 Belmar – 07719 Lake Como – 07719 Berkeley Heights – 07922 Bernardsville & Bedminster – 07924 Bedminster – 07924 Bedminster 07921 Bernardsville – 07924 Far Hills – 07931 Peapack-Gladstone – 07924 Bloomfield – 07003 Bordentown – 08505 Fieldsboro – 08505 Bridgewater / Raritan – 08807 Bridgewater – 08807 Raritan – 08869 Camden – 08030 Chatham – 07928 – 0705 586 – 77058 Coral Springs – 33065 Cranford – 07016 Denville – 07834 East Brunswick – 08816 East Hanover / Florham Park – 07936 East Hanover – 07936 Florham Park – 07932 East Orange / Orange – 07017 Edison – 08817 Elizabeth – 07202 Fair Lawn / Glen Rock – 07410 Fair Lawn – 07470 Glen Rock – 07452 Flemington / Raritan – 08822 Flemington – 08822 Raritan Township (Hunterdon County) – 08822 Franklin Township – 08873 Greater Ole an – 14760 Alleg any – 14706 Cuba – 14727 Hinsdale – 14743 Olean – 14760 Portville – 14770 Hackensack – 07601 Hackettstown – 07840 Hamilton / Robbinsville – 08609 Hamilton – 08609 Robbinsville – 08691 Hasbrouck Heights / Wood – Ridge / Teterboro – 07604 Hasbrouck Te Heights – 07604 – 07608 -Ridge – 07075 Hawthorne – 07506 Hazlet & Keyport – 07730 Hazlet – 07734 Keyport – 07735 Hillsborough – 08844 Hillside – 07205 Hoboken – 07030 Holmdel & Colts Neck – 07733 Colts Neck – 07722 Holmdel – 07733 Jersey City / Lewis305 Katon – 10536 Lewisboro – 10590 Kenilworth – 07033 Linden – 07036 Little Egg Harbor & Tuckerton – 08087 Little Egg Harbor – 08087 Tuckerton – 08087 Livingston – 07039 Madison – 07940 Mahopac – 10541 Middletown – 07748 Millburn / Short Hills – 07041 Milltown / Spotswood – 08850 Milltown – 08850 Spotswood – 08884 Montclair – 07042 Montville – 07045 Pine Brook – 07058 Towaco – 07082 Morristown – 07960 Mountainside – 07092 Newark – 07102 New Brunswick – 0890 1 New Providence – 07974 Newton – 07860 Andover Township – 07821 Fredon Township – 07860 Green Township – 07821 Hampton Township – 07860 Stillwater Township – 07875 North Plainfield / Green Brook / Watchung – 07060 Green Brook – 08812 North Plainfield – 07062 Watchung – 07069 North Salem – 10560 Nutley – 07110 Paramus – 07653 Parkland – 33076 Parsippany – 07054 Passaic Valley – 07424 Little Falls – 07424 Totowa – 07512 Woodland Park – 07424 Paterson – 07500 Piscataway – 08854 Plainfield – 07060 Princeton – 08540 Rahway – 07065 Randolph – 07869 Raritan Bay – 08832 Sayreville – 08816 Red Bank – 07701 Ridgewood – 07451 Roselle / Roselle Park – 07204 Roxbury – 07876 Scotch Plains / Fanwood – 07076 SOMA – 07079 Maplewood – 07040 South Orange – 07079 Somers – 10589 Somerville – 08876 South. Brunswick – 08810 Cranbury – 08512 South Brunswick Expired – 08810 South Plainfield – 07080 Sparta – 07871 Andover Borough – 07821 Andover Township – 07821 Byram Township – 07874 Frankl in Borough – 07416 Hardyston – 07419 Springfield – 07081 Stafford / LBI – 08008 Long Beach Island – 08008 08008 Stafford – 08050 Summit – 07901 Sutton Place / Lenox Hill – 10022 Lenox Hill – 10021 Sutton Place – 10022 Union – 07083 Verona / Cedar Grove – 07044 Cedar Grove – 07009 Verona – 07044 Waltham – 02452 Warren – 07059 Wayne – 07470 West Essex – 07006 Caldwell – 07006 Essex Fells – 07021 Fairfield – 07004 North Caldwell – 07006 Roseland – 07068 West Caldwell – 07007 Westfield – 07090 West Orange – 07052 Womelsdorf – 19567 Yorktown – 10598

source https://www.cassh24sg.com/2021/07/02/zero-interest-loans-from-county-still-available-to-small-businesses-impacted-by-covid/

[rpdlimo-love]

RPD Limo Rant a Car

LIMO SERVICE, PARTY BUSES, AIRPORT TRANSFERS We deal with all your transportation requires in style. Searching for Limo Service, Party Buses, Airport Transfers, wedding Party Transportation? You've gone to the opportune spot. At RPD Limousine we are focused on conveying the top tier, taste, and qualification, all while trying to take unique consideration of you and leave you protected and fulfilled. Regardless of whether you should be brought home from the air terminal, get your visitors to your wedding gathering, have a night out with your dearest companions, or you simply need to get to where you're going in style and solace, we're here to offer the BEST assistance, the extremely changed choice of transportation at the most ideal, moderate costs. We gladly offer extravagance limo administration in the accompanying territories: Bridgewater, Warren, Martinsville, Somerset, Somerville, Hillsboro, Flemington, Princeton, New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Hopewell, Monmouth Junction, White House, Far Hills, Bedminster, Chester, Long Valley, Edison, Pittstown, Oldwick, Malboro, East Brunswick, Randolph, Summit, Short Hills, Hackettstown, Montgomery, Piscataway, Plainfield and ALL encompassing zones to offer the best, extravagance limousine and transportation administrations. We likewise give air terminal exchanges to and from the accompanying air terminals: Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Trenton Mercer Airport, Morristown Airport. Obviously, as usual, reach us if your zone and objective was not recorded previously. We will do out most extreme to oblige your requirements. Browse our armada of in vogue, present day vehicles, from stretch limos and SUV's to vans and mentor transports, from exemplary extravagance to chief style. Regardless of whether it's simply you or a gathering of 100 of your companions or associates, we have a vehicle to suit your requirements.

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[politiciandirect]

The Golfer In Chief Is Also The Goatherd In Chief, Saving Him Tens Of Thousands

The Golfer In Chief Is Also The Goatherd In Chief, Saving Him Tens Of Thousands

BEDMINSTER, N.J. ― As Donald Trump the president tees off Thursday morning for another round on his golf vacation, Donald Trump the goatherd continues to enjoy a tax break likely worth $88,000 annually from the “farm” exemption his tiny flock helps him keep.

According to his golf course’s latest filing with Bedminster Township to justify its “farmland assessment” tax break, Trump maintains…

[dendroica]

Several former workers said that managers in housekeeping and maintenance were well aware their documents were fraudulent — but hired them anyway. Housekeeper Gilberta Dominguez said her manager filled out her application in 2016 because she didn’t speak English. “And I said, ‘Listen, we don’t have good papers,’ ” Dominguez, of Oaxaca, Mexico, recalled telling her manager. “She said, ‘It doesn’t matter; don’t talk about that.’ ” In 2005, Zuñiga said, he decided that it was better to be working at Bedminster under his own name in case he got hurt on the job. He purchased new fake documents and turned those in to his supervisors. Juan Lara was suddenly Juan Carlos Zuñiga. His bosses didn’t flinch, he said. “They were making jokes about the Social Security cards in the office, because they looked so fake,” he recalled. “They would joke that my name was Juan Lara at the beginning.” In 2011, Hank Protinsky, then the club’s head of security, was warned by local police that an employee could be using fake papers, according to a police report obtained by The Post through a public records request. The worker’s status was discovered when the Bedminster Township Police Department investigated a hit-and-run accident on the course and questioned a man identified as the driver: a club employee working under the name Reinaldo Villareal. When Officer Thomas Polito spoke to Villareal, he “told me that his real name was Fredis Otero and that he was working under a false name and social security numbers,” Polito wrote.

‘My whole town practically lived there’: From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a pipeline of illegal workers for Trump goes back years - The Washington Post

[molybdic]

moon blur

[xtruss]

Sly As A Fox: How Wilbur Ross Slipped Out Of Scandal And Back Into Business

— Dan Alexander, Senior editor at Forbes, covering Donald Trump's business | April 21, 2021

Fresh off a years-long ethics investigation, Trump’s commerce secretary is back in business with a new SPAC—which he created while still in office.

ON JANUARY 19, 2021, while still serving as the U.S. secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross set up a new company in the Cayman Islands. The business had no operations, but it did have big plans. It was a special purpose acquisition company, or a SPAC, which would allow Ross to raise more than $300 million from investors.

If you are surprised that a cabinet member might set up such a company while still technically in office—Ross’ term didn’t end until the next day, January 20—then you might need an introduction to the former commerce secretary. Three former colleagues have accused Wilbur Ross of taking or stealing their private equity interests. In 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined his firm, WL Ross & Co., for allegedly breaking laws that prohibit misleading investors and defrauding clients. While in office, he issued false statements, held ethically dubious meetings and engaged in suspiciously timed trading.

But Ross has a knack for slipping out of scandals. He settled the cases with his former colleagues, signing confidentiality clauses to keep the troubles under wraps. Six months after his firm settled with the SEC, he abandoned it for Washington. He managed to operate in government for years, even as his office apparently lied about the existence of a commerce department investigation, then brushed aside its findings when they finally came out in December 2020.

Ross is now back in business, having found a new set of people willing to trust him—just as he always has. “Wilbur, to me, was the master negotiator,” Ross’ former right-hand man, David Storper, explained in a 2019 interview. “Because he could end up picking somebody’s pocket across the table, but they would also end up thanking him for it.”

LIKE DONALD TRUMP, Ross is not just a ruthless negotiator but also a relentless self-promoter. For years, Ross apparently fibbed about the size of his fortune, fooling the world—and some of his own investors—into thinking he had more money than he really did. The ruse unraveled in 2017 after Ross joined the government and filed a financial disclosure report, showing fewer assets than he had previously claimed to own. Rather than fess up to being a mere centimillionaire, Ross doubled down on the myth that he was a billionaire, describing a major asset transfer to family members that did not happen. Those comments sparked additional concerns about whether Ross had disclosed all his assets to federal authorities. On November 13, 2017, a half dozen Senate Democrats wrote a letter to the inspector general of the commerce department, requesting an investigation.

A week later, the investigation began. According to internal notes kept by the inspector general’s team, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, “the Secretary” received a verbal “courtesy notice” just days later. In public, Ross’ team played it cool, acting oblivious to the probe. “We have not been notified, nor are we aware, of a formal investigation by the inspector general,” a spokesperson for the commerce secretary told Forbes in December 2017, nearly a month after the probe began. The inspector general’s office did not refute that statement, sticking to its internal practice of neither confirming nor denying the existence of an ongoing investigation.

President-elect Donald Trump and investor Wilbur Ross shake hands following their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Other standard practices inside the inspector general’s office fell by the wayside. Inspectors general often take a hands-off approach to investigations, delegating staffing and regular oversight duties to professional bureaucrats in their office. In this case, President Trump had recently nominated the head of the investigative division, Mark Greenblatt, to serve as inspector general of another agency. In an unusual move, Greenblatt, whose nomination was still pending, recused himself from the politically charged Ross investigation. In a second unusual move, Inspector General Peggy Gustafson then inserted herself into his role. “That is what, to me, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” says someone inside Gustafson’s office at the time. “I think she wanted to slow-roll it. I think she wanted control of it at all times so she could manipulate the outcome.”

But the allegations against Ross kept mounting. Investigative reporting revealed that Ross had meetings with the CEOs of Chevron, Boeing and railcar manufacturer Greenbrier at the same time he or his wife held interests in those companies. He told federal officials that he divested investments in Air Lease, Invesco and BankUnited, even though he still had stakes in those firms. He worked on trade deals with China, while remaining in business alongside the Chinese government. He even opened a short interest in a gas company tied to Vladimir Putin, after a New York Times reporter contacted him about an upcoming story on Ross’ connections to the business.

It wasn’t until March 2019, nearly 16 months after the investigation began, that the inspector general issued her first subpoena. In October that year, her team finally interviewed Ross. The investigators had a partial draft of their final report in December 2019 and predicted it would be ready for the inspector general to review by February 2020. But it remained buried inside the office until December 2020. When it finally became public, three years after the start of the investigation and a month after the election, few people paid attention. By that point, Biden had been elected, Ross would soon be out of his government job—and the country was more focused on President Trump’s potential power grab than Wilbur Ross’ ethics issues.

“Three years is a very long time, particularly if the investigative interviews were basically concluded after two years,” says Walter Shaub, who once served as the top ethics official in the executive branch. “It certainly creates the appearance of an inspector general delaying an investigation out of fear of retaliation in a year when the president went after other inspectors general.”

First contacted about these concerns in January, Gustafson’s office initially told Forbes it would make a member of the investigative team available for an interview. When the time for the interview came, though, the inspector general’s office rescinded the offer, saying the agent had changed his mind. Gustafson instead responded in writing, confirming that she oversaw the Ross investigation but saying she did not slow-roll it. The Ross probe eventually concluded that the commerce secretary broke federal rules by failing to avoid the appearance of ethical and legal breaches but cleared him of more serious charges.

Ross took a victory lap. “I am pleased that the inspector general’s report puts to rest any notion that I violated the conflict-of-interest statutes,” he said in a statement, later adding that “I have always been and will remain committed to adhering to the highest standard of ethics in the discharge of my duties.”

His actions indicated otherwise. A month later, Ross incorporated the SPAC while still in office—a parting shot at ethics norms on his way out the door. In another statement, his office acted like that was no big deal either: “Mr. Ross took 20 minutes to create this SPAC one day before he resigned.”

IT WAS NOT a forgone conclusion that Ross would dive back into business after leaving the government. At 83 years old, with an estimated fortune of $600 million, other people in his position would have called it a career and spent their final years relaxing by the water in Palm Beach. But the former commerce secretary wanted to get back in the hunt.

He understood the concept of Wall Street’s buzziest trend, SPACs, having launched one in 2014, years before they became ubiquitous in the finance world. SPACs work like this: Managers list a shell entity in an initial public offering, raising a big pile of money that trades like a stock. Generally the managers grab a 20% stake in the entity at the outset, then spend up to two years looking for a private company with which they can merge their publicly traded pile of money. When they find a business, they tell the original investors. Those investors can then ask for their money back or stick around to get a stake in the target company. The two entities merge, allowing the target company to begin trading publicly, with its stock going up or down depending on how well it performs.

Wilbur Ross, Hilary Geary Ross, Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Judith Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani attend the Andrea Bocelli concert at The Mar-a-Lago Club on February 28, 2010 in Palm Beach, Florida. Lucien Capehart/Getty Images

Ross’ earlier SPAC raised about $500 million in 2014 but almost didn’t complete a merger, which would have forced Ross and his partners to swallow the costs of searching for a company to buy. With just a couple of days left in his two-year-long search period, Ross pounced on a chemicals distributor named Nexeo Solutions Holdings. Many of the investors didn’t want anything to do with it, so they elected to redeem their original investment. That sucked about $300 million out of the entity, most of the $500 million it raised at the start.

To plug the hole, Ross and his partners then had to give part of their 20% stake to other investors who, in exchange, promised to hang onto their shares and buy new ones.

When the dust cleared, Ross and his team walked away with nearly 7.1 million shares of the merged company, for which they had paid an average of $3.01 apiece. Not bad considering that Ross’ initial investors had paid $10 to get one share and one warrant.

In February 2017, Ross resigned his position as chairman of Nexeo to become secretary of commerce. Those who got in at $10 couldn’t have been happy a month and a half later when, with the shares trading at $8.84 and the warrants priced at 69 cents, Ross dumped his personal stake for an estimated $44 million. A nice payday, especially for a guy whose remaining original investors had lost 5% of their money over three years (while the S&P 500 had climbed 20%).

Ross is now in position to repeat the trick, following the same cynical playbook that he—and plenty of others like him on Wall Street—have used to pad their wallets. Ross’ team has already grabbed a 20% interest in the new SPAC, paying next to nothing for it. Ross seems to have set himself up to skim smaller, almost trivial sums on top of that. A March prospectus showed that the SPAC would be paying “an affiliate” of the sponsor $10,000 a month for office space, secretarial and administrative services. The document specifically states that the payments include the cost for maintaining headquarters at 1 Pelican Way in Palm Beach, which appears to be Ross’ personal home. When asked about this, Ross said the SPAC would not pay rent but would cover incremental costs.

Given that the SPAC has no real business yet, it’s mostly just a bet on the team, which includes Ross, two of his old private equity colleagues, a couple of former underlings at the commerce department, a British lord who served on the board of Ross’ previous SPAC and Larry Kudlow, the TV talking head that Trump tapped to be director of the National Economic Council. Ross serves as chairman and, lest there be any confusion of who is in charge, the SPAC’s ticker symbol is “ROSS.”

That branding might help draw some Trump fans, but it probably won’t appeal to those who know Ross’ recent track record. After a well-timed rollup of the steel industry in the early 2000s, which propelled his first two funds to amazing returns, Ross hasn’t fared so well. His third major fund, which dates to 2005, lost investors an average of 5.3% of their money annually. His firm’s fourth significant fund, which started in 2007, returned a decent 7.3%. Its fifth, which began in 2011, returned just 1.6% despite operating through the longest bull market in American history.

“When you think about that type of a guy coming to market and then still trading on his name to get this done, it just kind of blows your mind that it’s even possible,” says one former WL Ross investor. “It’s a total joke. I’ve never trusted the guy. I don’t have any faith that that guy can generate any sort of outsized performance.”

The recent popularity of SPACs could make it even harder for Ross to generate high returns, since he’ll now be competing with a crowd of others looking for similarly structured deals.

IPO investors may be having second thoughts about putting their money with an ethically challenged, recently struggling manager. But they do have a way out. Ross’ original investors can redeem their shares at the time of the merger, just as so many did in his previous SPAC. The more people who demand their money back this time, the more Ross will presumably have to replace to complete the merger. The more money he needs, the more deals he might have to strike to entice new investors. He and his partners could theoretically end up having to forfeit most of the 20% stake they grabbed at the outset.

Or put it another way, if everyone flees, then the fox—who has always seemed to find more prey—will finally be left without a feast.

[thesailnews]

The newest MAGA app is tied to a Bannon-allied Chinese billionaire

The newest MAGA app is tied to a Bannon-allied Chinese billionaire

Two days later, Donald Trump’s former adviser Jason Miller announced that GETTR — a Chinese-language site for dissidents opposing the Chinese Communist Party — would soon launch as a pro-MAGA free-speech social media platform. Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump transition team, briefs reporters on Nov. 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, N.J. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images GETTR was…

[thehistorygirlnj]

The Presbyterian Church at Pluckemin in the village of #Pluckemin, a part of Bedminster Township, #NewJersey. This is the second church building to be built there, erected in 1851. The cornerstone of the first #church was laid July 4, 1757 on the same site and called St. Paul's. The cornerstone, written in Latin, from the first church is embedded into the front of the 1851 structure. #nj #njhistory #SpreadTheHistory #historygirl #history #travelblog #travelblogger #blogger #blog #history #ushistory #history #americanhistory #explorenj #njspots #jerseycollective #journeythroughjersey #architecture #archi_ologie #bedminster #bedminsternj #pluckeminnj #presbyterianchurch #presbyterian #somersetcountynj (at The Pluckemin Presbyterian Church) https://www.instagram.com/p/CC1_5M-DoD1/?igshid=16mnridyb5ts2

[molybdic]

approaching sunset