Exeter has been approved to receive a $2.3 million tax break in the State of Utah.
Exeter will receive the tax incentive if it opens a new facility in the state, according to the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development. The incentive requires that Exeter meets Utah guidelines called Economic Development Tax Increment Financing.
As part of this initiative, the company has not picked a specific location in the state, yet. Exeter’s location facility is expected by the State of Utah to create around 550 jobs.
“We’re comfortable Exeter is on its way here, and making a best effort,” Michael O’Malley, business marketing director for the State of Utah Governor’s Economic Development Office, told Auto Finance News.
O’Malley said the state had issued a couple of hundred incentive packages over the last six years to companies across numerous sectors. He said of those, five or less had not followed through on the state’s offer.
Exeter declined to comment.
In September, Auto Finance News cited a Standard & Poor’s report that noted the company’s brisk growth, which by midyear, had pumped up Exeter’s portfolio 175% to $1.36 billion. Standard & Poor’s said that “the company was working to resolve challenges it faced in servicing the new volume.”
“In our opinion, higher delinquencies for Exeter have been the result of the company’s difficulty in maintaining appropriate infrastructure to support the large growth in origination volume, which it has taken strong measures to address,” the rating agency wrote in the Sept. 16 report.
For Exeter to get the full incentive package, which would be spread over the 10-year life of the agreement with the state, the company would be expected to pay out more than $260 million in new state wages and pay at least 125% of the county’s average annual wage, including benefits. In addition, during that same time period Exeter would pay approximately $11.4 million in new state taxes and invest more than $2.1 million in capital expansion at the Utah facility.
[Revised on 11/21/13.]
