The Firm represents clients, private and public, in the economic and industrial project development space. In that role, we have assisted a wide variety of clients in securing public financing and maximizing the benefit of available tax incentives. Clients have included all types and sizes of new and expanding industrial and energy concerns, from an automotive manufacturer investing over $1 billion in a new facility, to a shipyard investing hundreds of millions in expansions, to small expansions of existing industries. The Firm has helped draft special incentive legislation for a number of large projects and has assisted other clients in structuring complex transactions and in negotiating and implementing available incentives. Incentives include special legislative economic development benefits; property, sales, use and franchise tax incentives; tax exempt and taxable bond financing; and tax increment financing. In the course of the Firm’s work, our members have assisted clients in negotiating and implementing incentives with State level authorities, including the Mississippi Development Authority, the Mississippi Business Finance Corporation, and the Mississippi Department of Revenue, and local county and city governments across the State. We have also represented the Mississippi Development Authority in its negotiation and implementation of incentives for a large steel mill project. The Firm also has extensive experience in State and local industrial and economic development financing with state and federal tax incentives.
To effectively assist clients in such projects, the Firm assembles a multi-disciplinary team for each with the appropriate legal specialties for the project that typically include public finance, economic development tax incentives, financing, environmental / permitting and other regulatory assistance, real estate, and other commercial activities.