HPP Biz

[caveat emptor]

seeb , here is what I have learned. Making the assumption that you attended a board meeting, the people present, who you saw there, were one or two bank reps invited to speak to the board to answer questions. I don't know if they both appeared to speak at the same time or individually at more than one board meeting but both were here. I looked at our fabulous HPPOA web site to read the board minutes but they only go back to 2009 and not to 2007, which is what we want.
One of the speakers was Steven Gortler who, at the time worked for Piper Jaffray. The other fellow was probably a bank rep but I couldn't get his name, he may have worked for Union Bank which became our bond trustee. Gortler just so happens to be the same fellow who was invited here to speak to the board for the new bond. This time representing himself for his own bond brokering business.
The important part is that there was no board director who was a bank rep too. Now, you should also know that one of the men who spoke to the board was the retired judge I mentioned earlier, he was the Finance Committee chair at the time. He was not a board director at that time. Apparently in 2007, the treasure who was a woman, did not have to be the chair of the committee as is now required in the bylaws adopted in 2010.
The FC chair spent hundred of hours working with all of the attorneys involved and with researching the best possible financing we could have gotten at the time (remember it was 2007) interest rates were much higher. The banks back then only wanted 3 year terms and since we didn't have collateral, just like today, the bond was the best option and that is why the board approved it.