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• Now, with $138.8 million in liabilities and just $79.3 million in assets, according to court documents, the plant has laid off most of its employees and is trying to figure out how it can restructure to resume production or sell.
• Dennis Hellwig, an Aberdeen livestock businessman who was once Northern Beef's largest investor, sold his interest about four years ago. But he said a plant processing 1,500 head per day is still needed in the region to serve cattle ranchers in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota.
• "It's the right deal, it just has to get financed with enough money," Hellwig said. "Somebody will come along with the right program, but they need to change some stuff down there."
• Hellwig invested in Northern Beef Packers in 2006 in response to then Gov. Mike Rounds' South Dakota Certified Beef initiative. Rounds hoped to get the state's ranchers premium prices by allowing consumers to track animals from birth, through a feedlot and to a meatpacking plant.
• But just as construction of the plant was about to begin, local opponents forced a public referendum on the TIF bond plan. Voters gave their thumbs up, but then heavy spring rains brought severe flooding, prompting more delays.
• Northern Beef Packers meanwhile used EB-5 to attract investors and spur the start of construction, and Hellwig stepped down as general partner when the Korean investors asked to buy out his shares.
• The new owners recruited another round of EB-5 investors, but the new investment fund provided loan money instead of equity shares in the company. Northern Beef eventually began to ramp up production earlier this year to about 200 head a day -- far short of the 1,500 capacity -- after obtaining additional financing.
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The assistant city attorney for Sioux Falls has pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge.
• Attorney General Marty Jackley says 44-year-old Keith Allenstein entered the plea for the class-one misdemeanor. Allenstein was sentenced to 30 days in jail, but the court suspended the 30 days based upon conditions.
• A Highway Patrol trooper arrested Allenstein in Minnehaha County on June 14.
• The South Dakota Bar Association will not launch an automatic review of Allenstein's membership because the charge is not a felony.
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