He also said the final decision on which projects would be accepted and presumably bought by Solar Fund I would be up to Jefferson and Murphy. However, VERT Solar Fund was buying projects, not VERT Solar Finance, which lent little credence to these claims.
Altenberg would go on to purchase projects from Beltline Energy (the Beltline Portfolio) and Sunrise Energy (the Sunrise Portfolio). He would also enter into an acquisition agreement with DynaSolar, a consulting firm he hired to help manage projects.
Hildene Capital Management, an investment firm controlled by Jefferson, invested an additional $12.5 million to cover the rising costs of the Blue Sky projects, still seeing little movement.
Altenberg continued to pursue more projects and soliciting more money from Jefferson and Murphy. In February of 2016, Jefferson and Murphy each invested an additional $255,000 into VERT Solar Fund, bringing their combined total investment to $1.51 million.
At that time, VERT Solar Fund did not have the capital necessary to fund Altenberg’s commitments, which totaled more than $5 million. Murphy was becoming more concerned with the way projects were working, since they were deviating quite a bit from what they had expected.
