dsmWealth: February 16, 2023

BY STEVE DINNEN

The 132-acre site for a new meatpacking plant outside Council Bluffs promises to be a game-changer in the state of agriculture. Ranchers in Iowa and Nebraska are lining up to supply the facility with as many as 2,000 head of cattle a day. A key investor, Karis Capital, has committed $150 million to the project that could cost $500 million. And now the developer, Des Moines-based Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Co., is in the final phase of rounding up accredited individual and family office investors for operating capital once operations get under way.

Cattlemen’s Heritage founder and project director Chad Tentinger envisions the firm as a new way to buy cattle and sell processed beef. To attract ranchers, they’ll be paid the “boxed beef cutout” value for cattle they provide; it’s a pricing system that’s less volatile than they normally would receive from other packers. At the grocery, Cattlemen’s Heritage will be marketed under its own brand, and every steak will carry a QR code that shoppers can scan to see where the meat originated.

“It’s full traceability, from pasture to plate,” said Tentinger, a fourth-generation cattleman from northwest Iowa.

“Shackle space” will help keep the company running once it starts to receive cattle. A shackle is the device to which a cow carcass is affixed as it moves along a processing line, and Cattlemen’s Heritage will sell shackle space to both ranchers and outside investors. These sales to outside investors are basically medium-term notes, with the shackles used as a denominator. Buy a shackle or two (or thousands, more likely) for three years and the company will pay back your money with what works out to be an end-of-year return of 11.87%. Longer investment periods carry higher returns.

“We guarantee to buy back these shackles with premiums,” Tentinger said. He also noted that this is
“first in line” money. “You get paid before the banks get paid back.”

Though Iowa raises a lot of cattle, it lacks enough processing facilities, so hundreds of thousands of head are sent out of state every year, which is costly to ranchers. This plant should ease that problem, said Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University. He said it could generate as much as $8 billion in economic gain for Iowa by 2028.

Fannie and Freddie Raise Mortgage Limits
BY STEVE DINNEN

Good news, homebuyers: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have raised limits on mortgages that qualify for their potential purchase. The new limit for a single-family home in Des Moines and most of the rest of the country is $726,200, up from $647,200.

While government-sponsored enterprises Fannie and Freddie don’t originate home loans, they end up buying most that traditional lenders make. But they’ll buy a mortgage of only so much value; by definition, these "conforming loans" conform to their standards.

Loans above their limit stay in the private marketplace. They're called jumbo loans and have different underwriting criteria, pertaining to down payments or private mortgage insurance.

Limits for conforming loans rise as high as $1,089,300 in some areas of the country—real estate hot spots such as San Francisco, Boston or around ski areas in the Rockies. But there's no need to fret over that here: The median sale price of a home in Des Moines was recently pegged at $185,000.

US Bank is quoting a conforming, or conventional, loan at 6.125% interest. A jumbo is slightly lower, at 5.625%.

Tips to Improve Your Credit Score Overnight
BY SHAUN CONNELL FOR CREDIT BUILDING TIPS

Credit scores are a fact of life we all have to confront sooner or later. They rise and fall according to our decisions, often before we even understand what credit is and what affects it.

Moreover, credit scores are inscrutable. The credit tracking agencies keep the specifics of their algorithms a secret. Many people don't even know that Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are not the exclusive authorities on credit. There are dozens of credit reporting agencies, and all of them track and weigh aspects of credit differently, so your score can vary from one agency to the next.

Yet despite all the mystery, credit scores are a critical deciding factor for everything from your ability to buy a car to your chances of getting a mortgage. Having a lower score can tangibly harm your life and lifestyle, and you may never quite know why or even realize it's happening.

READ MORE TO DISCOVER A FEW PRACTICAL TIPS.

The 60/40 Portfolio May Be the Quiet Hero of 2023
BY JENNIFER LEA REED FOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR

“The 60/40 is not the typical, exciting investment people talk about,” admits Todd Jablonski, chief investment officer and head of asset allocation at Principal Asset Management in Seattle. “In fact, for a long time, people picked on it to make whatever other thing they were selling look good.”

But like a maligned, underperforming teammate who suddenly looks ready to shine as circumstances change, the traditional portfolio of 60% equities and 40% bonds has recently won new respect. Serious respect. “If you go back a year, the number of articles on the death of the 60/40 was overwhelming,” says Jablonski, who specializes in these portfolios. “But I think it might be in a pretty good place right now.”

Fixed income, an asset class that enjoys buoyancy amid rising interest rates, was one of the few bright lights at the end of 2022. Given the economic forecasts for the next year or two, investors will likely be drawn once again to the stable returns and muted risk of balanced asset allocations.

READ MORE.

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dsmWealth is published on the first and third Thursday of each month and updated on dsmMagazine.com.

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