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by DIANE HARDY
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South Carolina has a habit. When a large corporation comes calling, state officials roll out a red carpet paved with taxpayer dollars, secret negotiations, and very generous incentive packages. The latest example is Ferrara Candy Company, a Chicago-based confectioner that just secured a deal worth tens of millions in public funds to build a manufacturing complex in Orangeburg County.
Ironically, it now appears that people’s views of these sweetheart deals are starting to sour. So much so, in fact, that it seems likely that some of Governor Henry McMaster’s past deals gone bad will influence the upcoming Republican runoff for Governor as voters have had their fill.
South Carolinians are frustrated with the failures of past deals, the seeming disregard for fairness for hard-working small business owners, and the lack of attention to core functions of government, such as maintaining roads and bridges (our state has some of the worst in the nation). For many, the first thing that now comes to mind with these announcements is, how much is it going to cost us?
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THE MACHINE BEHIND THE DEALS…
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The BMW deal of the 1990s was a genuine success story, and South Carolina has been chasing that lightning ever since.
What followed was the build-out of a massive economic development apparatus, one that now operates largely in the dark. Deals are negotiated in secret, assigned code names, and locked down with non-disclosure agreements.
Legislators who might ask inconvenient questions are kept out of the loop; only those already on board are briefed. Even after deals are signed, details remain scarce and FOIA requests for information are so difficult to navigate that only a few journalists statewide have been willing to pursue them. Often the documents that do surface reveal little more than a dollar amount and a county name. That appears to be by design.
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THE SMALL BUSINESS SQUEEZE
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While large corporations negotiate custom tax arrangements, small businesses pick up the slack. When incoming companies secure reduced property tax rates and job-development tax credits, the lost revenue has to come from somewhere, and it comes from existing businesses and ordinary citizens. Small business owners already pay higher electrical rates than large corporations and they also have to navigate a maze of regulations and red tape without the resources larger corporations often enjoy.
When our family opened its first franchise in Greenville, our architects, who had built stores from California to Charlotte, said they had never encountered the regulatory difficulty they faced just obtaining our certificate of occupancy from the City of Greenville. Most of those barriers were local, but a governor can and should use their office to drive change at every level. The Mom and Pop Alliance of South Carolina continues to maintain that fair, low taxes for all businesses would do more for economic growth than targeted giveaways to a chosen few.
We at The Alliance are happy to work with state leaders to help lower the barriers family businesses currently experience just to get their doors open.
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A CROWN JEWEL THAT CRUMBLED
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When Governor McMaster and the SC Department of Commerce (SCDOC) announced they were directing tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to billionaire NFL owner David Tepper to build the Carolina Panthers’ corporate headquarters and training facility in Rock Hill, it was billed as the crown jewel of economic development — promising 5,715 jobs and $3.8 billion in economic impact.
By 2022, Tepper’s holding company had filed for bankruptcy in Delaware. The half-builtP facility was demolished in 2023. As a final insult, the Panthers ended their 28-year tradition of holding pre-season training in Spartanburg, moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.
David Tepper’s net worth today stands at approximately $23.7 billion.
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A BILLION DOLLAR LESSON NOT LEARNED
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One might expect the literal demolition of the Panthers project to prompt some reflection on the parts of Gov. McMaster and Commerce – questioning whether they had been hoodwinked, but instead we saw just the opposite. In 2023, state officials brokered the largest incentive package in South Carolina history: $1.3 billion, including $400 million in cash, to help foreign-owned Volkswagen launch Scout Motors, an electric vehicle startup, in Blythewood.
In 2023 I wrote several articles warning against this deal because it just reeked of cronyism, being rushed through both chambers of the legislature in under two weeks with little time for debate and only a handful of lawmakers briefed in advance. Pressure on others to vote yes was intense. To court Volkswagen executives, state officials hosted a lavish dinner at Williams-Brice Stadium complete with a cocktail reception, Highway Patrol escorts, and a stadium light show, at a cost running into six figures, according to reporting by Rick Brundrett of The Nerve.
Despite glowing press coverage of the Scout Deal from mainstream outlets this deal angered the citizenry. In fact, the incumbent mayor of Blythewood was overwhelmingly voted out of office in the election that followed.
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RELATED | LAWMAKERS TRY TO HIDE SCOUT BAILOUT
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Don’t get me wrong — for the sake of our state we should all want Scout to be successful, but the way this was orchestrated was just wrong, and the explosive growth of economic development deals in general needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately, the Scout story has only deteriorated since. Mississippi, the state against which South Carolina was competing, offered just $150 million. South Carolina overshot that by more than a billion dollars. In November 2025, Scout Motors chose Charlotte, North Carolina for its corporate headquarters with its high-paying jobs. Why didn’t SC negotiate this as part of our deal?
This year, Commerce requested an additional $150-$200 million because site preparation costs had been dramatically underestimated. The State Senate has called for an audit before releasing more funds but given the language of the deal SC could very well be on the hook for this overage. Additionally, Scout states their projected costs have ballooned from $2 billion to $3 billion.
When Harry Lightsey, South Carolina’s economic development chief, was asked whether he would have recommended the Scout deal had he known two and a half years earlier it would require an additional $150 million, he answered: “Absolutely.”
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FERRARA CANDY: THE NEWEST DEAL
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Despite this record, the machine rolls on. Governor McMaster recently announced that Ferrara Candy Company will build a $675 million manufacturing complex in Orangeburg County, promising 1,000 jobs. The deal was originally code-named “Project Rhino (Oh, the irony!).” In a later Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it was labeled “Project Panther” (not to be confused with the horrendous NFL Panther fiasco from a few years back).
Among its terms is the sale of up to $85 million in state bonds. With interest, the total taxpayer cost over 20 years comes to $120.29 million, according to Brundrett’s reporting – or roughly $120,290 per job. The company has eight years to reach employment benchmarks, but with provisions allowing for lower thresholds built in from the start and considerable latitude in how qualifying jobs are defined. Ferrara also received job-development tax credits and a substantially reduced property tax rate.
Proponents of these deals routinely point to clawback provisions that allow the state to recover funds if companies fail to deliver. In practice, these provisions kick in late and rarely make taxpayers whole.
Proterra, the electric bus manufacturer, initially committed to 1,300 jobs in South Carolina — a figure later reduced to 800. By 2020, the company had roughly 300 employees – less than a quarter of what it originally promised. In January 2024, it declared bankruptcy. Element TV in Fairfield County has followed a similar trajectory.
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TIME FOR A DIFFERENT APPROACH
As Governor McMaster’s tenure draws to a close, South Carolinians are right to ask whether they want more of the same. The state’s roads and bridges rank among the worst in the nation. Affordability, judicial reform, and meaningful tort relief for small businesses don’t generate press releases or stadium light shows, but they matter more to most people’s daily lives.
Whoever leads South Carolina next should understand a basic truth: government doesn’t create jobs — businesses do. The most effective thing the state can do is create conditions in which all businesses, large and small, have a fair chance to succeed. That means low, equitable taxes; less red tape; and an end to the back-room deals that benefit a well-connected few while the rest of South Carolina foots the bill.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Diane Hardy is a former nurse anesthetist turned entrepreneur, who (along with her business partner) recently opened her second franchise bakery in the Upstate. She is the Executive Director of the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC, which she founded during Covid upon discovering South Carolina’s over 400,000 small businesses had little representation in our State House. The Alliance provides education, communication, and advocacy for SC’s family-owned businesses. Her passion for South Carolina’s small business is strong, and as such she donates her time to the organization, accepting no salary or government funding. Her love for our state isn’t new. Before launching the Mom and Pop Alliance she was the founder and host of The Palmetto Panel (2014-2019), an annual statewide conference highlighting issues impacting South Carolina, which is set to relaunch in 2026. Diane has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and psychology from Michigan State as well as a master’s degree from MUSC.
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SOUND OFF…
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