A commercial forecast and a contractual repayment right need different examination.
Read the legal terms behind the projection
Identify conditions, risks and what the investor can actually demand. Do not call a possible distribution guaranteed merely because the business plan assigns it a date, or ignore a real repayment obligation hidden elsewhere in the documents.
Read every return and redemption clause beside the business plan. EB-5 capital must remain genuinely at risk; a possible asset sale can be modelled, but an unconditional right to repayment or guaranteed return may conflict with that condition. At filing, verify whether the case requires the standard US$1,050,000 level or the reduced US$800,000 level reserved for a targeted employment area or infrastructure project. The investor must document lawful source and path of funds, participate in management or policy formulation, and support ten full-time jobs for qualifying US workers. Regional-center investors use Form I-526E, while direct investors use Form I-526. Do not let a dated projection substitute for the governing contracts or current filing-date rules. Commercial optimism is not a government guarantee.
Hypothetical example: A Bégin wood-pellet producer considers a regional-center project whose forecast assumes the facility will be sold in year five. She should compare that forecast with the partnership agreement, redemption restrictions and distribution discretion, then trace her capital from Canadian accounts. The planned sale may explain a business strategy, but her I-526E case cannot describe repayment as certain or omit the ten-job analysis.