RALEIGH — The former Jewish school campus in Greensboro that is supposed to be housing unaccompanied minor migrant children has apparently changed hands.
Real estate records on file with Guilford County show the $26 million loan documents on the American Hebrew Academy (AHA) campus property were assigned from Puxin Ltd. to Metabroad International Group, LLC and Heyi Holdings L.P.
Puxin’s CFO Peng Wang executed the document and had it certified at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China on Jan. 12, 2023.
The assignee from Metabroad is “Wei Yang,” using the title of “manager.” Yang, who sat on AHA’s board as recently as 2022, signed and had his paperwork notarized in Virginia on Dec. 27, 2022.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Wang resides in “Oakton, Virginia,” and is listed as the
Founding Partner of Metaway Capital/ Metabroad Group from Oct. 2010 to present.
Prior to that, Wang was a Project Manager at a company called BRSC in Beijing China, Sept. 2003 – March 2006 and attended Virginia Tech 2007-2009 Master, Environmental “Research Assistant at Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Lab.” He attended the University of Science and Technology Beijing. An online profile for Wang also says he worked in real estate as well as working in the past for the Shenhua Group, a Chinese state-owned mining and energy company.
Heyi Holdings L.P.’s assignee is “Ling Tie” with the title of “Director.” Tie signed and had his portion notarized in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Jan. 6, 2023.
Ling Tie has little to no internet footprint. An internet search for Tie produced a single possibly related entry on LinkedIn for “Chen Ling,” a woman apparently located in Hong Kong that is listed as the executive director at Heyi Holdings and who previously worked at “Chinarock Capital.”
The only listing for Heyi Holdings on LinkedIn points to a company with a defunct website that describes itself as having “two independent but collaborative branches: HEYI Capital and HEYI Advisory,” that “share a single goal of supporting international companies in their Chinese business and Chinese companies as they go global.”
In its 2022 tax filings, AHA lists Wei Yang as the board chair and Shong Gao as the vice president. The filing also shows AHA doing business under the name “Greensboro Global Academy.”
Established in 2001 for the education of Jewish high school students, the AHA 100-acre campus has 16 dormitory buildings, 35 staff apartments, and an $18 million athletic center equipped with rock climbing walls and an eight-lane swimming pool.
The school began having financial and operational trouble in 2019 and saw some brief relief after a publicly traded Chinese company called Puxin Ltd. inked a deed of trust agreement and a $26 million loan to AHA on Sept. 19, 2019. The document lists Shong Gao as “Vice President” of AHA.
At the time that the Puxin loan came through, eight of the school’s board members left with the top positions on the board filled by three individuals; Ni Zhang, Shong Gao, and Wei Yang.
Following the loan agreement, the school was renamed to American Hebrew Academy International School and announced it would reopen for the 2020-21 school year and that it would be accepting non-Jewish students.
The school’s reopening never materialized as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation in 2020.
Even though a Chinese company held the deed of trust and provided the millions in loan money, the school still applied for and was granted $1,486,118 in federal pandemic relief funds through two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.
The two PPP loans totaled $743,059 each; one in May 2020 and one in February 2021. Both loans appear to have been either forgiven or paid off.
High salaries may also have been part of AHA’s insolvency issues. In particular, tax filings showed Glenn Drew, an area real estate developer and the school’s longtime CEO, had been drawing a salary for years hovering around $500,000.
According to AHA’s 2019 IRS 990 forms, Drew was paid $670,00. It was also reported that Glenn’s company, RSM Associates, LLC, was paid over $1.46 million for dealing with the closure of the school.
Around that same time, Guilford County officials confirmed that the Biden administration had contacted them May 2021 about using the campus to house unaccompanied minor children.
In late May 2022, a five-year, $178 million contract was awarded to Deployed Services by Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services for a project to house unaccompanied minors on the American Hebrew Academy campus. The contract also includes the possibility of a five-year extension.
One related contract for Deployed Services shows total funding obligated by Refugee and Entrant Assistance through HHS at $37,693,421. A second contract through the Interior Franchise Fund lists obligated funds of $140,946,912.
Deployed Services, a veteran-owned business, provides “transparent facility support and logistical services, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE,” according to its website.
The company is based in Rome, N.Y., but has regional offices in seven other states, including one in Raeford.
The website also quotes a testimonial from an unnamed Department of Homeland Security official, stating the group’s teams “acted as an extension of the Government in all oversight and control of contract actions, often providing solutions to ways ahead that were superior to existing requirements, within schedule and budget stipulations.”
Ads for up to 800 workers to start work at the site in July 2022 were allegedly placed by Deployed Services following the contract being awarded.
North State Journal visited the campus in mid-December but was denied access and information about the site by Deployed Services security guards despite the campus apparently remaining empty other than for Deployed Services staff.
