The political committee backing St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch’s reelection campaign missed the latest campaign finance reporting deadline, adding another wrinkle to a fundraising operation that has already faced scrutiny this cycle.

St. Petersburg Progress, the political committee supporting Welch, missed its latest finance report deadline due to a family emergency, PC Chair Adrienne Bogen told Florida Politics.

“Due to a family medical emergency we will be filing a day late,” Bogen said.

The missed deadline comes as Welch works to build support for a second term in a race that includes former Gov. Charlie Crist — the fundraising leader with $1.6 million raised for the race — City Council Member Brandi Gabbard, former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large, Maria Scruggs, Kevin Batdorf and Paul Congemi.

The late report follows previous campaign finance issues tied to political committees supporting Welch. Florida Politics previously reported that Welch launched St. Petersburg Progress in January after his previous committee, The Pelican Political Action Committee, became mired in allegations that a former treasurer stole more than $200,000.

That took place after Welch’s first committee, Pelican PAC, had its registration revoked by the state in late 2024 after warnings and fines tied to missed, late or improper filings.

Welch trails Crist’s political operation in fundraising, and tension between the two candidates was palpable during the first St. Petersburg mayoral debate this week. 

In the first quarter, Welch raised just under $220,000 between his campaign account and St. Petersburg Progress — though $85,000 of that came from a transfer connected to a prior committee. Without the transfer, Welch raised about $135,000 in new money during the quarter.

Crist’s affiliated political committee, St. Pete Shines, raised nearly $500,000 in the first quarter and entered April with about $1.1 million on hand. The committee recently announced it had reached $1.6 million.

The election is August 18. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a likelihood given the number of candidates running, the top two finishers will advance to a November runoff.

Bezant Resources PLC (AIM:BZT) has secured a $7 million financing package and a long-term offtake agreement for its Hope and Gorob copper project in Namibia, providing funding as the mine moves towards first production later this year.

The AIM-listed miner said it had completed definitive agreements with Hartree Metals, a subsidiary of commodities trading group Hartree Partners, covering both project finance and the sale of future copper concentrate output.

Under the deal, Hartree will provide a secured and convertible prepayment facility of up to $7 million in five tranches to support mine construction and commissioning activities. The facility carries a four-year term, including a 12-month repayment grace period, with interest charged at the secured overnight financing rate plus 4.5%.

Hartree has also agreed to purchase 100% of copper concentrate produced from the project for the life of the operation under an offtake agreement on market terms.

Production is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026, with concentrate shipped through Namibia’s Walvis Bay port as operations ramp up.

The financing gives Hartree the option to convert some or all of the facility into Bezant shares at 0.16p each, a 28% premium to the company’s closing share price on Tuesday. Warrants could also be received, as well as the right to appoint a director if its holding rises above 10%.

Separately, Bezant agreed to extend repayment of a £700,000 convertible loan facility with existing shareholder Sanderson Capital until September 2027, easing near-term funding pressure as the company develops the Namibian asset.

Public funding alone can’t fill the financing gap for long-term nature restoration projects that mitigate the impacts of climate change, says environmental fund manager Finance Earth.

The London, UK-based firm drove that point home earlier this month when it announced a £64.6 million ($86.4 million) first close of its Big Nature Impact Fund LP, which blends anchor capital from the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) with backing from institutional investors.

Part of the UK Nature Impact Fund platform, the Big Nature Impact Fund is the UK’s largest-ever nature-as-infrastructure fund, and the first to combine public and institutional investment for nature restoration projects.

Defra provided a £30 million ($40 million) cornerstone investment, while the remaining capital came from Zurich Insurance Group, Admiral Group, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and the Church of England’s Social Impact Investment Programme.

The fund is targeting a final raise of £90–120 million ($120–$160 million).

Defra unlocking private finance ‘at scale’

The fund’s structure could provide a blueprint in future for others, suggests Finance Earth investment director Rich Fitton.

The Defra contribution, in particular, could help de-risk investment into nature projects for more commercial backers.

Defra’s capital sits at the bottom of the fund’s cashflow waterfall, absorbing first losses and only seeing returns once the private investors have recovered their capital in addition to a 7% preferred return.

For every £1 of public money, the structure is designed to unlock at least £2 of private investment.

“Structuring Defra’s capital as downside protection was fundamental to unlocking private finance at scale into what remains a relatively new asset class,” Fitton told AgFunderNews.

Taking a cue from renewables

Rather than acquiring land outright, the 12-year fund will partner with landowners and project developers, funding woodland creation, peatland restoration, and habitat projects across England. Revenues will come primarily from verified carbon credits and biodiversity units sold under offtake agreements, rather than from timber, farming, or land price appreciation.

Describing the model as “nature as infrastructure” helps lower the psychological barrier for institutional investors unfamiliar with natural capital, explains Fitton.

“We design the funds to make it look and feel and smell as much like a traditional infrastructure fund as possible, because the underlying investments do look a lot and live like infrastructure investment.”

Both share high upfront capital expenditure, multi-decade revenue streams, and a clear path from development through to the operational phase.

“We see the natural capital sector as following in the footsteps of those more established sectors,” explains Fitton. “This is a familiar structure of investment but in a new asset class: nature.”

The exit strategy borrows directly from renewable energy and what happened as solar and wind energy matured as asset classes. Finance Earth is targeting a five-year mark as a key inflection point when woodland and peatland projects typically hit their first carbon credit verification event.

At that point, the assets should become attractive to the so-called “YieldCo” funds that buy stabilized, operational assets and take on only market risk, not construction or development risk.

The fund will invest only in fully verified credits, sidestepping the more common practice of selling pre-verification carbon credits in UK voluntary markets. It is also one of the first funds to receive the Financial Conduct Authority’s new “Sustainability Impact” label.

Beyond England

Fitton acknowledges the challenges ahead. Natural capital remains a “loose term” covering everything from commercial timber to biodiversity credits, and the markets underpinning the fund’s revenues are still nascent. The fund is betting that high-integrity projects, particularly mixed native woodland rather than monoculture commercial forestry, will command a price premium as buyers become more discerning.

With its first close complete, Finance Earth is now deploying capital against an identified pipeline of over £100 million in projects.

Its ambitions also stretch beyond England, with future funds planned for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These and other projects could lay groundwork for replicating the blended finance model in other jurisdictions where a public or philanthropic anchor investor is willing to absorb first-loss risk.

This week also saw the UK arm of investment firm Capital Continuum Advisers merge into Finance Earth to create what the company says is “one of the world’s leading specialized platforms for climate and nature investment.”

CCA UK brings its carbon and nature project structuring expertise into Finance Earth’s fund management capabilities, and the latter will take on CCA UK’s pipeline of carbon projects in Africa and Southeast Asia.

“This is a useful model that can be replicated elsewhere,” Fitton says. “Watch this space.”