Norwest Equity Partners Invests with Broin in Ethanol Plants; Partnership Established with Farmers and Ethanol Industry Leader.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Norwest Equity Partners ("NEP"), a leading private equity firm, today announced its $31 million investment in two ethanol facilities alongside ethanol industry leader, the Broin Companies ("Broin"), and local farmer investors. The investment will be used to help fund the construction of two farmer-backed ethanol plants; Frontier Ethanol, LLC located near Gowrie, Iowa and Horizon Ethanol, LLC located near Jewell, Iowa.

Ethanol use has grown dramatically during the last few years due to its use as a high octane, clean burning renewable fuel. Broin, headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has led the industry by establishing itself as a technological, construction, production and marketing pioneer.

Founded in 1984, Broin is the largest integrated, dry-mill ethanol producer in the United States, having designed and constructed 21 ethanol plants with an additional five plants under construction or in development. Upon startup of these five plants, Broin will manage, produce and market over 800 million gallons of ethanol annually. The plants will also produce Broin's high quality Dakota Gold(R) brand distillers dried grains with solubles, the industry's premier co-product.

NEP has been looking for the right way to invest in the ethanol industry for years, passing on numerous proposals due to their "one-off" nature in an industry in which experience, size, and low-cost production are critical factors.

Steve Farsht, NEP partner and Broin plant board member, shares, "The rapidly growing ethanol market has proven to be extremely volatile due to commodity inputs and outputs that are not directly correlated. We suspect that over the long term, inexperienced operators and less efficient plants will suffer because of these volatilities. By being the industry's largest ethanol dry-mill producer, Broin is able to dedicate significant resources in research and development and implement best practices across its numerous plants. This inherently creates value that smaller ethanol businesses simply cannot keep pace with."

"Our 20 years of success and growth in the ethanol industry is a result of our relentless focus on being the most efficient producer of ethanol and DDGs in the industry" stated Broin CEO Jeff Broin. "Our partnership with NEP brings added financial capability to help us leverage our portfolio to further our mission of responsible industry growth."

Broin's new plants in Gowrie and Jewell will utilize Broin's recently developed proprietary technology, "Broin Project X" ("BPX"), which improves ethanol yield by releasing additional starch from corn, reducing a facility's energy costs and environmental emissions. BPX further solidifies Broin's position as the ethanol industry's low-cost, high-quality dry-mill producer.

"With Broin, NEP is clearly investing alongside a leader with a distinct competitive advantage over its smaller competitors," Farsht ended.

For more information on the Broin Companies, please visit www.broin.com.

Norwest Equity Partners provides middle market companies with the capital they need to reach their goals. NEP takes pride in their extensive resources, carefully tailored transactions, meaningful partnerships, and continuing success. Since NEP's founding in 1961, they have earned a reputation as one of the premier private equity investment firms in the United States. Currently, NEP has in excess of $3 billion in capital under management. NEP has offices located in Minneapolis and Los Angeles. Visit NEP's Web site at www.nep.com.