Sacramento Business Journal May 29, 2014, 11:27am PDT
Pacific Ethanol to issue more shares to preferred shareholders
Mark Anderson
Staff Writer-
Sacramento Business Journal
Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol Inc. agreed to issue more stock to holders of some of its preferred shares to make up for accrued and unpaid dividends, and the holders of that stock will not exercise their shares through Nov. 30, 2015.
The holders of Series B Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock will get 120,316 shares of company stock worth just under $1.5 million. As of May 22, holders of those shares were owed $3.7 million of accrued and unpaid dividends.
The move saves the company cash and shareholders get more shares.
Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ: PEIX) was launched in 2003, and borrowed $200 million to build ethanol plants in Oregon, Idaho, Stockton and Madera.
The ethanol producer and marketer has been rebuilding its balance sheet since it put its four ethanol plants into bankruptcy in the spring of 2009, when corn prices spiked and ethanol demand fell. After the bankruptcy, Pacific Ethanol continued to manage and operate the ethanol plants.
Over the years, it has been buying the ethanol plants back, and now owns 91 percent of the facilities.
Pacific Ethanol produces and sells low-carbon renewable fuels. The four ethanol production plants have a combined annual production capacity of 200 million gallons. It also sells ethanol to oil companies and gasoline marketers who blend ethanol into gasoline. It also sells byproducts as animal feed.
