Clean Energy Fuels Retires 2016 Debt
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. announced that it is eliminating the debt from outstanding notes due for redemption next month. The Newport Beach, California-based company paid out $37.9 million in cash, $200,000 in interest and issued 14 million new shares of common stock to buy out the $85.2 million of debt and interest.
A company spokesman says the notes were owned by Temasek, an investment group based in Singapore, whose primary shareholder is the Singapore Minister for Finance, according to the company’s website.
Promissory notes allow a company to borrow money from banks and other investors with an agreement to pay back the face amount, plus interest, on a specific date.
The company also repurchased notes worth more than $65 million due in 2018, according to a statement.
“We completed the build-out of the initial phase of our America’s Natural Gas Highway and will continue to focus on leveraging our existing infrastructure with new customers and expanding with our existing customers," Clean Energy President Andrew Littlefair said. "I’m proud that the Clean Energy team has been able to accomplish so much despite the competitive environment of low oil prices the last few years.”
America’s Natural Gas Highway refers to a network of 212 company-owned fueling stations offering compressed and liquefied natural gas to heavy-duty trucks across the United States, according to a company spokesman. He added that 43 more stations have been constructed and will open as trucking companies convert their fleets to natural gas. An additional 76 station projects are underway, according to the spokesman, with more than 60 scheduled to be complete before the end of the year.
