Genie Energy holders tender 1.6% of shares in exchange for preferreds

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, March 6 - Genie Energy Ltd. said it accepted for exchange 313,376, or about 1.6%, of its class B common shares in the offer that ended at 5 p.m. ET on March 5.

Genie expects to announce final results of the exchange offer on March 11, according to a company press release.

The offer to exchange up to 7,145,409 class B shares for an equal number of its series 2012-A preferred stock had been extended from 5 p.m. ET on Feb. 28 and, before that, from 5 p.m. ET on Feb. 6. The offer was originally set to end at 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 15. It began on Nov. 26.

Holders had tendered 181,802 as of 5 p.m. ET on Feb. 20. That was down from 215,785 shares on Feb. 6 but up from 118,484 shares as of 3 p.m. ET on Jan. 15.

As noted before, the company's offer was on the same terms as its previous exchange offer, which closed on Oct. 10 with the exchange of 1,604,591 class B shares for an equal number of preferreds.

The renewed offer was to cover about one-third of the outstanding common stock, and Howard Jonas, chairman and controlling stockholder, was not to exchange any shares that he owns or controls, according to a previous press release.

As of Nov. 26, there were 1,574,326 class A shares, 19,799,860 class B shares and 1,604,591 preferreds.

The exchange will again be on a 1-for-1 basis.

The series 2012-A preferreds have a liquidation preference of $8.50 per share, and dividends will be $0.6375 per share plus the potential for an increase based on the performance of Genie's retail energy provider business, the company said.

The preferreds are redeemable after Oct. 11, 2016 at 101% of the liquidation preference plus accrued dividends and after Oct. 11, 2017 at the liquidation preference plus accrued dividends.

In connection with the previous exchange offer, the company suspended payment of dividends on its class A and class B stock.

The company renewed the offer because it wanted "to ensure that all interested stockholders have the opportunity to participate, and [the company is] launching a new offer on the same terms covering those shares not taken up in the prior offer," Ira Greenstein, president of Genie, said in a previous release announcing the renewed offer.

Newark-based Genie Energy consists of IDT Energy and Genie Oil and Gas. IDT Energy supplies electricity and natural gas to residential and small business customers. Genie Oil and Gas makes technologies to produce transportation fuels from oil shale and other unconventional fuel resources.

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