Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (Nasdaq: PEIX) has completed the offering and sale of 5,250,000 shares of Series A Cumulative Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock for $84 million to Cascade Investment, L.L.C.
The shares of preferred stock are convertible into shares of common stock at an initial conversion ratio of two shares of common stock for each share of preferred stock which, if converted immediately, would result in the issuance of 10,500,000 shares of common stock.
Pacific Ethanol also announced today that it has completed a debt financing for up to a total of approximately $34 million with Hudson United Bank, a division of TD BankNorth, and Comerica Bank. A portion of the proceeds from the preferred stock offering and all of the proceeds from the debt financing will be used to complete construction of Pacific Ethanol’s ethanol production plant in Madera County, California. This plant is currently under construction and is scheduled to be completed and begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2006.
The remaining portion of the proceeds from the preferred stock offering will be used to pay a portion of the costs of construction of other ethanol plants on the West Coast. Pacific Ethanol has announced plans to construct and operate five ethanol plants in the Western United States by the end of 2008 with an expected combined installed annual ethanol capacity of at least 200 million gallons.
