Pacific Ethanol, Aventine obtain stockholders nod to merge

The shareholders of both Pacific Ethanol Inc (NASDAQ:PEIX) and Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc have cleared the two parties’ planned all-stock merger, they announced on Thursday.

Subject to meeting certain other conditions, the transaction is now expected to close on July 1, 2015.

At the very end of 2014, Pacific Ethanol said it had agreed to acquire Illinois-based fellow ethanol producer Aventine to boost its annual production capacity to 515 million gallons (1.95bn litres).

As part of the deal, Aventine’s stockholders will get 1.25 shares of Pacific Ethanol common stock for each share of Aventine common stock they have. This means that at completion Aventine’s stockholders will own about 42% of the enlarged company, while those of Pacific Ethanol will control it with a combined stake of 58%.

The target is engaged in the production and marketing of industrial and fuel ethanol and related byproducts, bioproducts and coproducts. It owns a 100-million-gallon wet mill and a 60-million-gallon dry mill in Illinois, as well as two dry mills in Nebraska with an annual production capacity of 155 million gallons.

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