Rentech completes sale of alternative energy technologies

Nov 4, 2014 - US wood fibre services firm Rentech Inc (NASDAQ:RTK) said today it had concluded the divestment of its alternative energy technologies to Sunshine Kaidi New Energy Group Co Ltd.

In March 2014, Rentech announced it had agreed to sell its alternative energy technologies and decommissioned product demonstration unit (PDU) equipment to Kaidi for a total of USD 15.3 million (EUR 12.2m). Kaidi bought the technologies with the goal to deploy them at its Chinese biomass-to-liquids demonstration facility.

The US company has already received USD 14.9 million in sale proceeds and is yet to get the remaining USD 400,000 which are associated with the purchase of the PDU equipment. This second transaction is seen to close by the end of 2014.

Furthermore, Rentech will receive an additional payment of as much as USD 16.2 million from Kaidi, if the latter builds, at own cost, a demonstration-scale plant in China featuring the acquired PDU technologies, based on their performance.

As per the existing PDU site in Colorado, Rentech will share the proceeds from its future sale with Kaidi. This transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2015.

Rentech’s president and CEO, Hunt Ramsbottom, commented that the company will now concentrate on growing its wood fibre processing and nitrogen fertiliser activities. The firm anticipates the sale of the technologies to raise its net operating loss carryforwards applicable to federally taxable income by about USD 12.5 million.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.799)

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