Are you in the market for an ethanol plant? VeraSun Energy Corporation just announced that it is auctioning off seven of its ethanol plants. The plants, which VeraSun acquired when it merged with US BioEnergy, are capable of producing 640 million gallons of ethanol per year. VeraSun will auction them off between March 16th and March 31st. … Read the rest
Tag Archives: vse
VeraSun Energy (VSE) Suspends Ethanol Production At 3 Plants
More bad news for ethanol…VeraSun Energy has suspended production at 3 of its distilleries: Bloomingberg, Albion and Ohio. The plants stopped running in the latter part of December, with the company citing higher corn costs and less demand from ethanol as the reasons behind the closure.
Justice Sirikah over at HotStocked.com notes that this isn’t the first time this has happened:
… Read the restThis is the second time that VeraSun has taken such an extreme measure since
A Big Ethanol Casualty: VeraSun (VSE) Preparing To File Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
I first wrote about the absurdity of ethanol in an article a couple years ago at Self Investors titled “Unintended Consequences of the Ethanol Boom“, highlighting food inflation, environmental destruction and the disgusting politicking surrounding it. With a surge of companies all attempting to cash in on ethanol with IPOs, it was just a matter of time before a few of them went belly up. One of the largest ethanol producers around, VeraSun … Read the rest
Invesco Buys 15 Million Shares Of VeraSun (VSE), Lifting Share Price
The stock price of troubled VeraSun Energy got a boost on Friday, when Invesco, an investment firm based in Bermuda, announced that it had purchased 15.88 million shares of VeraSun stock.
VeraSun stock prices ended the day on Friday at $1.90/share, an increase of 10%.
One of the largest producers of ethanol in the US, VeraSun’s earnings have suffered due to high corn prices. The value of the stock plummeted in September, when the … Read the rest
Shares Of Top Ethanol Companies (AVR, PEIX, ADM, VSE) Fall With The Rest Of The Market
Forbes.com notes that the general economic malaise is affecting share prices of several of the top ethanol companies. Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings (AVR) plummeted to its lowest share price ever on Monday, bottoming out at $1.93 before climbing slightly to close at $2.10. Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) dropped 15.6% to close at $1.08, while VeraSun (VSE) dropped 12.4% to close at $1.84.
Even agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) was not immune from the slump, falling … Read the rest
American Technology Research Coverage on Aventine Renewables (AVR), VeraSun (VSE) & Fuel Systems Solutions (FSYS)
American Technology Research Reinstated coverage today on a few alternative energy plays during the trading day today:
* Aventine Renewable (AVR) with a Neutral rating and price target of $3
* VeraSun (VSE) with a Neutral rating and price target of $2.25
* Fuel Systems Solutions (FSYS) get a Buy rating and a price target of $45 (it’s getting interesting down here, but I’d like to see it come back and test the area around … Read the rest
Upgrades: Otter Tail (OTTR) & VeraSun Energy (VSE)
2 upgrades to tell you about this morning – Citi upgraded VeraSun (VSE) from Sell to Hold but lowered the price target from 3 to 1.85, saying “The difficulties in 3Q08 are primarily related to the company’s corn hedging activities as VeraSun chose to lock in significant quantities of corn back in July when the corn market was reaching its peak. Consequently, as corn prices quickly reversed course VeraSun generated large losses on its corn … Read the rest
VeraSun Energy Suspends Equity Offering Of Shares, Retains Morgan Stanley For Advice (VSE)
VeraSun Energy, the troubled ethanol producer, began a public offering of 20,000,000 million shares of its common stock two days ago. It also announced larger-than-expected third quarter losses on Wednesday and saw the price of its shares drop precipitously as a result. Now, the company has announced that it is suspending that equity offer, and it has retained the firm Morgan Stanley to act as advisors and help the firm evaluate alternate courses of action. … Read the rest
Upgrades/Downgrades: HOKU, VSE, ESLR
A few upgrades and downgrades to tell you about today..
Evergreen Solar (ESLR) upgraded from Sell to Hold by Citi
“With ESLR more clearly defining its exposure to a Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, the worst-case scenario is now well defined. The primary issue is dilution as ESLR might not recover funds on the issuance of ~30MM shares to LEH as part of a share lending agreement. Although ESLR may also be out the ~$40MM it has … Read the rest
Verasun (VSE) Expects To Post Unexpectedly High Third-Quarter Loss
Verasun, an ethanol producer, just filed a notice with the SEC indicating that their third quarter losses will be much higher than expected. Originally, the company was expected to post a net loss $2.4 million. However, the regulatory filing shows that that the company expects a net loss of between $63 million and $100 million. The company’s stock is expected to lose 40 to 65 cents per share as a result.
In the filing, Verasun … Read the rest