New Fortress Energy completes sale of stake in Energos Infrastructure

Business Wire
February 15, 2024
By: Staff

In the news

Summary Highlights

NFE sells 20% stake in Energos Infrastructure to funds managed by Apollo
NFE to use net proceeds to repay debt and invest in accretive downstream projects
NFE charters six LNG vessels from Energos today, and will continue to partner with Energos in the future to support significant growth at NFE’s downstream terminals

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 15, 2024-- New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NFE) (the “Company”) announced that it has completed the sale of its 20% equity interest in Energos Infrastructure (“Energos”) to funds managed by Apollo (NYSE: APO) (the “Apollo Funds”). The Company intends to use net proceeds from this transaction for general corporate purposes, including repaying debt and investing in accretive downstream projects.

Energos is a global maritime infrastructure company formed by NFE and Apollo Funds in August 2022 to provide LNG delivery, storage, and regasification services to a diverse customer base comprised of utilities and energy companies under long-term charters. Energos owns and operates 13 LNG infrastructure vessels, consisting of 9 Floating Storage and Regasification Units, 2 Floating Storage Units, and 2 LNG carriers.

NFE currently charters six vessels from Energos and will maintain an active relationship with Energos to support NFE’s global operations through vessel charters for a period up to 20 years. These charters have either commenced or will commence upon expiration of each vessel’s existing third-party charter agreement.

“We are pleased to have established Energos with Apollo Funds, our joint venture partner, and to have built it into a premier LNG maritime infrastructure company today. Completing the sale of our interest to Apollo Funds allows us to recycle proceeds into high return downstream projects and to reduce debt," said Wes Edens, Chairman and CEO of New Fortress Energy.

About New Fortress Energy Inc.

New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NFE) is a global energy infrastructure company founded to address energy poverty and accelerate the world’s transition to reliable, affordable, and clean energy. The company owns and operates natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure and an integrated fleet of ships and logistics assets to rapidly deliver turnkey energy solutions to global markets. Collectively, the company’s assets and operations reinforce global energy security, enable economic growth, enhance environmental stewardship and transform local industries and communities around the world.

About Energos Infrastructure

Energos Infrastructure provides critical infrastructure for the delivery, storage, and regasification of LNG through long-term contracts, helping to power countries around the world and reduce their reliance on oil and coal, enhance energy security and reliability, and enable potential cost savings. Energos’ asset platform serves a diversified customer base of utilities and energy companies worldwide under third-party charters.

About Apollo

Apollo is a high-growth, global alternative asset manager. In our asset management business, we seek to provide our clients excess return at every point along the risk-reward spectrum from investment grade to private equity with a focus on three investing strategies: yield, hybrid, and equity. For more than three decades, our investing expertise across our fully integrated platform has served the financial return needs of our clients and provided businesses with innovative capital solutions for growth. Through Athene, our retirement services business, we specialize in helping clients achieve financial security by providing a suite of retirement savings products and acting as a solutions provider to institutions. Our patient, creative, and knowledgeable approach to investing aligns our clients, businesses we invest in, our employees, and the communities we impact, to expand opportunity and achieve positive outcomes. As of December 31, 2023, Apollo had approximately $651 billion of assets under management. To learn more, please visit www.apollo.com.

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This communication contains forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this communication other than historical information are forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and relate to future events, our future financial performance or our projected business results. You can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking words such as “expects,” “may,” “will,” “predicts,” “intends,” “plans,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” or the negative version of these terms or other comparable words. Forward looking statements include but are not limited to: our ability to close, and the timing of the closing, of our acquisition of the PPA, including our receiving the required regulatory approvals, expectations related to the amounts of annual fixed capacity payments under the PPA, our ability to transfer the PPA and expectations related to the timing for when our Santa Catarina power complex will commence operations and complete its expansion as well as our ability to finance that construction.

These forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates based upon current information and involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of the Company’s control. Actual results or events may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Specific factors that could cause actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: failure to achieve the terms and conditions to acquiring the PPA, including not receiving the required regulatory approvals, failure to receive the expected fixed payments under our contracts, unknown and unforeseen risks related to the development, construction or commissioning schedule of the Santa Catarina power complex, including failure to meet design and engineering specifications, incompatibility of systems, delays and schedule changes, high costs and expenses, and regulatory and legal challenges, among others; failure to receive expected financing on terms acceptable to NFE; receipt of permits, approvals and authorizations from governmental and regulatory agencies on a timely basis or at all; our inability to operationalize our plans for the projects and derive the benefits expected; common risks related to successful integration of the businesses; breach or failure by the parties to comply with the covenants and obligations under the agreements; nonpayment or nonperformance of obligations by the parties; inability to realize the anticipated benefits from the project or our partnerships; adverse regional, national, or international economic conditions, adverse capital market conditions and adverse political developments; business disruption following the transaction; and the impact of public health crises, such as pandemics (including coronavirus (COVID-19)) and epidemics and any related company or government policies and actions to protect the health and safety of individuals or government policies or actions to maintain the functioning of national or global economies and markets. These factors are not necessarily all of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any of NFE’s forward-looking statements. Other known or unpredictable factors could also have material adverse effects on future results.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and we undertake no duty to update or revise these forward-looking statements, even though our situation may change in the future. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements included in NFE’s annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.