The bankruptcy filing will allow the company to pursue its ongoing business objectives with greater certainty by strengthening its balance sheet. The deal calls for the note holders to receive $200 million of new debt and 79 percent of the restructured company’s common stock. Existing shareholders would receive 5 percent of the new common stock as part of the deal.
Toshiba Corp. and the Babcock & Wilcox Co. will each take on $20.2 million in debt and 8 percent of new common stock as part of the arrangement.
The company’s management will remain in place following the bankruptcy, though its board of directors will be replaced.
USEC issued $530 million worth of notes in 2007 with the expectation it would repay that money by October of this year. In that time, an economic downturn and natural disaster have dramatically changed the global market for nuclear power, Jacobson said.
The company has been unable to secure a $2 billion loan guarantee and other funding necessary to complete its American Centrifuge Plant. The company had expected the uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio would be yielding revenue by this point.
The earthquake and tsunami that took out a major nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan in March 2011 raised troubling questions about the safety of nuclear power and caused global prices for nuclear fuel to drop. USEC ended last year with $314 million in cash on its balance sheet. (Wash Post, 3/5/2014)
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