Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Atmos Sells Georgian Gas Assets

Atmos Energy (NYSE: ATO  ) is getting out of Georgia. The country's largest natural gas-only distributor announced Monday that it's just completed the sale of "substantially all" of its natural gas distribution assets located in Georgia to Algonquin Power & Utilities (NASDAQOTH: AQUNF  ) subsidiary Liberty Energy (Georgia). Along with the distribution assets, Algonquin will take ownership of some 64,000 residential and commercial gas meters.

In exchange, Atmos will receive roughly $155 million -- enough cash to make the sale profitable for the company, and enough that Atmos will be reporting an after-tax gain of $0.07 on the sale.

On the downside, Atmos says it earned $0.03 per share in profits off these assets in Q4 of 2012 alone. Going forward, that profit stream will belong to Algonquin, and not Atmos.

Shares of Atmos declined 1% in Monday trading to close at $42.28, ahead of the news.

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