Cheniere repurchases $350 mln of shares from Icahn Enterprises

U.S. LNG export project developer Cheniere Energy will repurchase $350 million of the company’s common shares owned by American conglomerate Icahn Enterprises.

On 15 June, Cheniere said it entered into a purchase agreement to buy back approximately $350 million of its common shares owned by Carl C. Icahn and certain of his affiliates. The purchase price is $130.52 per share.

Cheniere’s cash on hand will fund the purchase of the shares. Moreover, it is a part of the company’s $1 billion share repurchase authorization. The transaction is to close no later than 21 June 2022.

Pursuant to an agreement entered in 2015, Cheniere agreed to give Icahn Enterprises one board seat for as long as it continued to hold at least 7,741,412 company common shares. This transaction will result in Icahn Enterprises’ holdings in the company to be under this threshold and the remaining director designee, Andrew Teno, will resign from the board of directors.

“Today’s $350 million repurchase reflects efficient execution on our long-term capital allocation plan and underscores our conviction in Cheniere’s industry-leading LNG platform at a time when environmental priorities and energy security have natural gas as a key focus globally,” said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s CEO.

“Our investment in Cheniere is a shining example of IEP’s activism efforts. We were instrumental in hiring CEO Jack Fusco, who has assembled a great team and unlocked the value of a fantastic asset. As we have said many times, when the time for activism is over, we generally take a profit on a portion of our stock. To date, we have made over $1.3 billion in realized and unrealized gains on Cheniere and, even after the sale today, we still remain sizeable owners of Cheniere stock,” said Carl Icahn.