VeraSun receives acquisition offer, will not confirm suitor is POET; POET says “in serious negotiations” with unnamed producer

In South Dakota, VeraSun Energy confirmed that it has received an unsolicited acquisition offer, and POET has confirmed that it is in “serious talks” with an ethanol producer on a potential acquisition.

Neither company has yet confirmed that a VeraSun – POET merger is in the works, but every biofuel source indicates that this is the probably matchup, while confirming that no direct word has leaked out of either the POET or VeraSun headquarters.

VeraSun entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy this fall, as a consequence of poorly times corn hedging that swamped the company with feedstock acquisition costs. VeraSUn has a total capacity of 1.6 billion gallons per year, while POET has 1.5 billion gallons in annual capacity. The resulting merger would create by far the largest US ethanol producer, with a combined total of 42 plants. The merger would easily exceed the largest previous merger in ethanol, which was in March of this year when VeraSun acquired USBioEnergy.

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