Ethanol company Ethanex plans to file for bankruptcy
Ethanex Energy Inc. plans to seek bankruptcy court protection in the “immediate future,” according to its posting Monday with securities regulators.
The Basehor ethanol company has ended an agreement to buy a small ethanol plant in Nebraska and dismissed three of its six officials. Its decisions follow failed efforts to raise $1.5 million in interim financing.
Ethanex had suggested bankruptcy as a possibility in a March 12 filing in which it outlined its financing problems.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Ethanex dismissed its executive chairman, Robert Walther, and its co-chief operating officers, Randall Rahm and Bryan Sherbacow.
Still employed are chief executive Albert Knapp, chief financial officer David McKittrick and Lisa Hallier, whose title was not known.
The company originally planned to build three ethanol plants, each able to produce 110 million gallons of the gasoline additive. Its organizers raised $20 million in a private stock offering and then registered the shares for public trading.
Ethanex shifted strategies in November, agreeing to buy and expand the Nebraska plant. It hoped the plant would showcase Ethanex’s corn fractionation processes that it said would make ethanol more efficiently.
The SEC also has identified the company among several corporate victims of an alleged scam in which an attorney representing the companies illegally sold their unregistered shares publicly.
