By GEOFF SENESCALL
Fletcher Energy says it is not involved in the sale of seven million shares in the United States-based Capstone Turbine.
But a spokeswoman for Fletcher Challenge, Ginny Radford, did not discount the possibility of the company taking part in further sales.
Fletcher owns just over eight million shares in Capstone,
which develops small generators and turbines to power hybrid electronic vehicles.
Of the eight million shares, three million are destined to be housed in a new company called Rubicon.
The plan is to sell those shares to help finance Rubicon's purchase of Fletcher Forests' assets as well as the purchase of non-core Fletcher Energy assets.
The sale of Capstone shares was announced through a notice filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US.
The company said several of its shareholders, who were not disclosed, filed to sell seven million shares of common stock worth almost $US407 million at Tuesday's prices.
Of the seven million, the public will be offered one million new shares worth about $58 million.
Capstone's generator, called the MicroTurbine, can run on a variety of fuels, including natural gas, diesel and propane.
The generators are used in prototype buses running in Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as in garbage trucks in Japan.
Capstone also released earnings results, which showed revenue for the three months ending September 30 rising to $US6.2 million, compared to revenue for the same period a year ago at $US759,000.
The company had a net loss for the three months of $US8.1 million, compared to a net loss the year before of $US6.3 million.
The net loss per share fell to US11c a share for the three months ending September 30.
That compares to a net loss per share of $US4.85 for the same period in 1999.
The filing notice said the company would use the net proceeds from the sale of the 1 million shares for developing its "recuperator core manufacturing activities."
Shares in Capstone rose $US4.75 to $US58.13, a gain of about 9 per cent.
Earlier, shares had risen $US9.62, to as high as $US63.
The company went public on June 29, selling 9.1 million shares at $16 each.
