Crius Energy Subsidiary Acquires Customer Book of Retail Supplier

FairPoint Energy, a unit of Crius Energy, announced today that it has purchased residential and small commercial customer accounts from PNE Energy Supply LLC, a competitive electricity provider for customers in New Hampshire.

PNE Energy Supply LLC is a sister company of Freedom Energy Logistics.

The acquired portfolio consisted of approximately 8,500 residential and small commercial customer accounts in New Hampshire

Terms were not disclosed.

FairPoint Energy will continue to serve the acquired customers under the same contract length and pricing, with additional opt-in choices including FairPoint Energy's 100 percent green energy product, the company said.

FairPoint Energy currently serves customers in Maine and New Hampshire.

As only reported by Matters, Crius, formed by the merger of Regional Energy Holdings, Inc. (parent of Viridian Energy and several other suppliers), and Public Power, LLC, had previously said that it intended to grow through strategic acquisitions of small energy retailers (fewer than 200,000 customers).

Commenting on the acquisition, Crius Chief Executive Officer Michael Fallquist stated, "this transaction represents an excellent opportunity to acquire customer accounts in a highly attractive market at accretive valuations. This acquisition demonstrates our ability to execute on our growth initiatives through opportunistic acquisitions and going forward we expect to see a strong pipeline of M&A activity in the retail energy industry."