BioFuel Energy morphs into real estate business

Enlarge Photo

Scott Eells | Bloomberg

David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital Inc.

Mark Harden

News Director- Denver Business Journal

Email  |  Twitter  |  LinkedIn  |  Google+

A Colorado ethanol producer has transformed itself into a Texas real estate development and homebuilding business.

Denver-based BioFuel Energy Corp. has completed its previously announced $275 million cash-and-stock deal to acquire the equity assets of Dallas-based JBGL Builder Finance LLC and certain subsidiaries of JBGL Capital LP.

Those assets were acquired from billionaire hedge-fund manager David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital and JBGL co-founder James Brickman in a deal partially financed by Greenlight, and effectively transforms the JBGL assets into a publicly traded company.

With the deal, BioFuel — which had been traded on the Nasdaq exchange as BIOF — has changed its name to Green Brick Partners Inc. and now trades under the ticker symbol GRBK. It lists a Dallas headquarters address in an SEC filing Wednesday.

Greenlight, which before the deal held just over a third of the former BioFuel Energy's shares, now has 49.9 percent of Green Brick's shares and Brickman and his family control 8.4 percent.

With the deal, Brickman becomes CEO of Green Brick and Einhorn is its chairman.

"We are very pleased to help transition BioFuel Energy, the former ethanol producer, into Green Brick Partners, a successful homebuilder," Einhorn said in a statement. "This deal is a win-win for everyone involved and creates an exciting platform for Green Brick's future growth."

The deal was announced in June.

BioFuel previously tried to operate corn ethanol plants. That "didn't pan out," Einhorn said in June, and BioFuel's lenders agreed to sell off its plants last November.

Greenlight Capital and Brickman proposed the deal to BioFuel March 28. BioFuel then formed a special committee of independent board members to evaluate the transaction and possible alternatives. Both the committee and the full board voted to recommend the deal to shareholders, who approved it Oct. 17 at the company's annual meeting.

Mark Harden directs print and digital news content for the Denver Business Journal, contributes to the "17th & Lincoln" blog and compiles the daily "Afternoon Edition" email. Email: mharden@bizjournals.com. Phone: 303-803-9227.