Marking another milestone in its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy, NRG Energy Inc. last week reported that all of its necessary creditor classes voted overwhelmingly in favor of the company’s proposed plan of reorganization.

Specifically, over 99.9% of the voting creditors in the NRG unsecured claims class and in the NRG Power Marketing Inc. unsecured claims class voted to accept the plan. NRG Energy filed the final voting report late Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The filing said that the reorganization plan remains subject to confirmation by the bankruptcy court and the confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin Nov. 21 before Judge Prudence Carter Beatty.

NRG filed a voluntary, prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan in May after a series of credit rating downgrades led to accelerated debt payment obligations that it could not make the previous fall. The plan incorporated the terms of a settlement announced in March in which NRG, Xcel Energy and members of NRG’s major creditor constituencies agreed that Xcel would pay NRG and its creditors of up to $752 million in three payments to restructure its debt.

Xcel Energy CFO Richard Kelly told analysts in September that the company is confident that NRG Energy will emerge from bankruptcy this fall, probably in late November (see NGI, Sept. 8).

Meanwhile, NRG has been getting its legal house in order prior to emerging from bankruptcy. Earlier this week, the Shaw Group Inc. said that it has received approval from U.S. bankruptcy courts in New York and Mississippi for the settlement of claims related to the cancellation of the LSP-Pike Energy LLC power plant project in Mississippi, which Shaw planned to construct for NRG.

NRG this month reached an agreement with FirstEnergy Corp. related to a never-completed sale of four FirstEnergy power plants to NRG Energy. Under the agreement, FirstEnergy’s claim against NRG Energy would be allowed in the amount of $396 million, subject to U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval (see NGI, Nov. 17).

Also this month, NRG reached a settlement agreement with Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P), the Connecticut attorney general and state regulators that resolves all outstanding litigation related to a disputed power supply contract. The settlement requires NRG to continue supplying power to CL&P at the agreed upon rates and for the remaining term, but it calls for CL&P to accelerate payments for the power.

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