Atmos Energy (ATO -0.41%) is getting out of Georgia. The country's largest natural gas-only distributor announced Monday that it's just completed the sale of "substantially all" of its natural gas distribution assets located in Georgia to Algonquin Power & Utilities (NASDAQOTH: AQUNF) subsidiary Liberty Energy (Georgia). Along with the distribution assets, Algonquin will take ownership of some 64,000 residential and commercial gas meters.
In exchange, Atmos will receive roughly $155 million -- enough cash to make the sale profitable for the company, and enough that Atmos will be reporting an after-tax gain of $0.07 on the sale.
On the downside, Atmos says it earned $0.03 per share in profits off these assets in Q4 of 2012 alone. Going forward, that profit stream will belong to Algonquin, and not Atmos.
Shares of Atmos declined 1% in Monday trading to close at $42.28, ahead of the news.
