Fred Bloom has resigned as chairman, president and CEO of Commonwealth Energy, the upstart Tustin electric company he founded.
Commonwealth Energy, the largest non-utility electricity provider in the state with more than 60,000 customers, reached a tentative agreement with the staff of the California Public Utilities Commission that Bloom would remove himself from the company’s California operations for the next two years.
The agreement doesn’t address Bloom’s stock holdings in the company. In a prior interview, Bloom said he owned 4.5 million of the 7 million shares outstanding. Bloom will stay at Commonwealth, working as president of a subsidiary, electricAmerica, that is planning to expand the company’s operations outside California.
The PUC said Commonwealth improperly billed 19,000 customers, a snafu that Bloom previously blamed on errors resulting from the newly deregulated industry. The PUC also noted that Bloom had failed to disclose on Commonwealth’s application to become a state-sanctioned energy service provider that since 1988 five states, including California, have banned him from selling unregistered securities.
The tentative agreement is subject to approval from the PUC. If one of the PUC’s five commissioners objects, the agreement could be off and public hearings held on the back-charges.
State Sen. Steve Peace, who co-authored the legislation that deregulated the energy sector, declined to comment on the tentative agreement and is waiting to see whether the PUC approves the agreement. Peace had said previously that Commonwealth should be barred from operating in the state because of Bloom’s omissions on the application.
Commonwealth Energy is private. In an interview with the Business Journal in September, Bloom said his company has raised $49 million from 1,650 investors.
Bloom’s positions have been taken over by Ian Carter, who has been with the company since 1997 and whom a press release identified as a seasoned businessman and West Point graduate. n
