Seal Beach-based Clean Energy Fuels Inc., backed by legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens, has filed plans to raise $287 million in an initial public offering.
The company, which hasn’t set a timetable for the offering, is looking to raise money to grow its business selling alternative fuel.
The offering would be among the larger ones for Orange County in recent years.
Clean Energy said it wants to use the money to build a liquefied natural gas plant, add natural gas fueling stations, buy natural gas vehicles for sale to customers, as well as for general business purposes.
The company bills itself as the largest provider of natural gas for vehicles in North America. Clean Energy serves fleets of trash and other trucks, buses, shuttles, taxis and police cars.
Pickens, who has a home in Del Mar, founded Clean Energy as a tiny part of Dallas-based Mesa Petroleum in the late 1980s. He split it off in the late 1990s.
Clean Energy’s day-to-day operations are run by Andrew Littlefair, Clean Energy’s chief executive.
Littlefair, a former vice president of public affairs at Mesa Petroleum, worked as an advance planner and scheduler for President Reagan in 1987. He was hand-picked by Pickens to lead Clean Energy.
Pickens, who gained notoriety in the 1980s as a corporate raider, has invested about $50 million in the company in recent years.
Other Clean Energy investors include Canada’s Westport Innovations Inc. and New York private equity firm Perseus LLC.
Last year, Clean Energy had sales of $78 million and $17 million in profit.
Through June of this year, the company lost $4.1 million on sales of $42.5 million.
