Crius Energy Trust today announced that Crius Energy, LLC has successfully acquired the customer contracts and associated assets for approximately 75,000 electricity Residential Customer Equivalents ("RCEs") from Iron Energy LLC d/b/a Kona Energy for a total acquisition cost of approximately US$7 million.

The acquisition had been first reported by EnergyChoiceMatters.com

The acquisition increases Crius' RCEs by more than 9% to approximately 875,000 RCEs and expands the Company's customer base in Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Texas

Crius expects annual gross margin of between US$70 and US$90 per RCE and the acquisition is expected to be accretive to distributable cash per unit in 2016.

"Consistent with our growth strategy to acquire assets that continue to diversify the business, we are very pleased to have completed this acquisition that brings another 75,000 RCEs to the Crius portfolio," said Michael Fallquist, Chief Executive Officer of both the Trust and Crius Energy. "The Acquisition diversifies the business by strengthening the geographic footprint, increasing the longer-term commercial customer base, and adding to our proportion of fixed rate contracts. Additionally, we expect the economics of the Acquisition ?to be enhanced by cross-selling natural gas products to the customers, furthering the accretive value to unitholders."

The Acquisition was funded by cash and availability under the Company's credit facility with Macquarie Energy, LLC ("Macquarie Energy"). Concurrent with the execution of the Acquisition documents and effective upon closing, Macquarie Energy will reduce its energy supply fees under the Company's Credit Facility.  The reduction will lower interest costs charged to the Company by US$5.0 million over the next four years.  

Customers added through this acquisition will not experience any change to their service and will be seamlessly transitioned to an established Crius Energy brand, based on their location and the type of service they receive.