Pacific Ethanol names interim CFO

SACRAMENTO
April 22, 2009 1:58pm

Bryon McGregor has been named interim chief financial officer and principal financial and accounting officer of Pacific Ethanol Inc., the financially-beleaguered Sacramento company reveals in a Security and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday.

Mr. McGregor, 45, had served as vice president, finance, at Pacific Ethanol from September 2008 until his new appointment, which was made Tuesday.

Prior to joining Pacific Ethanol, he was employed as senior director for E-Trade Financial from February 2002 to August 2008, serving in various capacities including international treasurer based in London, England from 2006 to 2008. Prior to joining E-Trade, Mr. McGregor served as manager of finance and head of project finance for BP (formerly Atlantic Richfield Company) from 1998 to 2001.

Earlier this month, the company said it had only enough cash on hand to operate until perhaps the end of April.

“We do not currently have sufficient liquidity to meet our anticipated working capital, debt service and other liquidity needs in the very near-term,” the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pacific Ethanol suspended operations at three of its four ethanol production facilities “due to market conditions” and in an effort to conserve capital. One of those, a 60 million gallons per year plant at the Port of Stockton, was opened to great fanfare in September 2008.