New York, March 3, 2026, 11:56 AM ET — Regular session
- NRG shares dropped roughly 8% following the pricing of an enlarged secondary offering by LS Power affiliates.
- NRG plans to repurchase $300 million in shares from the sellers, matching the offering price.
- Wednesday’s close is on traders’ radar, as is the prospect of additional stake sales.
Shares of NRG Energy, Inc. fell 7.7% Tuesday, sinking after LS Power affiliates priced an upsized secondary offering at $164 per share—a discount to Monday’s close that unloaded a sizable chunk of stock. By late morning, the stock changed hands at $162.05, off session lows of $158.07.
This matters: the deal is a secondary offering, so shares are coming from an existing holder, not from NRG raising fresh capital. That tends to weigh on the stock in the near term, with buyers typically insisting on a discount to take on the added supply.
The deal comes on the heels of NRG’s recent asset purchase, which put a sizable portion of NRG shares in LS Power’s hands and raised fresh questions about the seller’s exit timeline. Bloomberg News said Monday that LS Power was looking to bring in up to $2.1 billion by offloading a stake in NRG, following the power producer’s $12 billion buyout of LS Power’s generation assets.
NRG announced that selling stockholders set the price for 14.3 million shares at $164 apiece, putting gross proceeds for the sellers near $2.35 billion. The underwriters can pick up as many as 2.145 million extra shares over the next 30 days. The deal, according to the company, should wrap up by March 4.
NRG isn’t pocketing any proceeds from the sale, but according to a press release, the company has struck a deal to buy back $300 million of its own common stock from the selling stockholders through a private transaction at the same share price. The repurchase, NRG said, should wrap up at the same time as the offering, although the offering itself doesn’t hinge on the buyback.
NRG ended Monday at $175.58, off 1.89%—the fourth consecutive drop. The S&P 500 barely budged. Duke Energy edged up 0.60%, Exelon tacked on 0.24%, while Sempra slipped 0.62%, data from MarketWatch show.
NRG on Monday posted an 8-K related to the LS Power transaction, adding audited financials for the acquired entities along with unaudited 2025 pro forma combined numbers, according to the filing. The company noted these details update and supplement earlier exhibits from its amended deal report.
NRG insists the LS Power deal is key for expanding its reach in competitive power markets and boosting its exposure to gas-fired plants and demand response. “We’ve doubled our generation footprint,” Chief Executive Larry Coben said in results released late February. Business Wire
Even so, things look choppy in the short run. Shares may stay stuck while the block sale hangs over the market, and if underwriters exercise their option, that’s more stock coming. Investors now have to weigh whether LS Power—or any of the other holders who got shares in the deal—might step back in to sell if the price settles.
Attention now shifts to the expected March 4 closing. Traders are eyeing possible follow-up filings tied to the offering, and whether the stock-buyback component actually gets done as planned.
