H Power Corp. (Belleville, NJ) announced a proposal to allow the company's board of directors to implement, at their discretion, a one-for-five stock split, which was approved by the company's shareholders. The approved proposal also allows the company to decrease its number of authorized shares of common stock from 150 million to 50 million.
The reverse stock split and the decrease in the authorized shares of common stock was effective at 5:00 p.m. ET October 16, 2002. Under the terms of the reverse split, shareholders will receive one share of H Power common stock for every five shares of the company's common stock currently held. As of the first quarter of fiscal 2003, H Power had approximately 53.8 million shares issued and outstanding. As of October 16, the number of shares of the company's common stock outstanding was approximately 10.7 million.
"H Power's shareholders have approved the reverse split primarily to support the company's continued listing on the NASDAQ National Market," said H. Frank Gibbard, CEO of H Power. "The reverse split will help improve the company's marketability and acceptability of H Power's stock, particularly among institutional investors. We believe the reverse split is beneficial to our shareholders and the company at this time, and are confident that we remain well-positioned to achieve our goal of commercialization of fuel cells."
