NRG sells six gas plants back to LS Power for $4 billion, nine months after buying them

NRG Energy▲+0.96% — NRG Energy, up 0.96 percent today is selling six natural gas plants back to LS Power for $4.0 billion in cash, less than a year after buying them from the same firm ¹⁴. The deal, signed November 9, 2026, and filed in an 8-K the next day↗, hands LS Power 4.9 GW across New York, New England and Texas: Ravenswood in NYISO, Ocean State Power and Wallingford in ISO-NE, and Jack County, Johnson County and R.W ¹⁴. Miller in ERCOT ¹⁴.

Scarcity repriced the plants, and NRG is selling into it

LS Power approached NRG unsolicited, and NRG's chief executive Robert Gaudette said the offer was too good to refuse: 8.0 times expected 2027 adjusted EBITDA, with Jack County carrying an implied $1,400 per kilowatt against the roughly $1,000 NRG pays to build new gas in Texas ⁵.

The price lands as the assets' earnings power inflects. NRG's East segment adjusted EBITDA jumped from $107 million to $614 million in a year on higher realized capacity prices, part of a quarter that delivered $4.68 adjusted EPS against a $3.33 estimate on $9.47 billion of revenue ². Scarcity is repricing these plants upward, and NRG is selling into that repricing rather than holding it.

$3 billion to buybacks, $3 billion against the debt

The $4 billion routes to shareholders and lenders: $3 billion of buybacks across 2026 and 2027, $1 billion of it starting before year-end, and a total of $3 billion in planned 2027 debt reduction against $22.9 billion of debt and finance leases ²³⁵. NRG keeps its whole PJM portfolio and the CPower energy-management business, the stated rationale for the original acquisition, and its 1.2-GW "Bring Your Own Power" data-center project stays on track ²⁵. We covered that Texas data-center push on November 10; the sale is the balance-sheet half of the same bet ²⁵.

The 2027 guide comes in under consensus

The catch sits in the 2027 guide↗: adjusted EPS of $8.05 to $10.05, below the $10.07 consensus, with the plants leaving the run-rate ². LS Power, which is also buying 4.4 GW from Constellation and growing its gas fleet from 2.2 GW toward 11.5 GW, is the one holding the plants at the next capacity auction ⁵. NRG carries the other risk: the buyback assumes data-center deals keep landing.

Watch the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the New York Public Service Commission and Hart-Scott-Rodino review; closing is targeted for the second quarter of 2027 ¹⁵.