Securities and Equity Investments

6 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2015

Investments, Debt and Equity Securities [Abstract]

7. SECURITIES AND EQUITY INVESTMENTS

Our financial instruments consist of cash and cash equivalents, accounts receivable, notes receivable, investments, accounts payable, a loan agreement, and an interest rate swap agreement. We believe that the carrying value of financial instruments, with the exception of our cost method investment in EnerTech Capital Partners II L.P. (“EnerTech”), in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets, approximates their fair value due to their short-term nature. We estimate the fair value of our investment in EnerTech (Level 3) using quoted market prices for underlying publicly traded securities, and estimated enterprise values are determined using cash flow projections and market multiples of the underlying non-public companies.

Investment in EnerTech

The following table presents the reconciliation of the carrying value and unrealized gains to the fair value of the investment in EnerTech as of March 31, 2015 and September 30, 2014:

	March 31,		September 30,
	2015		2014
Carrying value	$	919	$	919
Unrealized gains		81		94
Fair value	$	1,000	$	1,013

At each reporting date, the Company performs evaluations of impairment for this investment to determine if any unrealized losses are other-than-temporary. There was no impairment for the six months ended March 31, 2015.

EnerTech’s general partner, with the consent of the fund’s investors, has extended the fund through December 31, 2015. The fund will terminate on this date unless extended by the fund’s valuation committee. The fund may be extended for another one-year period through December 31, 2016 with the consent of the fund’s valuation committee.