People
People for July 2004.
Positions filled at American Electric Power, Schneider Electric, Foster Wheeler Energy Limited, and others.
Goldman Sachs
Plants for Sale: Pricing the New Wave
Financial players and load-serving utilities are looking for power asset deals.
Financial players and load-serving utilities are looking for power asset deals.
Despite talk of wide bid-ask spreads in the past two tumultuous years, some 60 sales of generation assets have been announced. These sales cover more than 22 GW of capacity, valued on a cash-and-debt basis at approximately $11 billion. A wide variety of buyers and sellers have participated in the sales activity, with a pronounced entry by financial players (investment banks and private equity firms) and load-serving entities (LSEs) looking for capacity to serve their load.
The Utility Sector: A Wall Street Takeover?
Financial players bring credit depth to energy markets, but will they play by the rules?
The center of gravity for energy marketing and trading is moving from Houston to Wall Street. Who’s in, who’s out, and who’s testing the waters?
What Is a Power Plant Worth?
The consequences of exuberance are all around us.
Investors put $50 billion into new generating capacity because they expected that electricity restructuring would lead to the formation of a small number of effective, regional transmission organizations, which would make the location of a generating facility less important in the future. Based on that assumption, developers placed many plants close to a source of fuel, not close to market. For many companies, that has turned out to be a fatal mistake.
Generation Roundtable: Power Flux
Generators struggle to plan for the future as they cope with an unstable present.
Generators struggle to plan for the future as they cope with an unstable present.
When the acting administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Marianne Horinko, signed the EPA's "routine replacement" rule on Aug. 27, 2003, she proclaimed that the new approach to Clean Air Act regulation would "provide … power plants with the regulatory certainty they need."
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The Association of Edison Illuminating Cos. (AEIC) elected new officers. Thomas Shockley III, vice chairman and chief operating officer of American Electric Power, was elected president of AEIC. Elected as first vice president was Peter Burg, chairman and CEO of FirstEnergy. Richard Grigg, president and COO of We Energies, was elected second vice president.
Cut the Pay-Out, Boost the Buy-Back?
The pros and cons of dividend pay-out reductions and stock repurchase programs in uncertain economic times.
The pros and cons of dividend pay-out reductions and stock repurchase programs in uncertain economic times.
The Dow Jones Utility Average currently stands at its lowest level in five years. Electric and gas utilities, along with U.S. companies generally, have been consistently lowering their payout ratios over the past several years, and that downward trend is projected to continue. What do these facts portend for utility investors in the near future?
Collateral Damage
Credit ratings agencies put the squeeze on merchant power.
Have they gone too far? Have ratings agencies become overzealous in their efforts to rein in energy merchants? Many in the industry are coming to that belief after Aquila, one of the industry's most respected companies and leaders, announced it would exit the merchant energy trading sector in late July. It said it could no longer meet the credit requirements imposed by ratings agencies to maintain that business.
The Perils of Ignoring Mother Nature
Experts say utilities' inconsistent approach to weather risk is costing them dearly.
Since their creation, energy companies have been powerless to defend themselves against the weather’s financial impact on business. No longer. An overview of what weather risk management has achieved.
The Energy Tech Chronicles: Will Bust Turn to Boom?
Overcoming many obstacles, energy technology continues to have potential.