[BETA] Fortnightly

(October 2012) Entergy Mississippi to spin off its transmission business to ITC; Calpine acquires Bosque Power merchant plant in Texas; WPS acquires Fox Energy plant; E.On buys interest in Magic Valley wind farm; plus bond issues by Nstar, Western Mass. Electric, Texas Eastern Transmission, Alabama Power, and NSP totaling $1.55 billion.

September 2012 -- Southern Company and Turner purchase SunEdison 30-MW PV plant; PSEG acquires 15-MW PV project from Juwi Solar; Duke issues $650 million in 30-year notes; PSE&G floats $350 million; Sempra and SoCal Gas each issue $350 million in bonds; plus bond issues from ONEOK, Regency Energy, ComEd, Tampa Electric, DTE, and Tucson Electric, totaling $4.8 billion.

Conditions are ideal for utility financing—but not forever. Although interest rates remain low, policy changes weigh on capital structures.

Congress again is embroiled in another hyper-partisan food fight that threatens to blow up into a fiscal crisis. And once again dividend-paying companies like utilities are caught in the crossfire.

(September 2012) Our annual financial ranking shows some remarkable shifts among the industry’s shareholder value leaders. Despite flat demand and low commodity prices, investor-owned utilities are investing heavily in capital assets. Investment discipline and operational excellence distinguish leaders on the path to financial performance.

Utilities get little credit for their efforts to strengthen the sustainability of their businesses. But these efforts have paid dividends in stock performance, capital costs, regulatory relationships, and brand value. Capturing the greatest value for shareholders will require utilities to become better understood as socially responsible enterprises.

A wave of mergers and acquisitions is moving through the industry, as utilities and financial players position for growth and strategic advantage. Will economic and regulatory forces continue supporting these transactions? Our annual finance special report examines trends in capital markets and M&A deals involving utilities, power generators and gas suppliers.

(September 2011) Our annual ranking tracks the publicly traded electric and gas companies that produce the greatest value for shareholders. Despite the year’s topsy-turvy financial markets, perennial performers like DPL, PPL and Exelon return to the top of the list. Others face looming cap-ex burdens as regulators impose new mandates and requirements. Leading companies are positioning for growth, despite a challenging landscape.

The next decade will bring serious disruption to the utility industry. But with cooperation from regulators and legislators, utility companies will be able to shift their business models to capture significant value—both in existing businesses and emerging ones.

When a capital-intensive industry enters an asset-building cycle, many companies will operate in the red for a few years or more. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as cap-ex investments represent growth for shareholders. The devil is in the details, however, and companies facing a large slug of environmental compliance investments might produce disappointing returns over the next few years.