Financial News

Fortnightly Magazine - January 1 1997
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Targeted Debt: Give the Stockholders What They Want

Too much leverage can be risky, but sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered.

One of the reasons that stockholders in Columbia Gas survived a Chapter XI proceeding more nearly intact than owners of other bankrupt utility enterprises was that the parent holding company was a secured creditor of its operating subsidiaries at the time of the filing. This status gave priority to Columbia Gas stockholders over the unsecured creditors of the operating companies, including the "take or pay" gas suppliers who represented the major problem that provoked the bankruptcy filing. Although in retrospect the filing proved costly and troublesome for Columbia Gas, the creation of a secured position helped the Columbia stockholders once the company found itself in bankruptcy. The stock held steady throughout the proceedings, once the initial shock had passed and analysts understood the basic legal and economic implications of Chapter XI.

In fact, electric utilities learn from the fortuitous example of Columbia Gas.

Symptom: Growing Risk, Falling Stock Price

Today, risk can be seen on the upswing in the electric utility industry. Nevertheless, this growth in risk remains difficult to quantify, because we cannot yet say that we fully understand the true competitive positions of many vertically integrated electric utilities. Where are the real transmission constraints? What cost structures would utility managers accept if they were really obliged to deal with all-out competition? What are the true costs of nuclear power? What is the real political resistance to forcing retail customers to pay higher rates in order to give those with bargaining power the rates they can bargain for?

We can only guess.

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