Law & Lawyers

The Economists: On the Future of Energy Markets

Uncertainty clouds direction of FERC’s market engineering.

The failure of California markets, Enron, and the low-point of the merchant plant business cycle has left many executives pessimistic over the prospects that true competitive markets in energy will develop. Top economists discuss the industry’s outlook.

Crawling from the Wreckage

Can California’s energy market be salvaged?

The whole world watched the California energy market debacle. Now, economists talk about what it would take to rebuild California into a truly competitive power market.

Utility Valuation: Shedding Light on the Black Box

Experts debate how energy companies should be valued in the wake of electric restructuring and Enron.

Credit downgrades, bankruptcy, and investor backlash against energy companies has exposed how inadequate the valuation of energy companies is. Experts debate just how to value the industry.

The Fear Factor

Understanding power company volatility in the context of valuation theory.

A top CSFB investment banker analyzes how recent power sector volatility can be understood in the context of valuation theory.

Vertical Integration: Necessity or Distraction?

An analysis of the latest wave of unbundling, re-bundling, and convergence plays in the gas-power industries.

In any industry, companies must choose a portfolio of assets and businesses to own along a value chain. In doing so, they make an implicit trade-off between the benefits of focus and vertical integration.