Merrill Lynch

Business & Money

An evolving market demands a greater focus on power prices and required return on equity.


An evolving market demands a greater focus on power prices and required return on equity.

Valuation can be difficult even in stable markets, and executives setting their company's strategic course need to understand how the market for power projects is evolving and what may lie ahead.

Business & Money

Energy experts debate the pros and cons of the Bush administration's proposal to eliminate the double taxation of dividends.

Double Taxation Repeal: Fire or Ice?

 

 

Back to the Drawing Board

Executive and academic views on what to fix and what's not broke.

The sound and fury over trading scandals, credit defaults, and market manipulation so far has drowned out much of the mind-numbing debate over a standard market design (SMD), and rightly so. Utilities understand (as does the press) that Enron, "Deathstar," and "Get Shorty" will always sell more newspapers than locational pricing or congestion management.

Reign of the Bond Kings

S&P, Moody's, and Fitch tell why credit issues now rule the energy sector.

S&P, Moody's, and Fitch tell why credit issues now rule the energy sector.

This year saw energy companies forced to make some grim choices-issuing new stock in falling markets, angering investors with dividend cutbacks, selling prized assets at fire sale prices. Some blame it on the rating agencies-the bond kings-who imposed tougher credit standards after the fall of Enron.

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.

Frontlines

Energy companies' best-laid plans in 2001 were put on hold, after circumstance and fate stepped in.

Frontlines

The Year of Living Dangerously