Citation:
Abstract:
Excerpt from theIntroduction:
The era of electric and natural gas industry restructuring ushered in by Congress and implemented by FERC and state public utility commissions has now been in place for more than five years. In the wake of these momentous shifts in regulatory policy, electric and gas companies have responded with fundamental changes in their business strategies. Some have decidedly “stuck to their knitting,” while others have merged, sold assets, invested overseas and in new businesses, and in some cases completely abandoned their historic business roots. With the economic downturn, the collapse of merchant generators and the decided slowdown in industry restructuring, the time is opportune to examine corporate winners and losers from this unprecedented round of industry restructuring.
Winners and losers in the battle of restructuring can be measured from a variety of perspectives. The major constituents, however, are clearly shareholders and investors on one hand and consumers on the other. The focus of this analysis is the shareholder. In examining the impacts on shareholders, we look to a variety of related metrics that speak to financial performance.
Our analysis focuses on total shareholder return for the group of 64 companies that compose the Fortune 1000 energy companies.2 Within this mix is a combination of utilities, pipelines, energy merchants and independent generators with diverse business strategies. Aligning companies with their returns to shareholders paints a dramatic picture of widely differentiated financial performance. The degree of variation is particularly notable in light of an industry once noted for its stable returns appealing to the most conservative investors.