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Enron Mail |
ENRON CEO QUITS -- Departure follows e-biz leader's problems enron ex-president/ceo Jeffrey Skilling
InternetWeek, 08/20/01 UK: UK prompt electricity gains on outage talk. Reuters English News Service, 08/20/01 Danish shares close lower, led by NEG Micon after worse-than-expected earnings AFX News, 08/20/01 DENMARK: NEG Micon sees organic growth, won't buy Enron Wind. Reuters English News Service, 08/20/01 AES Offers to Give Up Stake in Unprofitable India Power Venture Bloomberg, 08/20/01 NEWS & ANALYSIS ENRON CEO QUITS -- Departure follows e-biz leader's problems enron ex-president/ceo Jeffrey Skilling MIKE KOLLER 08/20/2001 InternetWeek 7 Copyright © 2001 CMP Media LLC Enron president and CEO Jeffrey Skilling resigned last week, just eight months after assuming the mantle of chief executive. His departure followed some high-profile strategic failures and a plunge in the company's stock value. In a conference call, Skilling said he stepped down voluntarily, for unspecified personal reasons. That explanation was supported by returning president and CEO Kenneth Lay, who has agreed to stay on until 2005. Last year, Enron was featured on the cover of InternetWeek's Transformation issue. The company was highlighted for its aggressive adoption of Internet technology and its high volume of online transactions. The turn in Skilling's fortune seems to mirror that of Enron, whose stock value recently sank to the low $40s from an all-time high of $90.56 a year ago. Even so, Skilling emphasized the company's travails didn't influence his decision to leave. "I can't stress enough that this has nothing to do with Enron," Skilling said. "In general there's been a lot of issues, but most are behind us." Tom Nolle, president of the consulting firm Cimi Corp., wasn't buying it. "Most of the companies on Wall Street that have suffered sharp declines since the beginning of 2000 have done some restructuring of their management," Nolle said. "It's a normal response for a company that's lost a lot of shareholder value." In 2000, Enron formed Enron Net Works to sell data storage, logistics services and tradable commodities in online marketplaces. The company rolled out Enron Online nearly two years ago to improve efficiencies in the trading of such commodities as gas, electricity, crude oil and broadband. It took aim at telecommunications with Enron Broadband Services. The decline in the broadband market caught Skilling off guard, he conceded. "I was personally surprised with the speed with which that industry fell apart," Skilling said. "It's a meltdown right now and we've been working very hard in the last four months to redirect the business to get our cost structure down, and we've done that." http://www.internetwk.com/ August 20, 2001 Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. UK: UK prompt electricity gains on outage talk. 08/20/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. LONDON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Market talk of problems at a large British power station propelled prompt electricity prices sharply higher on Monday. Dealers said traders for the company which operates the power station in question were active buyers, but the company declined to comment on the status its plant citing such information was "commercially sensitive". Day-ahead electricity climbed throughout the day and in late trade, baseload was up to 21 pounds per megawatt hour. On Friday day-ahead (Monday) power was 20 pounds. Traders said the front months were quiet in comparision with the prompt trading. September baseload attracted a few deals around 18.20-18.30 pounds, levels which were unchanged from Friday, while October baseload was busier seeing a raft of deals going through around 18.75 pounds. By the end of the day, prices were up to 18.8 pounds, about 20 pence off Friday levels. Winter 01 was equally slow, but was put at 20.8 pounds, about 10 pence weaker, while summer 02 was 17.75, off about five pence. Winter 02 at 20.9 pounds was unchanged and a few deals were done for winter 03 around 21 pounds, traders said. On Monday Enron said its 1,875 megawatt Teesside power station had restarted as planned on Sunday after being shut following a fatal explosion on August 8 and was "expected to be operating at planned levels again by the middle of this week". A spokesman for the company declined to detail what the "planned level" was but said: "It will be pretty much what was planned before the outage". Before the accident which left three dead, the plant was estimated by traders to be operating at about 800-900 megawatts. Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Danish shares close lower, led by NEG Micon after worse-than-expected earnings 08/20/2001 AFX News © 2001 by AFP-Extel News Ltd COPENHAGEN (AFX) - Share prices closed lower, weighed down by NEG Micon's worse-than-expected earnings report, and after Wall Street followed up Friday's losses with a shaky start today, brokers said. The KFX index closed 1.62 points lower at 299.74 and the KBX benchmark index was 0.82 points lower at 248.20. The KAX All Share index closed 1.35 points lower at 235.53 on turnover of 1.07 bln dkr. NEG Micon closed 19 dkr lower at 321 after it posted a first-half pretax loss of 70.3 mln dkr, compared with a loss of 81.7 a year earlier. Analysts' consensus was for a pretax loss of 43 mln dkr. Despite the poorer-than-expected figures, NEG Micon still sees its full-year pretax profit in the range 200-250 mln dkr and forecast a 6-8 pct EBIT margin from 2002, , brokers noted. Vestas Wind Systems fell 6.5 to 341.5. NEG and Vestas are reportedly among potential buyers of Enron Corp's wind-turbine production unit, which has about 8 pct of the world market; the unit is up for sale for about 500 mln stg. NavisionDamgaard added 10 to 179 on its better-than-expected full-year earnings and its forecast of a sales growth of approximately 18 pct year-on-year and an EBITA margin in the region of 17 pct for the full year ending June 30, 2002, brokers said. It posted full-year net profit of 158 mln dkr, compared with pro forma net profit of 65 mln dkr a year ago and with analysts' consensus of 139 mln dkr, they added. Telecom and technology stocks were otherwise generally lower, hit by Nasdaq's drop of over 3 pct on Friday, brokers said. GN Store Nord fell 3 to 56, B&O Holding B shed 5.5 to 169 and William Demant Holding was 11 lower at 232. TDC was 2.5 lower at 297.5, although its ADRs closed higher on Friday, brokers said. NKT Holding shed 1 to 104. It is due to post its first-half earnings on Thursday and analysts expect a pretax loss of 35 mln dkr. Novo Nordisk B closed 9 higher at 368 in heavy trade late in the afternoon, although Novartis, its new partner, bought the rights to another insulin sensitiser, in addition to the one it shares with Novo, brokers said. Lundbeck shed 6 to 284, despite Jyske Bank upgrading its recommendation to 'neutral' from 'reduce' and the price target to 300 dkr from 260 dkr following Lundbeck's earnings report last week. Novozymes B added 0.5 to 184. NeuroSearch was 10 lower at 205, Coloplast B fell 1 to 461 and Chr Hansen Holding B shed 4 to 260. Danisco was 4 higher at 307. Danisco Ingredients reportedly expects sales of flavours to quadruple within next four years. Group 4 Falck rose 5 to 900 and ISS added 7 to 492 ahead of their first-half results tomorrow. SAS AB shed 2 to 64 after a Finnish newspaper reported CEO Joergen Lindegaard as saying that a merger with Finnair is the most natural development if it is to merge with another airline. The Norwegian competition authority has denied SAS' application to buy a 68.8 pct stake in Braathens, but both airlines said they will begin negotiations with the Norwegian competition authority regarding SAS' application to buy 68.8 pct of Braathens. The competition authority will also intervene in SAS' and Braathens' bonus programmes, agreements with large customers and travel agencies, it said. Jyske Bank downgraded its recommendation to 'reduce' and cut the price target to 60 dkr from 80 dkr following SAS's earnings report last week. mdl/jad For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. DENMARK: NEG Micon sees organic growth, won't buy Enron Wind. 08/20/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. COPENHAGEN, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Danish wind turbine maker NEG Micon said on Monday it was not interested in buying U.S. rival Enron Wind, which has been put up for sale by its parent company Enron Corp (ENE.N). Enron Wind is the seven-largest wind turbine maker in the world with a market share last year of around six percent. "We have no acquisition plans and that includes Enron Wind. We believe organic growth can bring us a long way from here," NEG Micon Chief Executive Torben Bjerre Madsen told Reuters. NEG Micon, the world's fourth-largest wind turbine manufacturer measured on installed megawatts, earlier reported a bigger-than-expected pre-tax loss of 70 million crowns ($8.6) for the January-June period, but upheld its full-year 2001 forecast of a 200-250 million crowns pretax profit. The Financial Times said on Monday Enron was currently was in talks with a possible buyer of its wind turbine arm, Enron Wind, and might have appointed investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston to handle the disposal. Both Danish NEG Micon and Danish rival Vestas are named as possible buyers. Vestas has several times rejected the idea of acquiring Enron Wind and a spokesman for Enron Wind told Reuters in July that a financial investor would be the most likely buyer of the company. NEG Micon aims to increase its market share in the U.S., which is seen as the world's biggest potential wind power market. "NEG Micon is working on a significant project portfolio in the U.S. which spurs expectation that our market position will be enlarged in coming years," NEG Micon said in its half-year statement. But this year NEG Micon's U.S.-market share will be "pretty small", Bjerre-Madsen said. "The U.S. might install some 2000 megawatts in 2001 and in the best scenario we will raise 150 megawatts," he added. Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. AES Offers to Give Up Stake in Unprofitable India Power Venture 2001-08-20 11:26 (New York) AES Offers to Give Up Stake in Unprofitable India Power Venture Mumbai, Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- AES Corp., a U.S.-based power generator, offered to give its 51 percent stake in an Indian power distributor to employees of that utility to unload the unprofitable contract. Central Electricity Supply Co., 49 percent-owned by the government of the eastern state of Orissa, is owed $85 million because of power thefts and unpaid bills. It ceased paying its 8,500 employees this month, leading to protests from the workers. AES is barred by contract from selling its share before 2004. ``Though we own 51 percent of the company, we have no say in its future or in its present,'' Venu Nambiar, director at Cesco, told reporters. ``We have made it very clear we want to be out.'' AES is willing to give its stake to Cesco staff for virtually nothing, Nambiar said. ``Price would not be a consideration.'' It's waiting to hear from the government on the offer. At least five foreign-run power companies face payment problems or have withdrawn investments from India citing delays, bureaucracy and the slow pace of reforms. Their exit may hurt India's economy, which needs $200 billion to double generating capacity and avoid the power failures that are common in many Indian cities. Rival Enron Corp. has been trying for seven months to resolve a dispute over $64 million in unpaid bills from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, its only customer. Enron, which invested $875 million in the $3 billion power plant, has offered the government its 65 percent stake in the project at cost. Meanwhile, protests from unpaid Cesco staff turned violent. A mob of 20 chased Managing Director Roberto Podesta, prompting AES to evacuate its nine expatriate staff. ``With such incidences and a lack of law and order support from the government, it's become impossible to carry out day-to- day operations'' at Cesco, said Nambiar. Cesco's debts, accumulated since 1999, forced it to use money from an escrow account -- set up to pay for power purchases -- to pay salaries. That violated its contract with the Orissa government, which directed the company to return the money using its electricity revenue. That left Cesco with no money for wages. Theft Power thefts made the problem worse. About half the power carried by the state-run Gridco, which transmits power to four distributors including Cesco, in 1998 was stolen or lost, said a government report. AES's staff have been intimidated by locals each time they tried to recover debts, Nambiar said. Two of its senior officers were put in jail after they alleged consumers had tampered with the meters. India's state electricity boards that distribute power lost $5.5 billion in the year ended March, mainly due to rising electricity thefts and subsidies, the government estimated. Orissa's government alone owes Cesco $10 million in past- dues. Arlington, Virginia-based AES owns stakes in 173 power plants generating 59,000 megawatts worldwide, including utilities in the U.S. and Latin America. AES shares were little changed at $34.13 in recent trading.
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