FIRSTENERGY Third-quarter earnings nearly double for utility
FirstEnergy says it is cooperating with an inquiry by the SEC.
AKRON (AP) -- FirstEnergy Corp., the nation's fourth-largest investor-owned utility, reported nearly double third-quarter earnings, saying increased demand for wholesale power offset slumping consumer power use for which mild summer weather was blamed.
The Akron-based company earned $298.6 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, or 91 cents a share. The profit includes costs associated with unusual charges related to the sale of some assets and the reorganization of the company's nuclear operations.
Without those charges, FirstEnergy said Thursday it would have earned $319.1 million, or 97 cents a share. Analysts surveyed with Thomson First Call were expecting earnings of 94 cents a share.
Looking back
In the third quarter a year ago, the company earned $152.7 million, or 51 cents a share. Those profits were hurt by the long outage at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo. During that quarter, the company also became the focus of a government probe into the August 2003 blackout that affected 50 million people in several states.
Third-quarter revenue was $3.5 billion, up from $3.4 billion a year ago.
In trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, FirstEnergy's shares closed down 10 cents to $40.95.
On Wednesday, FirstEnergy said it was cooperating with what had become an official inquiry by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC last September had launched an informal investigation into the Davis-Besse outage and FirstEnergy's restatement of past earnings last year that reduced results by $99 million.
In 2002, inspectors found corrosion on the reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse plant, where leaking boric acid had eaten almost through a 6-inch-thick steel cap. The utility spent $600 million making repairs and buying replacement power, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved restarting the plant earlier this year.
The federal agency subpoenaed the company for documents.
Eliminated jobs
This past August, FirstEnergy eliminated 205 jobs in its nuclear operating subsidiary as the final part of a previously announced reorganization that the company said would increase safety and efficiency. Critics have expressed concern about safety.
In the first nine months of 2004, FirstEnergy earned $676.7 million, or $2.07 a share, compared to $313.3 million, or $1.06 a share, a year ago.
FirstEnergy has 16 power plants and annual revenue of more than $12 billion. It provides service in an area from Ohio to New Jersey.